Pura Vida

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After spending the last night of our honeymoon sitting in JFK airport we finally arrived in San Jose on Monday morning extremely tired and hungry- Taca airlines possibly serve the worst flight meal we´ve ever tasted. We managed to figure out where to get the bus and took it into San Jose. After a sweaty walk through a very busy town we arraived at our guesthouse where we immediately crashed out for a few hours.

When we woke we went to book a tour to the Poas Volcano for the next day and then headed into town to see what San Jose had to offer. The answer is not a lot. We took a walk around the market and realised very quickly that we better get learning our Spanish or we were not going to get far. So, we headed for home and began our nightly half hour spanish sessions on the i-pod. We spent a quiet night over at the local backpackers havng a few beers.

The next day we had to be up at 6pm as our tour started at 6.50am. I thought we were supposed to be relaxing?! We took the bus out of San Jose and went to visit a coffee plantation where we were served a traditional Costa Rican breakfast-not sure I´ll ever get used to rice and peas for breakfast but it was rather tasty. We sampled some of the coffee ( very nice) and then learnt about how it is grown and picked before heading off to the volcano. Unfortunately when we got to the volcano crator that we were supposed to be viewing we couldn´t see a thing for the cloud. Thats what we get for coming during the rainy season. We waited for ten minutes and the cloud did clear for about 2.5 minutes. Just enough time to get some pictures. Then we headed to the La Paz waterfall where we saw toucans, monkeys, jaguar and hummingbirds. Was quite amazing seeing the hummingbirds in action. After an awesome lunch we took a walk through the park to the waterfall. Again very imprerssive although we did get a tad wet. Once back on the bus we headed back to San Jose in rush hour and I can honestly say I have never seen traffic like it. It was mental and I am thankful we made it back alive.

On Wednesday we had another early rise to catch the bus to the Pacific coast. September 15th is Costa Rica´s independence day and so every man, his granny and dog were heading somewhere for the celebrations. So, we decided to catch the 6am bus to ensure we could get a seat on the bus. It was a bit like queuing for an Easyjet flight trying to get a seat but we did and headed off to Manuel Antonio. We arrived there around 9am and found a really nice guesthouse with a pool that was right next to the entrance for the Manuel Antonio National park. It was so much warmer down there compared to San Jose so we immediately headed for the beach. We relaxed on the beach reading and swimming in the warm sea before the sun finally got the better of us and we went for lunch. After lunch we headed back to the guesthouse as there was a thunder storm brewing. The thunder storms here seem to run like clockwork. Every day since we´ve been here they have started around 2pm and it has poured relentlessly until late at night. Thankfully it is still warm although we do look a bit ridiculous in shorts, flip flops and rain jackets.

Our first night we went to a local restuarant where we ate some Casado which is a Costa Rican dish of meat, rice and beans. I think they eat rice and beans with everything. The rain had poured all through dinner and we nearly didn´t get home as the river has risen and covered the road. We waited until it stopped long enough for the water to go down a bit although that did mean staying for another beer!

The next day we went to the National park. We took a walk through the rainforest and cloud forest where we saw some sloths, lizards and monkeys. At one of the beaches we sat for a while and got ambushed by some very bold racoons and monkeys trying to steal our lunch. Tom later got chased through the rainforest by one monkey after his bag. When we left the park we headed home. That evening we went for dinner and drinks along the beach front. While sitting having drinks we met a very friendly man from the Carribean coast who proceeded to tell us over and over that the reason he didn´t like the pacific coast was that there were too many ´birds.´This expression ´birds´apparently refers to homosexual people and his description of them came complete with his very own flapping bird impression. By the end of the night we had both decided that he might indeed be one of these ´birds.´While sitting enjoying our beers there was a power cut and so after declining an invitaion to a reggae party with the whole bar, we walked home through the river that had formed where the road used to be. This proved extremely difficult in the pitch black. We made it home in one piece and with not much going on with no electricity we headed to bed.

On Friday we took a bus to Quepos where we could get the bus back to San Jose. We arrived at 10.30 to be told that the next bus we could get was not until 2.30. So, a boring 4 hours were spent on a bench at the bus station. We finally arrived back in San Jose around 7pm. We catch our flight to Lima tomorrow- can´t quite believe we´ll be in South America tomorrow!

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