Hola amigos y padres,
Firstly, some sad news - we can´t bring a Guanabana back from Costa Rica :( According to US Customs, "We regret that it is necessary to take agricultural items from your baggage. They cannot be brought into the United States because they may carry animal and plant pests and diseases. Restricted items include meats, fruits, vegetables, plants, soil, and products made from animal or plant materials...Confiscated items are carefully destroyed in special CBP facilities.", and so rather than see our Guanabana subject to a controlled explosion in a booth at Miami Airport, we´re going to take our hard-earned Colones elsewhere.
This is our last proper night in Costa Rica - we´ve decided to save ourselves roughly 25 pounds and just go to the airport tomorrow night and hang around overnight, rather than stay here til 3am and then get an expensive transfer. So, tomorrow we´re checking out of Costa Rica Backpackers and heading out to the market to buy a few final things, then stop by the American Embassy for lunch (that´s McDonalds, for everyone else apart from dad) and potter around, schlepping hopefully not-too-much stuff around. Today was Shopping Day, which means that our room now smells of coffee (and damp, after we got soaked in an impressive downpour - umbrellas do NOTHING), and we had fun haggling with people in the market - one man was particularly grumpy but we wore him down and got that final pound off. Great success. I bought a lovely rosewood chopping board which would have been perfect for slicing Guanabana.. but enough of all that, before I start crying.
Simon - actually no, as far as I know we didn´t meet him, but it´s very flattering anyway! I´m always pleased to be of entertainment services to all. This blog, as I´m sure I´ve said before, has given me a lot of pleasure to write. Dad - the journey was pretty harrowing, but I´d say that the San Isidro one was about on a par with McLeod Ganj. The trip that ironically turned out to be the least scariest of all the mountain-top ones was on the "Highway to Heaven", the Guapiles Highway to Limon, which is so-called due to its exceptionally high accident and fatality rate.
Final thoughts of Costa Rica.. it´s probably best to condense this into bullet-points and produce... Das Meisterwork:
LOU AND BEN´S PROFILE OF COSTA RICA.
(all data from my memory but probably originates mostly from the Rough Guide, therefore none of it is particularly reliable)
· Population: Roughly 4 million, half of whom live just in the Central Valley and third of which is under 21.. it´s a Catholic country and women don´t really do much apart from cook and reproduce)
· Currency: colones, named after Christopher Columbus. Roughly 550c to the dollar and nearly 1,000 to the pound. The largest note they have is a 10,000, and the smallest coin we´ve found is a 5, equivalent to half a penny and worth precisely nothing. I´m keeping a couple, be sure to ask to see them in all their pathetic flimsiness - a guy we met in Orosi effortlessly bent one with his teeth.
· Languages spoken: Costa Rican Spanish (official), English a teeny-tiny bit and in Limon a Spanish-English creole, which was no more comphrehensible to us than the Spanish was.
·Location: Bordered by Nicaragua to the North and Panama to the South, flanked by the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Roughly 8-10 degrees north of the equator.
· Weather: Hot and humid with lots of rain. Two seasons, which are summer (Nov-Apr) and the winter or euphemistically-named "green season" the rest of the time. The "rainy season" should really be called the rainIER season.
· Literacy rate: 94% which is Very Good, especially for the region - on a par with that of the USA.
· Life expectancy: 76 for men, 81 for women, this is better than the USA and the same as England (not the UK, Scotland really brings the average down)
· Dominant themes of the national psyche: smugness at being much better than other central American countries. Respect for nature. Politeness. Tolerance of tourism - they don´t love it, but they know which side their bread´s buttered on, and specifically that they wouldn´t be so far ahead of other latino countries without the revenue it brings. General cheerfulness.
·Principal sources of revenue: Tourism number one, then exports: coffee, bananas and macademia.
· Appearance - on average probably less overweight than the British, but most women are quite squishy and seem to be proud of it, judging by the tight-fitting clothes they wear. A typical outfit is a top containing lycra, jeans or a short denim miniskirt, high-heels (always, even on four-year-olds) and gelled curly hair. Men generally wear polo shirts and jeans and hardly any have moustaches or are bald. Almost everyone has brown hair, and surprisingly many seem to have skin not particularly darker than North Europeans.
· National saying (I´m particularly jealous of this and feel Britain needs one, perhaps along the lines of "excuse me, I really am so terribly sorry to trouble you but you appear to have stolen my wallet"): Pura Vida, which means "pure life". Ben and I are dubious about this one... we´ve been told by all the tourism literature that everyone says this etc etc, but we haven´t heard any locals say it to us and have only seen it on tourist paraphernalia, so it´s entirely possible that it´s just a big farce.
· Main hazards: Roads (see most previous blog posts). Suicide Showers - since they have a contraption fitted over the top to heat the water which should not be touched when the shower is on, due to the exposed main leads sticking out.. Ben got a nasty shock last night when he draped a damp towel over the showerhead even though the shower was switched off, and then again when he removed it with an umbrella -even through the plastic insulation. Being ripped off, otherwise known as Death by Extortion and Special Tourist Prices.
· Main Frustrations: Being bitten by mosquitos and other nasty insects, trying to find your way around since, although the streets are all named on a map, there are no street signs so all locals know exactly what they´re talking about, and no tourists have a hope in hell. Furthermore, most directions are given in relation to landmarks, some of which no longer exist: case in point, in San Pedro people give directions relative to the old tree, which was felled 50 years ago. Awful, awful tea.
· Best things about Costa Rica: The drinks are generally good, especially coffee and ´refrescos naturales´, which are fruit juices such as melon, strawberry, pineapple, guava, guanabana and banana, mixed with either milk or water. Their national cuisine is also very tasty, cheap and filling, although not if you don´t like rice and beans. The landscape and scenery are breathtaking, from the gorgeous beaches to beautiful sunsets, verdant hills, looming mountains and rolling waves and waterfalls. The wildlife is exciting, especially for a Brit, as we´ve seen plenty of lizards and huge butterflies, along with monkeys, colourful birds and unusual mammals (including the wonderful Coatie). People are generally very patient and nearly always say "you´re welcome" when you thank them. We´ve had quite a few occasions when we were lost or looking for something, and people have spontaneously come over and asked us did we need help, which has been our saving grace. The busses, if terrifying sometimes, are almost always on time, cheap and offer sensational views and a very thrifty way of seeing the country en-route. I will probably add more to this retrospectively.
Moment of the Trip: this one´s a tie... number one has got to be on the bus to Liberia, where the driver overtook a 20-foot lorry, on a blind bend, uphill. Number two was less mortally terrifying, the horseriding trip in Dominical which was spectacular and such fun. We´ve also really enjoyed cooking for ourselves in outdoor kitchens.
