Chicken buses, la cucaracha and that random old couple.

I've just crossed the border back into Costa Rica.

Riding a chicken bus in Nicaragua is ... an experience. My brains feel rattled. More so than usual.

I arrived in Liberia after a long day. I despise mornings. Sunrises, coffee and all that bullshit makes me angry. I also want to SLAUGHTER all roosters that wake me up.

I grabbed a chicken bus to Rivas, and another to Penas Blancas, the border.
I got confused at immigration again... I see a pattern forming here.
I did manage to somehow hop the line and get out of there 45 minutes before everyone else, so being clueless DOES pay sometimes.

Now here comes the best part of my day : COCKROACHES! or LA CUCARACHA!
(Why didn't anyone tell me that the song was about cockroaches?! And the dance is a COCKROACH dance! Goddamn it.)

I felt something crawling up my leg, as I waited for my taxi. It figures, I go a whole week, sleeping in little roach motels and not see a single one.

I have to admit, Costa Rican cockroaches are not as terrifying as, say, Thai ones. While Thai cockroaches are black, hard, with beady little eyes, Tican ones are soft and brown. They are bigger than Canadian ones though.
I kicked it good and it made me smile.

My plane ride home was pretty entertaining. I sat beside this really cute old couple. There was a beetle crawling on the seat in front of us, so the old man grabbed it and smushed it in a kleenex. Well, the thing refused to die, and he kept banging his fist on the little fold out table. Everytime we thought it was dead, it poked its head out. By this time, the lady and I were laughing hysterically. Everytime we stopped, one look would cause us to lose it again. By this time, people had starting to turn around and looked at us like we were crazy.
The guy in the seat in front of us, was getting annoyed with the punching. The old man shoots me this mischevous grin and starts stomping the kleenex.

One thing that particularly, stuck me about Central America was the warmth of the people. I remember when I first moved to Canada, my family being treated like second class citizens, ridiculed for not knowing the language and mocked when attempting to speak. This, in a country with one the of highest immigration rates in the world, priding itself as a multicultural society. People here was been nothing but patient with my sad attempt at speaking Spanish.

I'm not too sure of what I expected of Costa Rica or Nicaragua, but I guess I am surprised at the amount of development going on. That is not to say I was envisioning some unspoilt paradise, but the amount of construction I see here makes me wonder if I'll see another Canada/US replica when I return.
On one hand, this could be a positive thing, as tourism can bring in in needed capital, but I hope it can retain its sense of community and culture, not become a concrete jungle. Even San Jose seemed to have something that Toronto lacks. But really, who am I to judge in just one week?

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