On Thursday, Chris has a morning appointment to have his crown fitted. We've made plans to meet Alfredo, one of Lisa's old colleagues, for coffee at his office (handily in the same neighbourhood as Chris' dentist) in the afternoon, so Lisa spends the morning blogging and trying to figure out how to get to Uvita, our next destination. Someone told us that it's whale season & Uvita is the best place to see them, so we figure it's a great way to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary (which shall henceforth be known as the whale anniversary). Too bad that when she sets out to walk to the bus station, the heavens have decided to open - it's a very soggy 45 minute walk across the city, but at least when she gets to the right neighbourhood she meets some very helpful people who point her towards the bus stop. This may sound like a simple task if you've never experienced the "Coca-Cola" area of San Jose, but in fact it's a bewildering array of unmarked bus stops and small bus stations; of course there are also crowds of people everywhere, and the pouring rain doesn't make it any easier to navigate. But thanks to an elderly gent who pops out of a cafe and actually explains in great detail (but partly in Spanish) how to find the correct bus, it's no problemo =)
It's easy to find Alfredo's building, but not his office (since it's not listed under the company name we know), but after some elaborate gesturing, a few phone calls, and a review of her passport, Lisa manages to get inside the correct door. Chris is already there and having a nice chat with Alfredo. We spend about an hour with him, talking about lots of different things (from his business, to earthquakes & volcanoes, to the origin of the upcoming Independence Day). It's always so great to meet up with local friends because you get a different perspective on the place you're staying! But he does have lots of work to do, so we bid him farewell and head next door to the mall, Multiplaza Escazu. On the way we note how strange it is to be passing right next to the InterContinental Hotel where Lisa's ex-employers held a big conference just after she left!
Chris' sandal is on the verge of collapse and we've been struggling to find his size here (US 13 = huge)....it feels like Lisa's boot hunt in Korea all over again. But we luck out in the mall and find a great pair of Hush Puppies, not only in his size but also on sale! We fuel up at a tasty salad & smoothie place (Go Green = best fast food ever) after eschewing the McCafe, which resembles a fancy patisserie & has prices to match. (As a "McDonalds of the world" aside, we also see - for the first time - dedicated McFlurry counters in front of all the McDonalds in San Jose...and even one stand-alone McFlurry kiosk.) Then we hop on a bus to WalMart, where we are inordinately thrilled to find camping fuel that's compatible with one of our travel stoves (you might recall that we bought a new stove in Kathmandu since it was impossible to find Camping Gaz for our old stove - the new one again turns out to be the easiest to find fuel for!). You wouldn't believe some of the non-compatible options we saw in Panama and Costa Rica....safety regulations must be REALLY different here!
Next, we are headed back downtown. It's a bit of a challenge to board the buses into town now that we are one stop past the shopping mall - they are all so full they won't even let us try to squeeze on! A school bus which says "Service Especiales" pulls up and emits a few dozen people, and we notice that most of the other passengers at the stop are hovering near it. One fellow confirms that this bus is going to downtown San Jose, so we climb aboard and jostle with others standing in the aisle, shopping bags & various other items. We end up rather west of downtown so we get the dubious pleasure of walking through what definitely looks like a red light district, but it's still daylight and there are plenty of people around so it doesn't feel too scary.
We're on our way to meet Anna, a new Couchsurfing friend. Lisa wrote to her after spotting her request for people to travel with on weekends. She is interested in going to Poas so we promised to give her a full report when we got back. We end up in a moody & cool-looking bar (which has a secret room in the back that is filling up with musicians while we are chatting) and have a long talk about lots of things travel-related. Her background is really interesting - she's Nicaraguan but was adopted by a German couple when she was a baby, so she's in central America trying to improve her Spanish and learn more about her roots. Her boyfriend was coming to Costa Rica to study for 6 months so it worked out perfectly. And now she can hopefully learn from our visit to Poas, so she can plan her trip to ensure that she gets some good weather!
Eventually we all agree that it's time to go home. We can walk from here so we say goodbye to Anna and head across the road to grab a bite at a bakery. We get an assortment of pastries; some for dinner (nicely heated in the microwave) and some for tomorrow's breakfast. Lisa has an early start to Uvita and Chris has an 8am dental appointment (because his new crown didn't fit properly!!) so we want to be prepared! On the walk back to the hostel, we enjoy the view of San Jose's nightly lightning storm. In fact, during this season there seems to be a country-wide lightning storm every night - but fortunately for us, not too much rain so far.