I´m going to wrap it up there. We´re due to arrive in Heathrow on Friday morning - we´re really looking forward to seeing everyone when we get back, and hope England will welcome us back with open arms, warm (dry) weather and a nice cup of tea.
love,
Louise and Ben
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Monday, 22 September 2008
Full Circle
Buenos Tardes,
We´re back in Costa Rica Backpackers, at the same computers I wrote our first update from, which is sort of poetic really. This time we´re staying in a cheaper but nicer and more conveniently-located room (with our own bathroom), which is good but just goes to show that even nice places try to rip tourists off. Today we travelled from Uvita to San Jose, via Quepos, which took a grand total of 11 hours (4 hour wait at Quepos), so now it´s 10 to 6, we´ve been up since 3.50am and are very, very tired. Still, we survived the horriffic journey back from Quepos, where I spent a while nearly in tears because I was so scared we were going to fall off the sheer cliff face. Ironically, this was supposed to be the less scary route back from Uvita, since on the way down from San Jose we went via San Isidro El General, a 3-hour journey winding up to over 3,000 metres above sea level, to the beautifully-named Cerro de la Muerte, or Death Mountain. Aside from the twisting and winding road up through the mountains with perilous drops, and the mudslides that happen fairly often (we saw a recent one, where boulders the sizes of cars had fallen, hopefully not actually onto cars..), we were so high up that we were actually in the clouds, which reduced visibility to about 6 ft in front of the bus. So having survived that I begged Ben for us to not take the return journey along there - instead we took the notoriously bumpy road to Quepos (a terrible road in a country of terrible roads) and then waited around for hours, with me all the time reassuring Ben that I was incredibly grateful that we were avoiding a scary journey, and then that happened. But anyway, at least the baby who had been SCREAMING for about 20 minutes in Quepos, as we were waiting for the bus, stopped pretty soon after we left. I did understand how he felt, honestly, but we´d just spent 4 hours traipsing around a place where there really isn´t 4 hours worth of stuff to do, and were incredibly worried about missing our bus, and it really drove me to my last nerve. For all these reasons and more, I am pleased to be back in San Jose - the main reason is that it´s really nice here, despite what everyone says about it. Tomorrow is shopping day, and the day after is our 30 month anniversary where we´re going to the Teatro Nacional to see a classical performance, followed by a relatively fancy meal.
Uvita was nice in its own way - the main effect it´s had on us is to make us incredibly cynical about eco-lodges and nature-friendly people, and shown us that everything has a price when you´re a tourist in Costa Rica. You want to see the beautiful, natural waterfall? Of course! Two dollars. Basically we stayed in aforementioned eco-lodge, which was a sight to behold because it was like a huge, wooden loft, with everything constructed out of beautifully-crafted wood and stone and stuff, and the setting really was incredible. The main problem, other than the money-grabbers of Uvita, is that Uvita is emphatically not a beach village, it´s more like a village with a beach... 5km away. Which was fine in the end since they charged us a lot of money to get into it (special tourist price, incidentally, about 6 times what the locals pay) anyway. We may well have been the only tourists ever to visit Uvita for more than an hour, without having a car or taking taxis - and that´s saying something, since whomever planned Uvita didn´t remember such a thing as pedestrians. It´s also a bit sad to see the (relatively unspoilt) Zona Sur completely saturated in For Sale signs - one of them aptly summed the whole thing up, saying: ¨Costa Rica -- Lots For Sale¨. Anyway, I´ll elaborate on eco place later, maybe. It´s a bit depressing to think about now, which is a shame since it should have been lovely. I also might have a huge rant and release my pent up ANGER, FURY AND RAGE at the guy who ran the hostel in Dominical, since he´s a stupid lazy good-for-nothing who couldn´t even do the ONE THING we asked him to. And he made the least comfortable chairs imaginable, in fact I couldn´t even conceive of such an uncomfortable sedentary apparatus before I saw this with my own eyes. And he was called Angel. Pfft.
EDIT!!! Because I forgot to mention two of the lovliest things we´ve done this month. Firstly, on our last night in Dominical we had a fire on the beach, and toasted marshmallows, which was lovely and I just wanted to write about it in case I ever forget. Secondly, we did Don Lulo´s Horseback Waterfall Tour, which was definitely one of the highlights of this trip. My horse was called Frijolito (little bean) and I think they gave me him because I hadn´t ridden before and he wasn´t one of the leader horses, although he definitely had ideas above his station and didn´t like to be overtaken by anybody - a perfect match for me, then. Ben´s was called Espirito (Spirited) and was a bit off-the-wall. Also on the tour was a Tico family and ´Jodhpur Lady´, a realtor from Florida whose name we never asked, and who came fully kitted out in said jodhpurs, riding boots etc. She was really cool, though, and when we went swimming at the waterfall, even though she hadn´t brought a change of clothes, swimsuit etc, she just whipped off her top and went swimming in her bra and jodhpurs (which she then had to wear wet for the return journey). Ben jumped off from a height of about 25ft, twice, which was spectacular although the first time I almost didn´t dare to watch. The price included two meals at Don Lulo´s house, where there was also a ´zoo´ - Definitely not for animal lovers, it consisted of a couple of Macaws, a Toucan, a deer and some huge rat or hamsters things, which the tour guide bothered so we could see them do stuff (just sitting in their enclosures being happy apparently isn´t interesting enough for us tourists), including winkling the baby rodent out, first with a broomstick handle, and then when that failed, by sticking his hand in and pulling the poor thing out. He did stop just short of getting a monkey and making it dance for us, thankfully.
We´re off for dinner now, update to follow soon since the internet is now blissfully free once more. Write comments please :)
Lots of love,
Louise and Ben xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
We´re back in Costa Rica Backpackers, at the same computers I wrote our first update from, which is sort of poetic really. This time we´re staying in a cheaper but nicer and more conveniently-located room (with our own bathroom), which is good but just goes to show that even nice places try to rip tourists off. Today we travelled from Uvita to San Jose, via Quepos, which took a grand total of 11 hours (4 hour wait at Quepos), so now it´s 10 to 6, we´ve been up since 3.50am and are very, very tired. Still, we survived the horriffic journey back from Quepos, where I spent a while nearly in tears because I was so scared we were going to fall off the sheer cliff face. Ironically, this was supposed to be the less scary route back from Uvita, since on the way down from San Jose we went via San Isidro El General, a 3-hour journey winding up to over 3,000 metres above sea level, to the beautifully-named Cerro de la Muerte, or Death Mountain. Aside from the twisting and winding road up through the mountains with perilous drops, and the mudslides that happen fairly often (we saw a recent one, where boulders the sizes of cars had fallen, hopefully not actually onto cars..), we were so high up that we were actually in the clouds, which reduced visibility to about 6 ft in front of the bus. So having survived that I begged Ben for us to not take the return journey along there - instead we took the notoriously bumpy road to Quepos (a terrible road in a country of terrible roads) and then waited around for hours, with me all the time reassuring Ben that I was incredibly grateful that we were avoiding a scary journey, and then that happened. But anyway, at least the baby who had been SCREAMING for about 20 minutes in Quepos, as we were waiting for the bus, stopped pretty soon after we left. I did understand how he felt, honestly, but we´d just spent 4 hours traipsing around a place where there really isn´t 4 hours worth of stuff to do, and were incredibly worried about missing our bus, and it really drove me to my last nerve. For all these reasons and more, I am pleased to be back in San Jose - the main reason is that it´s really nice here, despite what everyone says about it. Tomorrow is shopping day, and the day after is our 30 month anniversary where we´re going to the Teatro Nacional to see a classical performance, followed by a relatively fancy meal.
