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Published: April 11th 2012
Beds on Bohio
Chilling in the hammock7. JACÓ
Wednesday, April 11
THURDAY (5
th)…
This week is ‘Semana Santa’ (easter week) and I don’t have classes on Thursday and Friday, so I decided to go to Jacó. Jessica is ‘living’ there for 5 weeks. Verena came as well (from Manuel Antonio)! I got a taxi to the ‘Coca Cola bus station’ to catch the 11 o’clock bus and arrived at about 1.30 pm at the hostel ‘Beds on Bohio’. There, drinking diet Cokes in the sun, sat Verena and Jessica – waving at me. I joined them for lunch and afterwards, I checked in. Me and Neni were in the same dorm (Jessica stayed with her Tico family), but the room was freaking hot! There was a fan and an AC, but neither of them worked. Of course, I did not agree with this, so I asked the guy from the hostel and before I knew it he was replacing the old (dirty) fan with a brand new one! Within 15 minutes, the temperature in the room dropped about 10°C – yay!
I had only 2.000 colones left in my wallet (this is €3,-) so we had to go to a cash machine before we
could do anything else. But to my great horror, the ATM told me “invalid transaction” and spat my card out! Pissed, confused and a bit stressed, I tried an ATM at another bank, but this one told me the same thing! We went back to the hostel for WiFi so I could check my bank’s website, and there it said that no bank transactions could be made on Friday or Monday, and although it was Thurday in Costa Rica, it was already Friday in the Netherlands! I decided to try again tomorrow…
We went to the beach, which wasn’t half as beautiful as the ones in Manuel Antonio, and a lot more touristic at that, but the see is just as lovely! The water is warm and the waves are big… We swam, read our books, and afterwards I showered at the hostel’s outdoor shower (!!!) – best fucking idea ever, since it’s hot as hell in Jacó and you can’t walk across the room without starting to sweat. I just wanted to shower under it all day long! 😊
One of Jessica’s classmates, Klara, was staying at the hostel next door (but spent a lot of time
at our hostel). We chatted a bit and she seemed nice, so we went out to dinner with her and 2 other guys from the hostel – a dude from Israel and one from NYC, called Jay. This Jay guy… like to – erm – talk. A lot. About himself. The whole time during dinner, he was telling us stooooories about his ex-girlfriend, why they broke up, with which model she was friends with, with which designers he was friends with – and all this time we were not responding in any other way than giving him the *blank stare*. But, Jay did not need any encouragement or sign of interest; he just kept on and on and on……
FRIDAY (6
th)…
I had an omelet from breakfast! :D This made me really happy.
What made me even happier, is that we met up with some other classmates of Jess, among which one Dutch girl, who I asked about the money thing. She told me there was one bank that definitely worked (she has the same Dutch bank as I do), so if I still would’ve ‘failed’ to get money out of it, it would’ve been
a problem with my account specifically! Fortunately, she was right, and it worked – I had money!
So we went back to the hostel and I paid for my omelet. :P
Beach, beach, beach – all day long!
We had dinner with Klara and her friend from Czech Republic at ‘Rioasis’, an Italian restaurant that’s recommended by Lonely Planet. It was a bit more expensive (but Lonely Planet had warned us about that), but very delicious!
After dinner we went back to our hostel because of this “awesome party” that was elegantly going to happen. You know, with “the DJ of all DJs” playing. We should’ve know better, though, since it was the always lovely Jay who had told us this. But, while the ‘DJ’s’ pre-set playlist went on, we enjoyed ourselves perfectly fine with our tequila and ginger ale. Jess, Klara and the Czech-girl wanted to party-hardy, though, so they went out to a bar – and DANCED! Me and Neni, however, have accepted the fact that we are old farts who rather read a book and then go to bed… So, we did. 😊
With ‘we’ I mean Neni, me, my 20 mosquito
bites, and undefined number of mosquitoes that would give me 6 MORE bites that night.
SATURDAY (7
th)…
We walked around town (or should I say, up and down the main street – because that’s all that Jacó offers) and I waited 30 minutes in line to get my bus ticket for the next day. After lunch at ‘Bohio Beach Bar’, Neni packed her things and got on the bus back to Manuel Antonio. Jess and I laid on the beach for a little while more and went back to the hostel when we saw dark, dark clouds approaching. I had showered (outside!), changed, and had just gotten back to the ‘restaurant’ part of the hostel where Jess was waiting for me when the rain came. And may I just say, that when it rains, it pours! This tropical rain/storm-thing lasted about 1/1,5 hour and then died down a bit, so me and Jess ran over to the main road to find ourselves a restaurant. We didn’t have to think long, because at the first restaurant, the rain started to get worse again, so we went inside. ‘Wish bone’ turned out to be a great choice, though.
