Adios, Guanacaste

Liberia is a large-ish town with good amenities; a cinema, imposing church, a pretty central park and an impressive array of restaurants and places to stay, as well as being a regional capital with good connections to the rest of the country. Unfortunately, no-one has told the Liberians this.
To call Liberia a one-horse-town would be a bit harsh.. there are things going on (including nightly performances of windbands and dancers in the central square), but just not very often and you can all but see the huge tumbleweed drifting through most of the time. Nevertheless, we´ve had a really good time here, mostly because we´ve spent a lot of the past three days ·not· in Liberia proper, but exploring a bit more of Guanacaste.
Sunday we ended up going to the cinema to see Street Kings (is that how it translates..? it had Keanu Reeves in it, anyway) which was in English with Spanish subtitles, so not only was it easy to follow but Keanu has taught us how to swear in Spanish. It was in a huge mall about 2km out of town, and on our approach we could hear this almighty racket emanating from the building.. which turned out to be a childrens´birthday party or something, but it was truly horrific and if I had had that party rather than Al´s adventure house etc., I would not have slept for weeks, nay MONTHS afterwards. It was like a nightmare; picture a clown, counting in Spanish, into a microphone, which is obviously connected to the most powerful, booming amplifier in the world. I think he counted up to about 50-something and I don´t even know why, but we escaped by nipping into a department store where they had the most weird and wonderful things for sale, many of which I´ve captured for posterity on camera. My favourite was a doll called "Alive Baby", which really speaks for itself. Yesterday (since the national park wasn´t open..we thought the guy in the hostel was just lying so we´d spend another day or something, but maybe we´re becoming cynical in our old age..) we went to a magical wonderland known as ThermoMania! It was more of the thermo and less of the mania, though, since it´s the low season and nearly everything was closed or a building site. What was open, though, were some natural thermal pools which were fabulous. It rained INCREDIBLY heavily from 3-4pm and did a lot of thunder and lightning things, which was terrifying but Ben soothed me but explaining in his physics-knowing way why we were very safe where we were and what caused the thunder, etc.
Then today we went to the National Park of Rincon de la Vieja (literally; Nook of the old lady.. very descriptive) which is... incredible and really really different to anything I´d ever seen before. We didn´t actually see the crater but did a long, winding trail through the jungle/forest which went past mud pots, a waterfall and lots of lovely foliage. And they had an animal near the entrance which seemed to be some kind of pet since it was so tame and stole one of the other tourists´food! I think it was called a Coati.. something like that. It´s a mammal, about the size of a badger, but it looks like a cross between a pig and a bear, which a long snuffly nose and a furry body. I loved it and desperately wanted to bring it home, but it´s just another mouth to feed, so.. Anyway, we got feasted upon by lots of weird and horrible insects and everything bites in the jungle. As Ben said, it´s a trade-off because although pesticides have killed off lots of beautiful butterflies in England (the ones here are amazing - absolutely huge and vibrant blues and oranges); it´s also killed off big nasty biting ants and beetles. We were also very careful because apparently, some people have been seriously burnt by crashing through the thin layer of mud, into water at above-boiling temperatures, since the volcano is active and the whole area is very much alive and breathing. So after a very bumpy ride home, we´re back in Liberia, although we are leaving tomorrow for Limon Provence, to a beach-village called Cahuita. I´ll update as soon as I can.

Missing you all lots,

Louise (y Ben)

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