Uvita was nice in its own way - the main effect it´s had on us is to make us incredibly cynical about eco-lodges and nature-friendly people, and shown us that everything has a price when you´re a tourist in Costa Rica. You want to see the beautiful, natural waterfall? Of course! Two dollars. Basically we stayed in aforementioned eco-lodge, which was a sight to behold because it was like a huge, wooden loft, with everything constructed out of beautifully-crafted wood and stone and stuff, and the setting really was incredible. The main problem, other than the money-grabbers of Uvita, is that Uvita is emphatically not a beach village, it´s more like a village with a beach... 5km away. Which was fine in the end since they charged us a lot of money to get into it (special tourist price, incidentally, about 6 times what the locals pay) anyway. We may well have been the only tourists ever to visit Uvita for more than an hour, without having a car or taking taxis - and that´s saying something, since whomever planned Uvita didn´t remember such a thing as pedestrians. It´s also a bit sad to see the (relatively unspoilt) Zona Sur completely saturated in For Sale signs - one of them aptly summed the whole thing up, saying: ¨Costa Rica -- Lots For Sale¨. Anyway, I´ll elaborate on eco place later, maybe. It´s a bit depressing to think about now, which is a shame since it should have been lovely. I also might have a huge rant and release my pent up ANGER, FURY AND RAGE at the guy who ran the hostel in Dominical, since he´s a stupid lazy good-for-nothing who couldn´t even do the ONE THING we asked him to. And he made the least comfortable chairs imaginable, in fact I couldn´t even conceive of such an uncomfortable sedentary apparatus before I saw this with my own eyes. And he was called Angel. Pfft.
EDIT!!! Because I forgot to mention two of the lovliest things we´ve done this month. Firstly, on our last night in Dominical we had a fire on the beach, and toasted marshmallows, which was lovely and I just wanted to write about it in case I ever forget. Secondly, we did Don Lulo´s Horseback Waterfall Tour, which was definitely one of the highlights of this trip. My horse was called Frijolito (little bean) and I think they gave me him because I hadn´t ridden before and he wasn´t one of the leader horses, although he definitely had ideas above his station and didn´t like to be overtaken by anybody - a perfect match for me, then. Ben´s was called Espirito (Spirited) and was a bit off-the-wall. Also on the tour was a Tico family and ´Jodhpur Lady´, a realtor from Florida whose name we never asked, and who came fully kitted out in said jodhpurs, riding boots etc. She was really cool, though, and when we went swimming at the waterfall, even though she hadn´t brought a change of clothes, swimsuit etc, she just whipped off her top and went swimming in her bra and jodhpurs (which she then had to wear wet for the return journey). Ben jumped off from a height of about 25ft, twice, which was spectacular although the first time I almost didn´t dare to watch. The price included two meals at Don Lulo´s house, where there was also a ´zoo´ - Definitely not for animal lovers, it consisted of a couple of Macaws, a Toucan, a deer and some huge rat or hamsters things, which the tour guide bothered so we could see them do stuff (just sitting in their enclosures being happy apparently isn´t interesting enough for us tourists), including winkling the baby rodent out, first with a broomstick handle, and then when that failed, by sticking his hand in and pulling the poor thing out. He did stop just short of getting a monkey and making it dance for us, thankfully.
We´re off for dinner now, update to follow soon since the internet is now blissfully free once more. Write comments please :)
Lots of love,
Louise and Ben xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thursday, 18 September 2008
Dominical
Buenos,
Just a quick update since the internet is phantasmagorically expensive here and I can feel my money being drained away. A few thanks, first - to Simon and Sandra for explaining the F1 thing a bit better - I don't think of myself as a conspiracy theorist but the FIA's favouritism/bias seems outrageously blatant, I can't believe they're getting away with it and sorely hope that someone will do something soon. I s'pose it's true what they say -- the 'F' in FIA really does stand for Ferrari...
Thanks also for the comments and emails - I have read all of them but don't have the time to reply individually at the moment, will do so once we get to San Jose (Monday). For Ricky - we get back to Heathrow at about 9am on Thursday morning (that's a week today). Our plans for the next week are as follows... Stay in Dominical for another night and leave tomorrow for Uvita, which is a little bit further south down the Pacific coast (find it on a map marked as Bahia Ballena), and then early on Monday morning leave for San Jose, aiming to arrive around lunchtime, which means a depressingly early start, and then spend the last couple of days shopping, relaxing and bracing ourselves for our even more depressing return flight schedule.
Dominical is lovely - the waves are really, really big (I think 6ft or more is about standard) and we're staying in a lovely cabina, which is very much getting back to nature, since the walls only go about 2/3 of the way up, and the rest is sort of netting. This means that we can hear all of the animal chirrupping, waves crashing (we're 30 seconds from the beach) and Gringos Gringo-ing. For some reason, although one cicada was the worst possible thing imaginable, a carpet of cicadas is fine and actually very relaxing. We also have a kitchen here, so have been knocking up cheapish, imaginative food, since we're a bit restricted on what we can buy. Today, for breakfast we had pancakes with banana, pineapple and coconut cream! However, when we got here we were the only ones here, and the owners were really friendly. The first night we played poker and drank beer with some bona-fide surfer guys from L.A., who were surprisingly really really nice and interesting (they were also ALL science/engineering students), but then they left and have been replaced by - frankly, a group of morons. And the owners aren't very nice at all now, so we're a bit disillusioned with the place -- add to this the fact that while the surf is good, it's also impossibly strong and choppy which means that I can't really learn to surf (although I did try yesterday and caught a wave! Maybe next time I will stand up..) and Ben, although he can surf quite well, can't swim out beyond a certain point because the tide's too strong.. so we're going to try Uvita to see if it's any nicer there.
On a side-note, mum and dad - I can't open or save the attachment you sent, and I'm aware that they want it in by the end of the week (which I assume is tomorrow), and I probably won't be able to get on a computer then -- I don't know how one registers an interest but if at all possible could you do it for me please? I am quite interested so if not then I could just explain when I get back my extenuating circumstances - or maybe Sue could pass my name forward anyway?
I've been learning how to play chess - Ben reckons I could now beat most people, so think of this as a challenge!! Ben's reading Dubliners and is really enjoying it, while I'm re-reading A Picture of Dorian Gray, which is actually better than ever.
