Christmas turkey in Costa Rica !

---

ALAJUELA (Middle Costa Rica) - Thu 21/12 to Fri 22/12

We left San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua early on Thursday the 21st with 3 days to get to Puerto Viejo del Talamanca on the Caribbean (or East) coast for Christmas. We took a one hour bus back towards Managua (Nicaragua´s capital) & hopped off the bus at a cross roads. We hadn´t bothered to check on bus schedules as we were up & off very early. We were about 5 minutes there & were just asking ourselves how long would we be waiting when along comes a bus right to the border. The one great thing about central american buses is there are plenty of them, they may be cramped, stuffed, packed & all those kind of words but you never have to wait too long for one & so far we have never found ourselves stuck anywhere for lack of a bus.

An hour & a half later we arrived at the border. It was total confusion with miles of trucks lined up waiting to cross the border into Costa Rica, luckily nothing was crossing from the other side either & our bus-driver took a chance and drove those few miles in the opposite lane. While we had crossed chaotic borders before, we hadn´t seen these anywhere near these kind of queues as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras & Nicaragua have a open borders arrangement & there was little or no fuss red-tapewise at any of them. Plenty of the truckdrivers had slung hammocks between the back wheels & were catching up on sleep as officialdom proceeded.

So we changed money with no problems & proceeded to immigration, we were given a string of things to do, 1st this, then get luggage checked, then pay $1 fee, then get stamp, thenpay $2 fee, then......we only followed half of it & with what we reckoned was enough (a luggage pass & a stamp in our passports) we walked into Costa Rica. The lady behind the counter in Costa Rican immigration was telling us that we had done something wrong, more like shouting at us & talking to everyone & sundry about something that was missing, we guess her comments included "Stupid Backpackers", we showed her everything we had & she kept on shouting.......in the end with the queue building up behind us, she grabbed our passports & stamped both of them, shouted something else at us & pointed to the door. We went in the direction of her finger. We made it to Costa Rica for about 12 noon, our 9th country & 2nd last in Central America.

Silly us, we grabbed something to eat before checking on buses & afterwards realised that we had missed our bus & we now faced a 4 hour wait for the next bus to San Jose - our intended stop that night. The 6 hour journey which turned out to be 7 hours would bring us into San Jose after dark so we decided we stop short & stay in the town of Alajuela 30 K north of San Jose. Better safe than sorry as we had heard a few stories about San Jose.

We arrived in Alajuela for 10ish & said we´d take a taxi as we were unsure of our surroundings & how safe it was. Our taxi-driver knew our intended hostel but shook his head & went for his phone. He must have had a photographic memory because after a quick glance at the phone number for the hostel in the lonely planet he started dialling.
Ah ha, we know this trick, we´ve read about it, this is where the taxi driver tells us the hostel is full/closed down/full of rats and tells you he knows a ´better´hostel (or at least one that he gets commission from). We were one step ahead of the taxi driver this time & said we had a reservation (which we didn´t), glumly he took off towards our hostel & lo & behold when we arrived they had room at the inn albeit overpriced for what we got but we had expected Costa Rica to be more expensive than the previous countries. The taxi drivers have deals done with certain hostels & get $1 for every person they deliver, hence there determined efforts to direct you elsewhere.

We were starving & asked the lad at the hostel if the streets were safe, when he laughed and answered ´no´we decided to go without food ´til morning.

SAN JOSE (Middle Costa Rica) - Fri 22/12 to Sat 23/12

Next morning, we got a bite of breakfast to eat in Alajuela & went straight to the bus station & caught a bus to San Jose (about 1 Hr). We checked the timetable of buses to the coast & were happy in the fact that we could make it to Puerto Viejo the next day & could afford a night in San Jose (Costa Rica´s capital city). We found a hostel with a little swimming pool & free internet, again our taxi driver was telling us about a much better hostel but we told him we had a reservation.

We asked about the streets at night & whether it was safe to wander, the lad in the hostel summed it up with a "No !". So our time was limited, we hadn´t been in a big city for a while & wanted to pick up a few things & a present or 2 to add a bit of Christmas cheer. We went to the zoo 1st, it was only around the corner from the hostel & as we hadn´t seen too much wildlife todate we thought we better get a zoo trip in & make up for it. All in all the zoo was a disappointment & we are better off seeing no wildlife than some of the enclosures in San Jose City zoo. Then a bit of shopping with little progress on the presents. It was strange to have all the shops decorated with Christmas trees, to hear Christmas carols & to have throngs of people out shopping in 30 degrees heat & sunshine. We had a quite night & were in doors by 9 as advised.

PUERTO VIEJO DE TALAMANCA (Caribbean Coast) - Sat 23/12 to Thu 28/12

Next day we took the bus to Puerto Viejo (about 4 Hrs). It was sweltering hot & we didn´t enjoy the bus journey at all & were relieved to get off that bus. On advice from almost everyone we met who had been to Puerto Viejo, we had pre-booked 4 nights in Rocking Js, a hostel on the outskirts of town. Puerto Viejo was from 1st impressions a real chilled out hippy spot with lots of Bob Marley lookalikes. Rocking J´s were in keeping with the chilled out feel of the town and had loads of colour & painted murals and backpackers wanting to ´find themselves´. They had a tent city (a covered tent area) and a hammock area with about 50 hammocks strewn from supporting pillars.

