Adventures in Costa Rica (more)

Currently, we are in Tamarindo, Costa Rica. It´s on the Nicoya Penninsula on the western side of the country. How did we get here you might ask? Last time we left you we had just missed an earthquake and were staying in San Jose. There really isn´t anything worth seeing or doing in San Jose so it was a one night stop. We had a beer, watched the earthquake on the news, counted our money and went to bed. I got the bottom bunk while Matt slept on the top bunk. I can see this being a major decision over then next few months at each new hostel we go to. We went to bed fairly early and were woken up when our roomies (two swiss guys and two french girls) came home from their night on the town. Apparently they don´t make flashlights in France as the girls needed to turn the lights on for a good 15 minutes to get ready for bed. Then the Swiss asked the French all about their night and we heard about their grilled vegetables and seafood and how ¨it is perfect,¨ and we were so glad. You can bet it took all of this American´s willpower not to say anything. But I didn´t want Mom and Dad to get a phone call the very first night saying I had already tried to get in a fight with the neutral country. Finally we fell back asleep and woke up again, to all of the French and the Swiss needing to go to the bathroom at the same time, with the lights on, in their underwear and we just decided to give up and get up. It was a little before 7:00 anyway, and we had plans to catch an 8:30 bus to Tamarindo.

We walked to the bus station with no problem and went to buy the tickets only to find out that they had cancelled the 8:30 bus and we would have to take the 11:30 bus. So we hung out at the bus station for three hours and had a bus station empenada for lunch. (Side note here: my spanish is remedial enough that when he asked me what kind, I told him ¨carne¨and then added ¨beef¨for good measure. He was intrigued and asked me how to say it in English, so I repeated ¨beef¨over and over a few times. Very pleased with himself he started singing ¨deef, deef, deef¨over and over again. So it looks like I made the right career move in not becoming a teacher.)

We boarded the bus for the six hour ride to Tamarindo and it was actually fairly pleasant. It got pretty hot with no AC but when the diver was hauling, we got a lovely breeze. Other travelers we have met refer to this as the ¨chicken bus¨ as it´s local and about $30 less and 4 hour longer than the private shuttle companies charge. Luckily, this trip, there were no chickens on board. We finally arrived on Friday evening and found our hostel. It is a 12 person dorm room, and I am the sole lady in the house. Last night we awoke to the Germans talking about the girls they met at the bar that turned out to be prostitutes. Lovely. Yesterday at the beach we met our first Costa Rican transvestite and had our first real Costa Rican meal at a Rastafarian restaurant. We drank the water (no ill effects!) and are still getting used to the fact that you can´t flush TP down the toilet. You just put it in the garbage can. It´s pretty unsanitary, but at least there´s been TP everywhere we have gone so far and it really gives a new respect for taking out the garbage.

One last day at the beach today and tomorrow we are moving on again, we´ll try and get some more pictures up soon. Thanks for all the comments and and emails and enjoy the end of the weekend!