Lots of love,
Lou and Ben xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Just a quick update since the internet is phantasmagorically expensive here and I can feel my money being drained away. A few thanks, first - to Simon and Sandra for explaining the F1 thing a bit better - I don't think of myself as a conspiracy theorist but the FIA's favouritism/bias seems outrageously blatant, I can't believe they're getting away with it and sorely hope that someone will do something soon. I s'pose it's true what they say -- the 'F' in FIA really does stand for Ferrari...
Thanks also for the comments and emails - I have read all of them but don't have the time to reply individually at the moment, will do so once we get to San Jose (Monday). For Ricky - we get back to Heathrow at about 9am on Thursday morning (that's a week today). Our plans for the next week are as follows... Stay in Dominical for another night and leave tomorrow for Uvita, which is a little bit further south down the Pacific coast (find it on a map marked as Bahia Ballena), and then early on Monday morning leave for San Jose, aiming to arrive around lunchtime, which means a depressingly early start, and then spend the last couple of days shopping, relaxing and bracing ourselves for our even more depressing return flight schedule.
Dominical is lovely - the waves are really, really big (I think 6ft or more is about standard) and we're staying in a lovely cabina, which is very much getting back to nature, since the walls only go about 2/3 of the way up, and the rest is sort of netting. This means that we can hear all of the animal chirrupping, waves crashing (we're 30 seconds from the beach) and Gringos Gringo-ing. For some reason, although one cicada was the worst possible thing imaginable, a carpet of cicadas is fine and actually very relaxing. We also have a kitchen here, so have been knocking up cheapish, imaginative food, since we're a bit restricted on what we can buy. Today, for breakfast we had pancakes with banana, pineapple and coconut cream! However, when we got here we were the only ones here, and the owners were really friendly. The first night we played poker and drank beer with some bona-fide surfer guys from L.A., who were surprisingly really really nice and interesting (they were also ALL science/engineering students), but then they left and have been replaced by - frankly, a group of morons. And the owners aren't very nice at all now, so we're a bit disillusioned with the place -- add to this the fact that while the surf is good, it's also impossibly strong and choppy which means that I can't really learn to surf (although I did try yesterday and caught a wave! Maybe next time I will stand up..) and Ben, although he can surf quite well, can't swim out beyond a certain point because the tide's too strong.. so we're going to try Uvita to see if it's any nicer there.
On a side-note, mum and dad - I can't open or save the attachment you sent, and I'm aware that they want it in by the end of the week (which I assume is tomorrow), and I probably won't be able to get on a computer then -- I don't know how one registers an interest but if at all possible could you do it for me please? I am quite interested so if not then I could just explain when I get back my extenuating circumstances - or maybe Sue could pass my name forward anyway?
I've been learning how to play chess - Ben reckons I could now beat most people, so think of this as a challenge!! Ben's reading Dubliners and is really enjoying it, while I'm re-reading A Picture of Dorian Gray, which is actually better than ever.
Lots of love,
Lou and Ben xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sunday, 14 September 2008
San Jose (again)
God bless free internet!
Today we left Cahuita and travelled for 4 hours to San Jose, which we meant to do, and are now staying the night, which we didn't, but through a phantasmagorically unsurprising series of events, our luck ran out in terms of making connections efficiently. Until now we've always been lucky enough that we just happen to have gotten to San Jose in time to get a connecting bus to where we wanted to go, which got in before nighttime. We didn't leave things to chance because we're masochists or lazy, but because there's no other choice.. the guide book doesn't give times and even when it does, they're subject to change on a whim anyway. We want to get to Uvita (in the Zona Sur, near Dominical, for those who're following) in daylight, and this wasn't going to be possible today since the only bus to take us there would get in at 7pm earliest, which would've meant staying a night in San Isidro or Dominical. We decided that we'd rather stay a night here, knowing that we could get free internet at any hostel, and then just get up super-early, than go to a new place and get even tireder. So here we are, in the innapropriately-named 'Tranquillo' Backpackers. The plan for today is vague, but our number one priority is (as always) locate the free coffee. Then I quite fancy a new top, since I've worn this one to death and since it only cost 2 pounds originally from Primark, I feel it has more than earnt a rest.
Uvita sounds beautiful, anyway, and apparently it's very good for surfing which Ben really wants to do - one can bodyboard there too (some people call it 'boogie-boarding', but Ben turns his nose up) which I might be half-good at. Depending on how nice it is (and whether or not we can get cheap accomodation with a kitchen, since cooking for ourselves is mega fun and mega cheap), we'll either stay there for 7 days, OR, and this is only in the pipeline at the moment, we have plan B. This is to go to La Fortuna (Zona Norte), four hours away from San Jose, stay for a night and hope that we're lucky enough to see the spectacular displays of lava flowing from the nearby Volcano Arenal, then get transportation by 'Jeep-Boat-Jeep' (which does what it says on the tin, and apparently is an aesthetically and fiscally pleasing way of travelling, rather than taking the infamously shoddy road) to Monteverde, home of the number 1 tourist attraction in the country, the cloudforest reserve. Here we'll spend one day trekking through the forest, and maybe a morning's Canopy Zip-lining, which is difficult to explain but takes you through the treetops in a harness at a speed of your choice (and which doesn't qualify as an extreme sport so don't worry). As I said, though, this all very much depends on how Uvita is and how our bank balances are - I'm very very tempted though, since we're only here once and it is a schlep and a bit of money, in return for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Anyway, Cahuita - it was very lovely there, the weather alone made a very refreshing change from the ubiquitous showers we've had nearly everywhere. The change of culture (most of Cahuita's inhabitants are descended from Africans brought over a couple of hundred years ago to work in the banana plantations and build the train in Limon Province. They've been treated by the Costa Rican government about as well as Africans have in every other part of the world..) was very welcome, and overall we had a lovely stay. There was a lot of atmosphere and nightlife, too, whereas Samara was pretty much dead. Last night we went to Coco's Bar, which seems to be THE place to be of an evening in Cahuita, and where they serve 80p beer and 1.50 doubles of Cafe Rica (coffee liquer along the lines of Kahlua but much nicer). Friday night is reggae night, though it seems that every night is reggae night.
Yesterday we also walked along the trail which parallells the beach, to Punta Cahuita (Cahuita point, although since 'Cahuita' actually means 'point' in Misquito, we went to Point Point) and stuck to the trail as advised since snakes abound. We've been swimming in the sea a few times, too, it's usually very calm and clear which is doubly good, since it means it's less likely to be full of effluence (always reassuring when you get eaten by the waves and nearly swallow mouthfulls of it as I did) and also that you will probably spot a jellyfish before you step on it. We also discovered a Chinese restaurant where they REALLY emphasise quantity over quality.. we were defeated by their oversized portions of chow mein for only 2 pounds and rated it an average of 8 out of 10 for likely-to-returnability, which quickly plummeted to 1 after we went to the counter to pay for our meal, and spotted one of the members of staff counting/faffing about with lettuces. On the floor. Our accomodation, too, was lovely - we stayed in Cabinas near the sea owned by an African-American man called Geoffrey, and his wife. We don't actually know if that was his name but it should be, and that's how we referred to him, if not to his face. Geoffrey didn't seem to actually do much of everything - he was always pootling around the village on his bike, which makes sense since we never did find that branch of PriceWaterHouseCoopers that he claimed to work at. Last night (before the trip to the bar, I might add), I very accidentally and with almost slapstick precision managed to knock Ben's toothbrush down the toilet. He took it surprisingly well, merely wondering aloud- 'if you knock a toothbrush down the toilet, does it become a toilet brush?'. Also, I've learnt that ordering 'tea negra con leche' doesn't mean you get a cup of black tea, with some milk in or on the side, it means that you actually get a cup of tea made with milk RATHER THAN water. I've taken a picture of it for posterity and to remind myself not to bother next time.