Anyway, the lady behind the counter seemed to be in a happy laid back mood (in touch with her surroundings) & when she finally got to me told me that they didn´t have a room for us as someone had forgotten to mark it in the book. She also told me that they had only reserved 1 night as I had only paid for one night on my credit card, I asked her if it was normal to explain to people that they had to pay for 4 nights up front to reserve the room & she replied "Ya mon, I suppose so", so far everyone in this town proceeded all conversation with "Ya mon !". Further, she filled us in that prices were going up for Christmas that day to $30 for a double from the normal $20, hammocks were also going up to a rediculous $10 a night. I wasn't overly impressed as it was getting dark at this stage & asked what else had she available, after going off for 20 minutes & her colleague at the next desk reassuring me with a "Shit happens mon !" she arrived & told us they were going to look after us & give us the "Tree House" (their equivalent to a penthouse) which normally went for $45 a night, I said we´d go for it & proceeded to haul our heavy bags up the ladder. The Penthouse suite was a bit of a kip really just a wooden cabin that only fitted a matress on the ground, why anybody would pay $45 for it I do not know. We stayed the night, glad that the laid back chica at the desk had made a mess of our booking so we could go find some decent lodging for the Christmas.

We went looking for alternative accomodation that night & were suprised to find most places had room for us, despite our fears of everywhere would be totally booked up. We had already decided that we´d treat ourselves for the few days of Christmas & decided on a plush enough place which went for $45ish - Cabinas Jacaranda.

That night, we explored the town getting into the Christmas atmosphere & tried out a restaurant that was advertising Christmas dinner for $12, the dearest we had spent on dinner for many months (if ever on the trip) but then we were looking forward to making something of Christmas day away from home. The test meal went well, fabulous in fact & we were already looking forward to a Christmas Turkey dinner with all the trimmings.

Next morning, we left Hippyville & moved to our new home. It was a really nice place with wooden huts surrounding a lush tropical courtyard. We really liked it & it was great to be in "Flashpacker" mode again, it had been a while. Christmas eve, I took in a swim in the Caribbean & we explored the town, we went for another fine meal that night in "El Loco Natural". Puerto Viejo is laid out in blocks with mud streets (luckily it wasn´t raining then) facing out onto the sea. It was a real relaxed laid back place with most places blaring out Bob Marley tunes & locals wearing "Pura Vida Man" T-Shirts or Tatoos. (Pura Vida = Pure Life) The locals spoke mainly English with their own Caribbean words & dialect thrown in, with a small amount of Spanish here & there.

Christmas day came & with it so did the rain, we were woken that morning by the rain beating down on the corrugated iron roof. We started to think someone wants to make us feel like we´re at home today!! We were up & about by 11.00 & sitting at a bar on the seafront listening to Bob Marley by noon sheltered from the rain. Christmas day didn´t seem to be much different from any other day to the locals, the barman at that seafront place saying to us it was just another Monday as he put out seats & tables, cleaned up the place from the night before & trained in a new girl in the ways of barwork.

All this reggae music was nice (Mon !) but with the day that was in it & the normal missing home feelings we said we´d visit the local Irish pub which we had heard about from a English barman working in Rocking Js. It was a bit outside town & we were damp to say the least by the time we arrived. Like many Irish bars, this one wasn´t very Irish, bar the Tricolour on the wall & the one bottle of Guinness we could see on the top shelf. Anyway, we were there for the music & took control of the modest CD collection & the remote, easily done as there were only 2 or 3 others in the bar that afternoon. So it was U2, The Chieftains & The Dubliners to while away the afternoon & bring us back home for a while. On our way back to town, we passed the Christmas dinner restaurant & saw they had the Turkey going on the BBQ, all looked well & we were looking forward to it. We then called home & said hello to everyone, by now the roads were flooded as it continued to pour down.

We then went back to the hotel & wasted a few hours listening to more Irish tunes on the Ipod, opened Christmas cards to each other & a shared present we had bought in Guatemala - a VW Splitscreen Campervan, a mini one, we are saving up for the real thing.

Dinner was scheduled for 7ish & we made our way downtown & took our place. The dinner was fantastic, probably helped by the few drinks during the day & we went for deserts afterwards & a bottle of wine, our 1st taste of wine since we left home. There was a great atmosphere in the room & we got talking to the neighbouring tables & arranged an after dinner rendevous with 2 English girls Liz & Bex in the bar next door "Hard Rocks".

So from 9 to one-ish, we Christmas partied in "Hard Rocks", with my experience at DJ from earlier in the day, I took control of the CD Player & dished out the Christmas night music trying to keep a Christmas theme with the limited selection. By 1 AM, it was time for home but we found that we had misplaced the key of the hotel, each blaming one another. After much banging, knocking & roaring, we woke another guest & got into the grounds, then a quick shoulder to the door got us inside the room, we´d worry about any damage tomorrow, the end of a great day !

Next morning, a tad hungover, I found the key tied to the waist of my trousers where I had safely tied them before we went out the night before, apologies made & then I had to repair the damaged door frame which I did with a few nails intended for hanging towels & a big rock come hammer, there as good as new ! St Stephen's day was a tad more laid back & we did very little trying to get ourselves back to normaldom. Bar exploring the town & its watering holes, we had done very little in terms of exploring the area around Puerto Viejo & so decided we´d stay a 5th night & rent bicycles & head down the coast. It was a fantastic scenic 20 K cycle & we visited a few beaches & cycled through dense forest spotting toucans (no photos, they´re too fast), howler monkeys & plenty of squirrels. It also helped to get us back to 100 % after our Christmas partying.

Next day, we took an early bus further south to Panama passing hundreds of banana plantations & boxing factories. We had a great time in Costa Rica & got a little taste of the country´s fantastic wildlife, we´ll come back sometime to see the rest of this beautiful country.

---