Costa Rica - why art thou so expensive?

So I made it to the border in lightening speed, only to be met with the sh*t fight of sh*t fights! The process of exiting Nicaragua was a nightmare, lines all over the shop, 200+ people all trying to push in, plus high temperatures with the humidity to go with - all done with my 17kg pack on! Sweat factor was an all time high!

I befriended a Costa Rican, Roman, in the line on the Nicaraguan side - turns out his son is a BIG Kylie Minogue fan, and well, I remember her days on the Henderson Kids so we were able to bond in the simplest of ways. He was kind enough to offer me a ride to as far as I could get - I was trying to get to Monteverde but its not the easiest of places to get to in 1 day it turns out.

So we breezed through the Costa Rican side, and I was amazed how well ordered everything is - the traffic, the conditions of the roads, the newest of cars - this is a shock after the others parts of Central America I have visited! I decided I would try my luck in Liberia for the bus, and whats the first thing we see driving into Liberia - yep, that’s right, the Golden Arches. My Costa Rican friends were up for some Maccas, so off we stop - they even shouted me lunch which was so nice, they would not take a cent from me (and get your dirty minds out the gutter, it wasn´t like that!).

Turns out I couldn’t get the bus from there, so the guys drove me to the next place I could get the bus from (only an hour away mind you!), only to find out I had missed the last bus by about 10 minutes. These guys were soooo nice, driving me around everywhere, although I kind of think they liked the excitement! Looked like the only thing to do was head to Puntareanas and get the first morning bus to my destination, thankfully my car companions where headed there. Roman even drove me around to find a decent hotel, such amazing hospitality! I decided to treat myself to a bit nicer hotel - yes HOT water and cable (and I didn’t want to impose on his time ANY longer by fussing about with price on hotels given I’d saved so much money that day due his generosity!) - I even had a long hot bath which the water was FILTHY after - cold water does not clean one properly!!

So I finally made it Monteverde by lunch time the next day and what a stunning place. I have to admit that I had only met incredibly nice Ticos (the local peeps!) so I was having a really good impression of this country. And the scenery, my god it was mind blowing! Stunning, stunning, stunning!

Unfortunately, Costa Rica is seriously developed on the tourism front, 'those darn yankees' have been coming down here for years and driving up the cost of everything, so to do anything 'touristy' meant paying for it. I arranged to do a night walk through the rain forests, you're supposed to see jaguars, sloths, tarantulas.....but it was bucketing down although I did see a sloth with a baby so was pretty satisfied there. The tarantulas were all wussies....we saw 2 caught in a hole but they were hiding from the rain....pansies, I thought they were supposed to be tough mofo's!

The next day was going to be a good'un. I arranged to do a walk through the infamous Costa Rican cloud forests for the morning (it was boring as bat sh*t but I did meet a couple of awesome travellers so there was an upside - they were dirt bags too and we entertained ourselves for the 3 hours with a menangerie of smut!) - but for the afternoon, the piece de resistance awaited - the Extremo Canopy Tour!!!

This has been one of the highlights of my trip - basically, zig zagging all over the gorgeous scenery attached to sky high zip lines, some over a kilometre long so seriously fanging it at times! Here is one of the videos from the longest zip line:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71rLYKlki6U

It was soooo much fun - until we got the Tarzanswing - I don't know about you but the idea of jumping off a platform with only a rope to hold onto, 30 metres off the ground, really does NOTHING for me....but with a 7 year old and 10 year old on my trip, loving that shit, I really had to give it some deep thought - turns out the guys who run the show had other ideas for me even if I wanted to bail and PUSHED ME OFF!!!!!!!!!! You know I like to drop a swear word or 2....well, check this out, in particular the look on my face as I drop (be warned, sound required but choose wisely if you're at work!!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzvIESfXIz0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t92brEM9bkg - (this video is the one I took, more swearing!)

So that was it for the fun and games of Monteverde and off to La Fortuna I went to see some lava flowing from the Volcan Arenal. Ha, yeah right, all it did was rain for 2 whole days, clouds everywhere so no lava.....and seriously expensive - even the dorm was USD14 per night! WHAT THE? BUT they did have $6 bottles of rose, so you know me and a rose when nothing else to do.....! I did manage to make it to some hot springs with the smutty guys I met the previous day, and the hot springs were fab! Hot springs with water slides and all - doesn't get much better!

My time to p*ss fart around was fast running out as I managed to get myself on a 1 week Turtle Volunteering project in a really remote and isolated place on the Caribbean Coast (www.latortugafeliz.com) so had to hot foot it up to San Jose and get sorted. I met up with Ana the Aussie, one of my smut colleagues from the previous few days, and we had a girls day out at one of the posh shopping malls - hello Zara and MNG and some new clothes for the first time in months and months! We also watched 2 films at the cinema (Transformers 2, love a boy movie!) and generally chill out (this was badly needed as I picked up a nasty bad ass chest infection in La Fortuna!)....what a cracking day out.

So I left San Jose for the Turtle Project, talk about planes, trains and automobiles. I travelled to a remote town called Bataan, then a taxi to a river, then 45 mins by boat up this jungle vibey river to our project on the Caribbean. This was to be my home for the next week. And what was the first thing that greets me - yes that's right, those dam bugs again! Sand flies.....I HATE THEM. If I had a WMD, I would wipe them all out. This was going to be an interesting fight - again. Alas, I had a job to do and they wouldn't get the better of me or my can of OFF or my last amount of Bushmans! Our nights consisted of patrolling the beach in 4 hour shifts to try to beat the poachers to the turtle eggs, so walking about 12kms per night on the sand - buns of steel here I come! Other duties included working at the hatchery where we monitored the hatching baby turtles and released them (soo cute!), and ensuring the turtle egg nests stayed clear of flies, crabs and lizards. I was really disappointed in my week there that I didn't see any adult turtles laying eggs or heading back to the water after just doing so - we were in between Leatherback and Green turtle season so it was a chance - although some people in my group did see 2 or 3 in the first week. Speaking of group, that was interesting. Fark there were some knob jockeys. I was thanking my decision to only sign up for a week thats for sure. There were also some awesome guys there, and generally, we shared our opinion on the losers so it was safety in numbers! They also tended to give the more labour intensive jobs to us older ones so that made me hate the lazy little 18 year olds even more! Nothing like scrubbing bathrooms on hands and knees to see those little shits swinging in a hammock!

All in all, I'm glad I did it as it was a really interesting experience and one that I have wanted for a very long time, but having worked in the real world for so many years, I could see massive loop holes in the way things were done and they don't care for any input AT ALL so it really wasn't for me. You know me, I like being boss too much!

So it was back to doing what I do best - lying on beaches and working on my tan so off I took me and my bug bites and to the Panamanian border we went. Next stop, Bocas del Toro......

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