I suspect that I've abused the free internet for long enough now. I'm off to get coffee and read one of my new books (managed to pick up A Picture of Dorian Gray and Dubliners for less than their 2 pounds price tags!). Can someone update me with what happened in the last few Formula Ones, please? From what I can gather - Massa only got a fine for his mistake 3 races ago (about 7,000 pounds which is precisely nothing, or a wing mirror, to Ferrari), whereas Hamilton got penalised some places for his overtaking Raikkonen on a chicane at Spa? And then he finished 1st but not really? And did Vettel really win at Monza?? I've been saying for weeks that he looks really promising, and he seems much nicer than Lewis Hamilton, so good luck to the boy. Even if it is a bit terrifying that he's the same age as me, and he's just won a Grand Prix, and I'm... pottering around in Central America. Any other news from our island? Thanks as ever for the comments and emails, they really do make a difference.
See you soon, in only 11 days!
Love,
Louise and Ben xxxxxxxxxxxx
Today we left Cahuita and travelled for 4 hours to San Jose, which we meant to do, and are now staying the night, which we didn't, but through a phantasmagorically unsurprising series of events, our luck ran out in terms of making connections efficiently. Until now we've always been lucky enough that we just happen to have gotten to San Jose in time to get a connecting bus to where we wanted to go, which got in before nighttime. We didn't leave things to chance because we're masochists or lazy, but because there's no other choice.. the guide book doesn't give times and even when it does, they're subject to change on a whim anyway. We want to get to Uvita (in the Zona Sur, near Dominical, for those who're following) in daylight, and this wasn't going to be possible today since the only bus to take us there would get in at 7pm earliest, which would've meant staying a night in San Isidro or Dominical. We decided that we'd rather stay a night here, knowing that we could get free internet at any hostel, and then just get up super-early, than go to a new place and get even tireder. So here we are, in the innapropriately-named 'Tranquillo' Backpackers. The plan for today is vague, but our number one priority is (as always) locate the free coffee. Then I quite fancy a new top, since I've worn this one to death and since it only cost 2 pounds originally from Primark, I feel it has more than earnt a rest.
Uvita sounds beautiful, anyway, and apparently it's very good for surfing which Ben really wants to do - one can bodyboard there too (some people call it 'boogie-boarding', but Ben turns his nose up) which I might be half-good at. Depending on how nice it is (and whether or not we can get cheap accomodation with a kitchen, since cooking for ourselves is mega fun and mega cheap), we'll either stay there for 7 days, OR, and this is only in the pipeline at the moment, we have plan B. This is to go to La Fortuna (Zona Norte), four hours away from San Jose, stay for a night and hope that we're lucky enough to see the spectacular displays of lava flowing from the nearby Volcano Arenal, then get transportation by 'Jeep-Boat-Jeep' (which does what it says on the tin, and apparently is an aesthetically and fiscally pleasing way of travelling, rather than taking the infamously shoddy road) to Monteverde, home of the number 1 tourist attraction in the country, the cloudforest reserve. Here we'll spend one day trekking through the forest, and maybe a morning's Canopy Zip-lining, which is difficult to explain but takes you through the treetops in a harness at a speed of your choice (and which doesn't qualify as an extreme sport so don't worry). As I said, though, this all very much depends on how Uvita is and how our bank balances are - I'm very very tempted though, since we're only here once and it is a schlep and a bit of money, in return for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Anyway, Cahuita - it was very lovely there, the weather alone made a very refreshing change from the ubiquitous showers we've had nearly everywhere. The change of culture (most of Cahuita's inhabitants are descended from Africans brought over a couple of hundred years ago to work in the banana plantations and build the train in Limon Province. They've been treated by the Costa Rican government about as well as Africans have in every other part of the world..) was very welcome, and overall we had a lovely stay. There was a lot of atmosphere and nightlife, too, whereas Samara was pretty much dead. Last night we went to Coco's Bar, which seems to be THE place to be of an evening in Cahuita, and where they serve 80p beer and 1.50 doubles of Cafe Rica (coffee liquer along the lines of Kahlua but much nicer). Friday night is reggae night, though it seems that every night is reggae night.
Yesterday we also walked along the trail which parallells the beach, to Punta Cahuita (Cahuita point, although since 'Cahuita' actually means 'point' in Misquito, we went to Point Point) and stuck to the trail as advised since snakes abound. We've been swimming in the sea a few times, too, it's usually very calm and clear which is doubly good, since it means it's less likely to be full of effluence (always reassuring when you get eaten by the waves and nearly swallow mouthfulls of it as I did) and also that you will probably spot a jellyfish before you step on it. We also discovered a Chinese restaurant where they REALLY emphasise quantity over quality.. we were defeated by their oversized portions of chow mein for only 2 pounds and rated it an average of 8 out of 10 for likely-to-returnability, which quickly plummeted to 1 after we went to the counter to pay for our meal, and spotted one of the members of staff counting/faffing about with lettuces. On the floor. Our accomodation, too, was lovely - we stayed in Cabinas near the sea owned by an African-American man called Geoffrey, and his wife. We don't actually know if that was his name but it should be, and that's how we referred to him, if not to his face. Geoffrey didn't seem to actually do much of everything - he was always pootling around the village on his bike, which makes sense since we never did find that branch of PriceWaterHouseCoopers that he claimed to work at. Last night (before the trip to the bar, I might add), I very accidentally and with almost slapstick precision managed to knock Ben's toothbrush down the toilet. He took it surprisingly well, merely wondering aloud- 'if you knock a toothbrush down the toilet, does it become a toilet brush?'. Also, I've learnt that ordering 'tea negra con leche' doesn't mean you get a cup of black tea, with some milk in or on the side, it means that you actually get a cup of tea made with milk RATHER THAN water. I've taken a picture of it for posterity and to remind myself not to bother next time.
