Back in Costa Rica

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We have basically been without computer access since we arrived in the surf town of Santa Catalina two weeks ago. This is a beautiful spot overlooking lush forested islands on the Pacific coast and is also a place known now for the point wave. It is one of the better waves I have seen in Central America, so that now means that there are a ton of people visiting there. We stayed at the Hostel Blue Azul, which translates to the Hostel Blue Blue. Try to make sense of that, I did for hours laying in the hammock staring at the sign wondering what genius thought of the name. Anyway, it is a pretty cool setup. Clean with hot showers that are electrically connected to the light switch. If you want a hot shower, turn on the light. It is a very freaky experience to be standing in a shower with wires hanging out of the top of it. I took to wearing my Crocs in there as insulation in case the thing shorted out. Me, naked, in Crocs. Go ahead and laugh, I did. So basically we stayed at the Blue Blue or Azul Azul, whichever you prefer and hung out with these German dudes who were learning to surf and drinking Old Milwakee. I had to take a picture. Germans drinking the worst beer ever to exist on the planet. Why? To save 75 cents over the Panamanian stuff that is really nice. Crazy I know, but it seems like Germans will do crazy stuff every once in awhile. After our stay in Santa Catalina we headed to our last stop in the mountains, a very nice town called Sante Fe. This would be the place I could live in Panama. Nice people, quaint and surrounded by mountains and primary rainforest. You can tell it will be next on the list to be developed and will not stay the same. But we had four great days there hiking the trails to the most beautiful waterfall I have ever seen, riding innner tubes down the crystal clear river and finally taking a guide into the nearby national park to see poison dart frogs, toucans and a variety of colorful and brilliant insect and plant life that I had not imagined was here. The only drawback was that the hotel was so quiet during the day while we were gone and at night turned into a party of all kinds of the most obnoxious sounds nature can produce- roosters crowing all night, dogs barking like some kind of competition, cows mooing, fruit dropping, people snoring, owls hooting. I was waiting for the candid camera guy to walk in at 3 am and start to tell me what great patience I have. Yet another hotel experience.... if the hotels and buses weren´t so freaky, this place would be a kind of paradise. Oh well, on to Buenas Aires tonight and then to San Jose for the last few days with the girls before I head on up to the Corn Islands off Nicaragua.

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