Costa Rica.

En route to my journeys on the South American continent I stopped in Costa Rica. I didn´t get a travel guide because I was only going to be here for a week. So I got off the plane and realized that I had no idea what I was doing. Also I hadn´t slept on the overnight flight.

I got to the baggage pickup, and saw a cash machine, so I tried to take out some money. Not knowing the exchange rate I took what seemed like a big amount: ONE THOUSAND COLONES. It turned out to be less than five dollars.

I walked outside and took a cab to a shady industrial part of San Jose. So I could sell the eleven kilos of cocaina I had with me, and to catch the 11:30 bus to La Fortuna. It was eight in the morning and I was the only traveller. Traveller is a euphemism for white person.

Around 10 o´clock I spotted two lanky European fellows. I started talking to them, they were Swisses (this is how I refer to people from Switzerland, the world hasn´t caught on yet.) There were only a few people on the bus, mostly travellers. It seemed like a pretty direct route, then after we left San José, the bus stopped every five minutes. It becomes a public bus to connect people in small villages to larger villages. It was crowded, babies were crying, and the trip was long. After five hours we made it to La Fortuna.

Again, I had no idea what I was doing.

But the Swisses heard about a backpackers hostel, a five minute walk from where the bus dropped us off. Hostel Pangea, was still being finished (we didn´t get to use the bar in the pool.) We got some food, got some beer, and I finally was able to get to sleep.

The next day, me and the swisses had breakfast, and headed to a swimming hole, complete with rope swing and trash. The rope swing was fun, the trash was alright. We saw one of those poisonous frogs. I know it was poisonous because one of the Swisses tasted it, and he died. RIP Dieter.

After a quick funeral me and the remaining Swisses, Lorenz and Phillipp, went on our extravagant adventure to Arenal Volcano. A bus picked us up and took us to the base of the mountain. We hiked in the forests and the lava runoff (It wasn´t hot anymore.) The guide was informative, but disappointing. Disappointing because he was transmitting factual information. Apparently the volcano at Arenal doesn´t spew lava, it just spits out rocks. Booooring. Plus it was so rainy that we weren´t able to see the volcano spit rocks. There were some pretty cool views though.

At the suggestion of Australian hostel'mates... I didn´t bring any jackets or change of clothes, and ended up the wettest I have ever been... even wetter than swimming hole.

After the semi-disappointing volcano (apparently if you stay in La Fortuna, three days you´ll probably end up seeing hot rocks being spit) we headed to the overly extravagant Tabacón. Tabacón is a natural hot spring that uses an actual river. We stayed in the 110º flowing rivers for two hours, and were treated to a tasty buffet. By treated to I mean, I treated myself to it. Ths was the kind of meal that I would want to eat in about three weeks, to break the monotony of beans and rice, not two days into my trip. Nevertheless it was pretty tasty.

We went back to the hotel, bought six packs and hung out outside. We met a British guy who was the walking embodiment of my definition of the word ¨bloke.¨ I mean I don´t really know what that word means, but he seemed to embody it. He was really into beer. Just like me. He was talking about the difference between British drinking culture and the lack of an American drinking culture. I´d like to see boat races/beer pong tournaments where British blokes compete against Davis students. Actually I´d just like to participate.

Anyway... the next morning we took a Jeep-Boat-Jeep to Santa Elena. I took a bus to the edge of lake Arenal, where we were herded onto a boat, which crossed the lake and we ended up at a van that took us to our destination. The entire experience seemed like we were refugees escaping to a safer place. But it ended up being a bunch of travellers escaping the moderate weather conditions, and entering more severe weather conditions.

We, that is me and the Swisswes not every traveller-refugee, got to Santa Elena around noon, had lunch and headed to a Canopy Tour. You take sixteen different zip-lines from tree to tree. The longest one is 400 meters. There is also a Tarzan Swing, where you are thrown off of a three story platform, and then swing for a while, presumably like Tarzan.

I am bad at following directions, so it was a little stressful, but in the end I had fun with this adventure.

We went out to eat and met up with our friend The Bloke, who was already four beers in... together we headed to Bar Amigos... they had a live Cumbia band, that was actually pretty cool. People were dancing. At the table next to us a guy was killing a bottle of Johnny Walker Red by himself, the ugly woman he was with was just drinking water. Lorenz said ¨That guy must be pretty drunk.¨I agreed thinking he was talking about his choice of woman, but he instead was referring to the amount he had consumed. Oh Swiss! CULTURAL MISUNDERSTANDING IS HILARIOUS. Provided that I misunderstood the woman to be attractive.

I digress.

We met an American guy who showed us where younger people hang out. It was a Reggaetón club, that ended up being pretty cool. Me and the Swisses decided that Reggaetón is easy to make (tic,-,-,ta,ta,-,tic,-,ta,ta) and we would become international superstars. We are still working on a name for our grupo.

We were drunk, but we ran out of water and couldn´t drink from the sink, so we went to bed thirsty... We woke up this morning only slighlty hungover... and headed to a nature reserve. It was in the middle of a rainforest, complete with RAIN. It rained so much that the jacket I remembered to bring was soaked. We didn´t see any animals but we saw some cool surroundings. Actually we saw one animal, a Javelina, the institute´s pet wild pig... it was cute, I´d like one.

Tommrow I am headed to the Pacific Coast, to Jáco Beach. I hear its a constant party. I hope they have chips.

PEACE OUT.

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