I suspect that I've abused the free internet for long enough now. I'm off to get coffee and read one of my new books (managed to pick up A Picture of Dorian Gray and Dubliners for less than their 2 pounds price tags!). Can someone update me with what happened in the last few Formula Ones, please? From what I can gather - Massa only got a fine for his mistake 3 races ago (about 7,000 pounds which is precisely nothing, or a wing mirror, to Ferrari), whereas Hamilton got penalised some places for his overtaking Raikkonen on a chicane at Spa? And then he finished 1st but not really? And did Vettel really win at Monza?? I've been saying for weeks that he looks really promising, and he seems much nicer than Lewis Hamilton, so good luck to the boy. Even if it is a bit terrifying that he's the same age as me, and he's just won a Grand Prix, and I'm... pottering around in Central America. Any other news from our island? Thanks as ever for the comments and emails, they really do make a difference.
See you soon, in only 11 days!
Love,
Louise and Ben xxxxxxxxxxxx
Friday, 12 September 2008
Cahuita
Hola Amigos,
We're in Cahuita, about an hour from Limon on the south Caribbean coast. It's amazingly hot here, even at 9am it's about as baking as any summer's day in London, which I suppose is good since we've been moaning about the rain quite a lot. Here are Lou and Ben's top five ways to cope with baking hot weather and 90% humidity.
1) Worship your fan. Sit directly in front of it, as near as you can possibly get without actually sitting ON it, for a good few hours a day.
2) Since the smallest of tasks suddenly becomes a gigantic schlep requiring superhuman willpower and effort to complete, set yourself small, manageable goals for the day. Such as, today I am going to change some travellers' cheques and then probably sleep a bit, and then maybe get some dinner. Be proud of yourself after each tiny thing you do, and then repeat number 1.
3) Have a siesta. Have lots of siestas! Followed by some number 1.
4) Buy lots of water, but not in restaurants because they absolutely rip you off. Instead, don't order drinks with dinner, which will cause the serving person to give you a look that communicates that you have just massacred their family. Eat your creole food slowly and with plenty of bread and salad, since really what you need is a big glass of coke with it. When you are finished eating, walk calmly round the corner and down a 2 litre bottle of water as fast as you can to stop the burning pain in your mouth. Sitting in front of the fan will help too.
5) Get a hotel with airconditioning, and bring more than two books for a month's holiday (doh), and avoid much of the above.
So, we're probably going to move on tomorrow, to Puerto Vieja de Talamanca which is about 15km further down the coast, where it sounds like there's a bit more happ'nin', and also for a change of scenery. It's nice here and good to get out of the cultural homogenity of the rest of the country so far, people speak a sort of creole/patois here, kind of a combination of Jamican, Spanish and English which we can inexplicably sort of understand. People are more genuinely nice here too, and there's lots of character.. currently I can hear the local school's children having a loud drumming session, which is fine since I don't have a headache today. Yesterday maybe I would've seen it less as 'charming' than 'bloody annoying'. The beach here is beautiful, it's a national park since there's some of the last remaining coral reef here, and the sea is very clear turquoise and lovely and calm for swimming. Unfortunately, though, that's about all there is to do around here. You can sit on the beach but there are zillions of crabs, which I find quite sweet and fascinating to watch from a distance, but when they're within a 1 metre circumference of me I like them less well. (Un)surprisingly, we don't really like the tourists here either, probably because we're terrified that we might be lumped in with them. I finally heard my first British voices, belonging to some supercool surfer dudes on the bus down here.. very exciting!!
Also, I forgot to mention this a while ago, but here in Costa Rica the word supermarket is abbreviated to 'super', so they're called things like Super Anita, or Super Safari, or, our personal favourite, 'MegaSuper'. Also, while it's better than in India (where their toilets were really just a hole and your loo roll was just your hand, a tap and a jug), here they have virtually no water pressure so you can't throw toilet paper down the toilet, it has to go in a bin next to you instead. The bins don't generally have a lid. Lovely.
So with that exciting newsflash, it's about 11.45am and we're off for lunch quite soon, perhaps followed by some lazing around in the hammock. Hope all is well there! Missing you all lots and looking foward to seeing you and the country in 12 days.
xxx Lou and Ben
We're in Cahuita, about an hour from Limon on the south Caribbean coast. It's amazingly hot here, even at 9am it's about as baking as any summer's day in London, which I suppose is good since we've been moaning about the rain quite a lot. Here are Lou and Ben's top five ways to cope with baking hot weather and 90% humidity.
1) Worship your fan. Sit directly in front of it, as near as you can possibly get without actually sitting ON it, for a good few hours a day.
2) Since the smallest of tasks suddenly becomes a gigantic schlep requiring superhuman willpower and effort to complete, set yourself small, manageable goals for the day. Such as, today I am going to change some travellers' cheques and then probably sleep a bit, and then maybe get some dinner. Be proud of yourself after each tiny thing you do, and then repeat number 1.
3) Have a siesta. Have lots of siestas! Followed by some number 1.
4) Buy lots of water, but not in restaurants because they absolutely rip you off. Instead, don't order drinks with dinner, which will cause the serving person to give you a look that communicates that you have just massacred their family. Eat your creole food slowly and with plenty of bread and salad, since really what you need is a big glass of coke with it. When you are finished eating, walk calmly round the corner and down a 2 litre bottle of water as fast as you can to stop the burning pain in your mouth. Sitting in front of the fan will help too.
5) Get a hotel with airconditioning, and bring more than two books for a month's holiday (doh), and avoid much of the above.
So, we're probably going to move on tomorrow, to Puerto Vieja de Talamanca which is about 15km further down the coast, where it sounds like there's a bit more happ'nin', and also for a change of scenery. It's nice here and good to get out of the cultural homogenity of the rest of the country so far, people speak a sort of creole/patois here, kind of a combination of Jamican, Spanish and English which we can inexplicably sort of understand. People are more genuinely nice here too, and there's lots of character.. currently I can hear the local school's children having a loud drumming session, which is fine since I don't have a headache today. Yesterday maybe I would've seen it less as 'charming' than 'bloody annoying'. The beach here is beautiful, it's a national park since there's some of the last remaining coral reef here, and the sea is very clear turquoise and lovely and calm for swimming. Unfortunately, though, that's about all there is to do around here. You can sit on the beach but there are zillions of crabs, which I find quite sweet and fascinating to watch from a distance, but when they're within a 1 metre circumference of me I like them less well. (Un)surprisingly, we don't really like the tourists here either, probably because we're terrified that we might be lumped in with them. I finally heard my first British voices, belonging to some supercool surfer dudes on the bus down here.. very exciting!!
Also, I forgot to mention this a while ago, but here in Costa Rica the word supermarket is abbreviated to 'super', so they're called things like Super Anita, or Super Safari, or, our personal favourite, 'MegaSuper'. Also, while it's better than in India (where their toilets were really just a hole and your loo roll was just your hand, a tap and a jug), here they have virtually no water pressure so you can't throw toilet paper down the toilet, it has to go in a bin next to you instead. The bins don't generally have a lid. Lovely.
