Day 20 Out to the Peninsula

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Today was a terrible day. Terrible. The word can´t be repeated enough. Lets start at the beginning.

Got up at 5am (!) to catch the 6am bus next to the hostel. Saw a lovely sunrise, but the bus was half an hour late. 1.5 hours and one incredibly whiney child and smelly man later, our bus arrived at Paquera, dropping us to catch the Ferry, which was fine fine fine and we arrived at Punta Arenas on mainland at 10.15. Now, riddle me this; why would the harbour arrange for a boat to come from south of the peninsula to mainland so that it arrives at 10.15, when another boat leaving mainland to go north of the peninsular at 10.00. Why not just wait 15 mins and see if anyone from the South wanted to go North? a logical idea? perhaps we should run a harbour. So... this meant waiting 4 hours in a cafe for the 2.30 boat. I guess on the positive side, we got some diary writing and book reading done.

We then caught the ferry to Playa Naranjo at the north of the peninsula. I say ´ferry´, it was more a partyboat. At one point, Em pondered aloud "are we on a booze cruise?". There were signs onboard for a discoteque and the top deck was decked out with a bar, DJ set and dancefloor. What time was it!?!?! We never figured out the disco-boat thing, but some salsa music was playing so some school kids were doing a bit of salsa..always entertaining to watch. All of a sudden, some chubba spaniard comes over to Tasha and asks something in spanish. "¿Que?" Tasha responds. With LIGHTENING SPEED, he was about one foot away from her face, repeating his question with his beer breath and bloodshot eyes. Lord knows what he was asking, but Tasha instinctively slumped down into her seat to escape this invasion of space and Em gave a very involuntary "OH!" (yes, even more and more like her Mother each day!) HAHAAAAAAAAAAA!! at this point, Tasha couldnt escape and Em was crying with laughter. Some people were even watching from their seats, sniggering privately amongst themselves. Eventually he left and tasha recovered from the shock. He obviously just wanted to do a bit of salsa but it wasn´t meant to be. How sad! that would have been a FAB profile picture on facebook!

On arrival we barged our way through the crowd to join one of two buses, Tasha running ahead to one bus while Em was calling after "thats the wrong bus, it doesn´t say Nicoya!" But tasha knows best, as always (just joking!!!) and we queued for the front. "join the other queue" we were told, and Em kept her "told you so" to herself. So we stood on the bus until we managed to get a seat and some friendly 16year old spanish girl took an interest in us...tourists were obviously a rarity here. We travelled through the most beautiful countryside, surrounded by huge mountains and lush green fields, old wrinkley looking cows, and colourful houses lining the roads. It was definitely the nicest landscape we´ve seen so far!

Two old ladies got off at one point, we hadn´t spoken to them whatsoever, but as they got off the bus, one of them stroked Tasha´s shoulder uttering "hasta luego" with a lazy smile... did she really just stroke tasha for the sake of stroking a tourist!? we were definately getting enough curious stares that day to presume so!!! Eventually it turned dark, after a gorgeous pink sunset over the mountains and then a massive electrical storm was caught in the valley of distant hills. It was like a bowlfull of lightening! We still hadn´t arrived and Em was getting a bit anxious...we were obviously not in tourist land any more, we dont speak spanish and we had no hostel reservations. And we were arriving in the dark. Our parents warnings bore down on our shoulders!!! Eventually on arrival we asked a taxi man who was very helpful and directed us to a hostel (he in spanish, us simply nodding and saying si si si!) We checked out Hotel Jenny which was old fashioned to say the least, and was very expensive so we then went to Hotel Tinajas. The guide book recommends it and it seemed OKAY. A bit stuck in a time warp, but the entire town looked a bit like Croydon might have done 20 years ago. Or before any sort of health and safety with regards to overhead electical wires was introduced.

The receptionist was lovely and although rooms were unstylish, $6 a night was a steal. FOR A VERY GOOD REASON. Next time a hostel sounds cheap, the FIRST question you ask is: Why?

First, we had to change rooms as the toilet had no water in it. The next room had water but no light in the bathroom. Oh well, we´ll suck it up. We´d gotten back from an internet cafe, drenched from the rain and was about to chill out in our lovely room (Em touching every surface with tissues and tasha´s face constantly scanning for bugs. Not hard enough apparently.) On lifting her rucksack she let out a MASSIVE scream and ran outside hysterical. "ITS THERE ITS THERE!!!!!" Em had no idea what she meant until she saw the beast lurking in the corner of the room. a HUGE cockroach. It had run across tashas hand before she´d hurled it away, and it was literally the size of the width of her palm. So while Tasha was outside screaming at Em to do something (What exactly!?!), Em was on a chair with a torch in one hand and a pillowcase in another. What exactly this was going to accomplish wasn´t clear yet. After all this polava, a nice man came into the room and stamped on it. END. OF. there was no need for our sissy-ness, but that night we slept with the lights full on and the tv blaring.

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Comments

[Fi]

Loving the blogg, poor Tasha with bugs sounds as bad as me with 'kittens'!!