Playa Jacó
sunset with Neni and Jess I had spaghetti (which I had been craving the entire day) and Jess had some type of fish. It was all very delicious. I even had a beer (until that day, alcohol had not been sold since I was in Jacó, because of Semana Santa)!
We walked up and down the main street again and I went to bed with my head in the adventures of Joe and Annie (‘The Whispering Road’, Livi Michael).
SUNDAY (8
th)…
Armed with my book and my phone, I went to get breakfast at the hostel’s restaurant. But soon it became clear that I didn’t need them. Some American guy who was also staying at the hostel asked me if he could join me – and so he could, of course – and within 5 minutes four of his friends had added another table to mine and had joined me as well. Joe and Annie had to wait… 😞 So we talked about how they knew iPhone sucks and Android is way better, but they’re still in denial and prefer iPhone just because it’s so American and Apple. It was kind of funny... 😊 Later, Jess and her new roommate
Beds on Bohio
Roxy, the hostel's dog, doesn't like beatles either! joined as well and the three of us went to the beach and then to their house to wait for Jess’s friend from England to arrive from the airport. At the end, we ended up meeting the taxi at the main street anyway, because the driver didn’t know how to get to Jess’s house – so much walking up and down!
The weather kind of sucked today – it was either ridiculously hot, or it was raining (pouring!). Only in between those two extremes, when the clouds were gathering for a new round, the temperature was nice. So we checked Hannah (Jessica’s friend) in at ‘Bed on Bohio’ and watched some TV there – the weather didn’t really allow us to do anything else. At the end of the day, I gathered all my stuff, got a sandwich to go, checked out, and took a taxi to the bus station (600 colones, can you believe it?! That’s like €0,80! – well, I guess it was only a 3 minute ride).
When I got back to my apartment, I met my new roommates for the next month – Poppy (18, England), Emma (19, England) and Serena (18, USA). Let’s
say, they are somewhat more ‘turbulent’ than me. Especially Poppy. And Serena too, I guess. I think I can get along with Emma though. – Oh well, we will see…
MONDAY (9
th)…
Neni passed by at 11 am! We went by COSI – she needed a bus ticket and I wanted to ask about horseback riding near San José. Andrea told me that she was going to Alonso’s friend/family’s house (or something), where they have a bunch of horses, and that I could come with and ride!! SO of course I said yes – yay, so excited!!
I brought my laundry, did some grocery shopping, picked my laundry up again, hung around the apartment with my roommates, and then went to dinner at Veggie House with Neni. I had lasagna – nom nom nom!
TUESDAY (10
th)…
I had emailed with Mauricio (the guy that takes care of my volunteership) for a while and I still didn’t know on Monday at what time and where I was going to start my volunteership today! But after I’d left him 2 irritated messages on his cell phone, he called me back within 10 minutes
and told me he’d pick me up this morning at 9am to show me around at the volunteer place! – And so he did.
‘La Asociación Obras del Espíritu Santo’ is a big organization in a poor neighborhood that includes a church, a small farm, a recycling center, a ‘soda’ (lunchroom), a school, a daycare, a kindergarten and a sort of orphanage-floor where 20 kids are living because they don’t have any parents that are able to take care of them. Especially the dorms where those kids live are quite impressive. And when the woman showed me the church, the sweetest thing happened! A little guy of about 5 years old walked past us, so I said ‘hola’ and he just came up to me and hugged me – out of nowhere! He actually gave me a proper hug – with his little arms around my waist. So I kind of hugged him back and he just walked on. Crazy moment; so beautiful! And the awesome thing is, Mauricio caught it on photo!
I’m going to start working on Thursday, because Wednesday is a national holiday. I’m excited!
That night, I went to dinner in
Verena
the old lady that wanted to read a book - hahaha! Antejuntos with Jessica and Hannah. Afterwards, we went to ‘La Calle’, a street in San Pedro with a bunch of bars. I ended up hanging out there with the girls from my apartment, because Jess and Hannah went home, but it wasn’t really exciting – music was kind of lame and everything. I slept well, though. 😊
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Elly Vink
non-member comment
Marieke Leen
Wat fantastisch allemaal, wat je beleefd, zeg!! De tijd vliegt, straks kom je al weer terug! Geniet maar van alle dingen, die je nu meemaakt. xxx Elly