So with that exciting newsflash, it's about 11.45am and we're off for lunch quite soon, perhaps followed by some lazing around in the hammock. Hope all is well there! Missing you all lots and looking foward to seeing you and the country in 12 days.
xxx Lou and Ben
Tuesday, 9 September 2008
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)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sunday, 7 September 2008
Liberia
Buenos Dias,
Sorry for the long delay in this update - we ended up staying in Samara for 5 nights and refused to use the internet there again because it was so expensive (we think there´s some sort of cartel operating there, like OPEC except more evil) and also because we went over the hour by 2 minutes and they charged us for 15, which doesn´t exactly inspire repeat business. Anyway!
I just wanted to start by saying thank you so much for the comments and emails, they brought a big smile to my face after a lacklustre couple of days (on which more later) and I feel really buoyed for having read them. We´re in ´Planet Internet´, which is unlike many other planets - its terrain is white, cool and shiny, computers and teenage boys are bountiful but any signs of life have sadly become extinct long ago. Also, while I always appreciate not having strange European men looking over my shoulder as I type (I mean you, Mr man in internet cafe in Orosi), the fact that these booths are quite so ´private´is odd and not a little bit creepy.
So, Samara; it was a beautiful place, but we agreed that we weren´t leaving too soon, mostly due to the atmosphere and people.. it´s hard to place exactly what it was, but basically the area around the beach is entirely given over to tourism: all of the nice properties have been bought up by American expats and now it´s too expensive for any natives to live there.. and none of the tourists were particularly friendly (I think they were people there for a week-long beach holiday, rather than youngsters backpacking around like us), so the community doesn´t feel like a community, and although Ticos are far too polite to tell you that they don´t like you, I can see exactly why they´d resent tourists. But we did have a really really good time there, mostly due to the place we were staying, which constituted a cultural experience in itself, although not of the Tico kind. As I mentioned last time, we wangled a really good discount at a B&B near the beach with a lady from Arizona, Marlene, who was many things, among them.. a dedicated Republican, ardent devotee of McCain and even more so Sarah Palin, devout Roman Catholic, and quite hard-of-hearing. But really, genuinely lovely. She regaled us with many tales of her extraordinary family - a whole family of them, 6 kids along with the parents, sing, play instruments and do riverdance-style Irish stuff and have toured all over the world, performed for El Papa (the pope, not to be confused with la papa, the Spanish word for a potato), and got to the final of America´s Got Talent, where Piers Morgan was rude to them. She and her husband used to have a circus, and always had a different animal each year, which appeared onstage with them, and she has written books about cats and faith, and is now an artist. Oh and they´ve led pilgrimages to lots of holy places like Israel, Ireland, Venezuela and Yugoslavia to special places where people have seen the virgin mother, etc. We didn´t let on about our not-being-Catholics and she didn´t ask, but she seems very tolerant and although she´s anti gay-marriage, I bet she wouldn´t mind a gay couple staying in her B&B. We watched a few nights´ of the Republican Party Conference which is about as far as is possible to get from the British equivalent, and which made me feel incredibly grateful that us Brits have a sense of decorum and don´t chant things like "drill baby drill" and "U-S-A!" over and over again. We don´t like or trust McCain, but have decided that he´ll probably win because Obama is still a bit too scary for the Americans, and so ´liberal´, that dirty word. We also spent a lot of time wandering up and down the beach in Samara, and swimming, and Ben tried his hand at surfing while I read an awful, awful Mills & Boon-esque book that I´m sure Marlene doesn´t realise was in her library or she would´ve thrown it out in disgust. *I* was tempted to throw it away in disgust, but more for its poor storyline and character development than the pre-marital sex etc. We also found a really good spot for lunch, called Shake Joe´s, where they do service without a smile but really really good (Canadian!!) smoked salmon baguettes for about 2.50. The currency here is seeming less bizarre, although I still can´t get my head around the fact that their biggest note is, effectively, a tenner (10,000 colones). The cost of living is about 5x lower though.
So, Liberia .. well, it sounded nice in the guidebook and it´s not too bad but there´s nothing really to do, apart from sit in the central park trying to hide from the sun (even in the ´winter´it´s like an oven here) and gawp at the ugly, Modernist church. We´ve just had breakfast in a chain bakery called Musmanni, which may well be our saving grace in Costa Rica since most cafes serve nothing but (things) con arroz, which isn´t my favourite breakfast dish.
We´re planning to have a day trip to Rincon de la Vieja tomorrow, which is a national park not too far from here with a volcano and lots of lovely walks you can do - we´re learning from last time, don´t worry. After that the plan is to head for the Caribbean coast, Cahuita in particular, and have a week there, before going to Uvita (Southwest, near Dominical) for more surfing/beach things. We´ve seen footage of the weather in Britain at the moment and it looks appalling! Flooding everywhere and really cold too :( It´s a shame that it seems like summer, such as it was, is over - and that we can´t send some of this baking Liberia sun over there (really, please take some!). Oh yes, and I finally feel like we´ve had the quintessential Costa Rican experience which had eluded us through sheer chance, of the least comfortable bus journey in the universe. Basically, there are two general types of bus - the coach type which are quite robust and almost as good as National Express, lots of padding in the seats etc, and ex-American schoolbusses (yes, those yellow ones that they have in The Simpsons) which are very ´functional´, or as I like to call it, ´dude, where´s the suspension?´. So I´m pleased we´ve had that experience, but would be grateful if we were to avoid it in future - although at least on this one no-one performed the entire percussion section of La Bamba on the back on my chair. My main gripe at the moment is with sleep: through no fault of my own, I´ve been finding it really difficult to get to sleep for the past few nights - in Samara this was because (please don´t laugh) of Mr Cicada, who lived somewhere outside the building and chirruped constantly and loudly throughout the night - after a few nights I finally discovered that the only way to get to sleep was with a piece of toilet paper wedged into each ear, lying on my side with one ear pressed into the pillow and a towel over my head. You´re laughing now, I´m sure - and in retrospect it´s amusing but it was bloody awful at the time. The problem here in Liberia is that the walls are paper-thin, and in fact they´re not even complete walls since there´s gauze in some places - so the place we´re staying is very charming and rustic etc. (and cable tv, all for about 9GBP) but we can hear the Germans across the hall talking, and every single sound, as if it was happening at the foot of our bed. Last night I dealt with this by asking them politely to be quiet and then trying to listen to The News Quiz until my iPod battery died, before finally resorting to the good old tried-and-tested toilet paper / towel method. Tonight I will have bought earplugs and charged my iPod, which will hopefully fare better. So, I´m fairly sure it´s the 8th today which means we´re over 1/3 of the way through our trip - time´s doing strange things and it feels simultaneously like we´ve been here for a day/forever. At times like last night when all I wanted was a nice, quiet room, the BBC and a cup of tea I have been missing England a lot, and especially the people there, but I know it´ll still be there when we get back and I don´t want to kick myself for not appreciating this adventure while it´s happening. So, onwards and upwards to the volcano :) I´ll update sooner than last time!
Lots of love,
Louise and Ben (who is very chuffed because his website is now the first hit on google when you search for drupal guides)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sorry for the long delay in this update - we ended up staying in Samara for 5 nights and refused to use the internet there again because it was so expensive (we think there´s some sort of cartel operating there, like OPEC except more evil) and also because we went over the hour by 2 minutes and they charged us for 15, which doesn´t exactly inspire repeat business. Anyway!
I just wanted to start by saying thank you so much for the comments and emails, they brought a big smile to my face after a lacklustre couple of days (on which more later) and I feel really buoyed for having read them. We´re in ´Planet Internet´, which is unlike many other planets - its terrain is white, cool and shiny, computers and teenage boys are bountiful but any signs of life have sadly become extinct long ago. Also, while I always appreciate not having strange European men looking over my shoulder as I type (I mean you, Mr man in internet cafe in Orosi), the fact that these booths are quite so ´private´is odd and not a little bit creepy.
So, Samara; it was a beautiful place, but we agreed that we weren´t leaving too soon, mostly due to the atmosphere and people.. it´s hard to place exactly what it was, but basically the area around the beach is entirely given over to tourism: all of the nice properties have been bought up by American expats and now it´s too expensive for any natives to live there.. and none of the tourists were particularly friendly (I think they were people there for a week-long beach holiday, rather than youngsters backpacking around like us), so the community doesn´t feel like a community, and although Ticos are far too polite to tell you that they don´t like you, I can see exactly why they´d resent tourists. But we did have a really really good time there, mostly due to the place we were staying, which constituted a cultural experience in itself, although not of the Tico kind. As I mentioned last time, we wangled a really good discount at a B&B near the beach with a lady from Arizona, Marlene, who was many things, among them.. a dedicated Republican, ardent devotee of McCain and even more so Sarah Palin, devout Roman Catholic, and quite hard-of-hearing. But really, genuinely lovely. She regaled us with many tales of her extraordinary family - a whole family of them, 6 kids along with the parents, sing, play instruments and do riverdance-style Irish stuff and have toured all over the world, performed for El Papa (the pope, not to be confused with la papa, the Spanish word for a potato), and got to the final of America´s Got Talent, where Piers Morgan was rude to them. She and her husband used to have a circus, and always had a different animal each year, which appeared onstage with them, and she has written books about cats and faith, and is now an artist. Oh and they´ve led pilgrimages to lots of holy places like Israel, Ireland, Venezuela and Yugoslavia to special places where people have seen the virgin mother, etc. We didn´t let on about our not-being-Catholics and she didn´t ask, but she seems very tolerant and although she´s anti gay-marriage, I bet she wouldn´t mind a gay couple staying in her B&B. We watched a few nights´ of the Republican Party Conference which is about as far as is possible to get from the British equivalent, and which made me feel incredibly grateful that us Brits have a sense of decorum and don´t chant things like "drill baby drill" and "U-S-A!" over and over again. We don´t like or trust McCain, but have decided that he´ll probably win because Obama is still a bit too scary for the Americans, and so ´liberal´, that dirty word. We also spent a lot of time wandering up and down the beach in Samara, and swimming, and Ben tried his hand at surfing while I read an awful, awful Mills & Boon-esque book that I´m sure Marlene doesn´t realise was in her library or she would´ve thrown it out in disgust. *I* was tempted to throw it away in disgust, but more for its poor storyline and character development than the pre-marital sex etc. We also found a really good spot for lunch, called Shake Joe´s, where they do service without a smile but really really good (Canadian!!) smoked salmon baguettes for about 2.50. The currency here is seeming less bizarre, although I still can´t get my head around the fact that their biggest note is, effectively, a tenner (10,000 colones). The cost of living is about 5x lower though.
So, Liberia .. well, it sounded nice in the guidebook and it´s not too bad but there´s nothing really to do, apart from sit in the central park trying to hide from the sun (even in the ´winter´it´s like an oven here) and gawp at the ugly, Modernist church. We´ve just had breakfast in a chain bakery called Musmanni, which may well be our saving grace in Costa Rica since most cafes serve nothing but (things) con arroz, which isn´t my favourite breakfast dish.
We´re planning to have a day trip to Rincon de la Vieja tomorrow, which is a national park not too far from here with a volcano and lots of lovely walks you can do - we´re learning from last time, don´t worry. After that the plan is to head for the Caribbean coast, Cahuita in particular, and have a week there, before going to Uvita (Southwest, near Dominical) for more surfing/beach things. We´ve seen footage of the weather in Britain at the moment and it looks appalling! Flooding everywhere and really cold too :( It´s a shame that it seems like summer, such as it was, is over - and that we can´t send some of this baking Liberia sun over there (really, please take some!). Oh yes, and I finally feel like we´ve had the quintessential Costa Rican experience which had eluded us through sheer chance, of the least comfortable bus journey in the universe. Basically, there are two general types of bus - the coach type which are quite robust and almost as good as National Express, lots of padding in the seats etc, and ex-American schoolbusses (yes, those yellow ones that they have in The Simpsons) which are very ´functional´, or as I like to call it, ´dude, where´s the suspension?´. So I´m pleased we´ve had that experience, but would be grateful if we were to avoid it in future - although at least on this one no-one performed the entire percussion section of La Bamba on the back on my chair. My main gripe at the moment is with sleep: through no fault of my own, I´ve been finding it really difficult to get to sleep for the past few nights - in Samara this was because (please don´t laugh) of Mr Cicada, who lived somewhere outside the building and chirruped constantly and loudly throughout the night - after a few nights I finally discovered that the only way to get to sleep was with a piece of toilet paper wedged into each ear, lying on my side with one ear pressed into the pillow and a towel over my head. You´re laughing now, I´m sure - and in retrospect it´s amusing but it was bloody awful at the time. The problem here in Liberia is that the walls are paper-thin, and in fact they´re not even complete walls since there´s gauze in some places - so the place we´re staying is very charming and rustic etc. (and cable tv, all for about 9GBP) but we can hear the Germans across the hall talking, and every single sound, as if it was happening at the foot of our bed. Last night I dealt with this by asking them politely to be quiet and then trying to listen to The News Quiz until my iPod battery died, before finally resorting to the good old tried-and-tested toilet paper / towel method. Tonight I will have bought earplugs and charged my iPod, which will hopefully fare better. So, I´m fairly sure it´s the 8th today which means we´re over 1/3 of the way through our trip - time´s doing strange things and it feels simultaneously like we´ve been here for a day/forever. At times like last night when all I wanted was a nice, quiet room, the BBC and a cup of tea I have been missing England a lot, and especially the people there, but I know it´ll still be there when we get back and I don´t want to kick myself for not appreciating this adventure while it´s happening. So, onwards and upwards to the volcano :) I´ll update sooner than last time!
Lots of love,
Louise and Ben (who is very chuffed because his website is now the first hit on google when you search for drupal guides)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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