After a brief night's sleep, we crawl out of bed at 4:30am to make the trip to the bus station. Unusually, we get a taxi - we've read a few bad things about the neighbourhood near this bus station and it's still quite dark, so we don't want to ask for trouble. It turns out that the station is a bit isolated but we don't see much to worry about, so after Chris sees Lisa safely on the bus he heads out on foot towards the Coca-Cola area (armed with Lisa's advice about finding the bus to Escazu).
Lisa has taken the "collectivo" bus which stops at every little village along the way. This might sound dull but she really enjoys it - in particular, the first 2 hours of the trip when we are winding through the mountains are really picturesque, as is the village of San Mateo. After that we follow the Pacific coastline with alternating views of palm tree plantations, swamps, farms, and sweeping ocean panoramas. We also encounter 2 separate groups of torch-bearers (it's an Independence Day thing!), including a school group which is stretched out in pairs along the highway. Each group has a police, ambulance & school bus accompaniment.
It takes about 6 hours for the journey but she still arrives in plenty of time to arrange their beds for the night (hammocks in a tree house!!) have some lunch with a new friend (Marie from Rochester, NY), and book the whale watching tour for the next day. There is actually a Whales & Dolphins Festival in Uvita this weekend, so there are short (1.5 hour) tours available for just 16,000 colones (about US$32), compared to the usual half-day tour for US$60 or more - great news for budget travellers! It also means that there's a cute village "fairground" set up where we can do some people-watching and enjoy a cheeky beer ;-) On our way back we encounter some drummers and a few families heading to local Independence Day festivities (which apparently involve quite a bit of fire - the earlier torches were a good clue).
Meanwhile, Chris has caught a 2pm "fast" bus and it gets him into town just before 6pm. These "fast" buses were pretty hard to figure out - every resource in Costa Rica has a different bus schedule, and many people swore that there were only 2 buses to Uvita (the collectivos at 6am and 3pm), whereas others said that some additional buses stop there but kept giving us different times for these. Even in the bus station there was different information available from each ticket window, and the final bus times conflicted with the posted schedules in the station. But at least it all worked out in the end, and we've taken the hint that we shouldn't believe in schedules we see anywhere here!
We have dinner at the local soda with Marie, and then an early night (we were all up before dawn so we just can't manage a night dancing to the sounds of festival bands "Caca de la Vaca" and Radical Hell). Lisa has great dreams in the hammock and we all wake up refreshed & ready for our whale viewing! We even get a chance to watch the Independence Day parade from our tree house - it seems to involve everyone in this small town (including a small dog wrapped in a Costa Rican flag). Before heading to the beach again, we visit the local farmers market, where we buy tamales & a huge, weighty Spanish omelette wrapped in banana leaves. We grab a taxi to the beach (yesterday, we learned that it's more than 30 minutes walk), pay our $6 "non-nationals" entrance fee to the national park (Marino Ballena), and stroll along the chocolate-coloured sand eating our breakfast. The beach is particularly beautiful, and although there are quite a few people around, Marie says it's a lot less busy than it's more famous cousin Manuel Antonio. As we walk we scoop up some shells for Marie's collection, and try to find a complete sand dollar for Chris (he's never heard of sand dollars before today!). On our way back, the tide is coming in and flooding the many crab and ant holes we saw along the way.
By the time we've attended our "orientation talk" about the tour and walked back to the beach, the tide has advanced immensely. A large river which was flowing into the sea when we first arrived has now been completely swallowed by ocean...and as we wait for our boat to arrive, we have to keep backing up further & further to avoid the incoming waves. It's a long wait (see above - Costa Rica & schedules do NOT go together) but our noon tour finally sets out about 12:45. We hold on tightly as instructed and bounce over the waves, heading for an area where several boats are bobbing in a wide circle. Not surprisingly (but still very impressive!) there is a large whale in the center of the circle, bobbing gently near the surface. We soon realise that we are looking at a mom & baby - our guide informs us that the baby is small (it's not, but we suppose by whale standards...) and about 2 weeks old. Apparently the babies drink more than 200 litres of milk every day!! We also learn lots of other whale facts, such as:
The climax of our tour is when the baby whale swims straight towards our boat. We cut the engine and everyone goes silent (although we can hear envious murmurs from our neighbouring boats). Mom gets a little worried and swims between the calf and us, passing right in front of our boat - we can see the white flesh on her head & throat as she swims past. It's so cool! After that we're happy to head back and give some others a chance. Overall, it's a great experience and we're glad we had a chance to see these peaceful, zen creatures...although we do wish there was a way to do it without motorised boats, because it's not great to think of all the pollution we're generating.
It's easy to find Alfredo's building, but not his office (since it's not listed under the company name we know), but after some elaborate gesturing, a few phone calls, and a review of her passport, Lisa manages to get inside the correct door. Chris is already there and having a nice chat with Alfredo. We spend about an hour with him, talking about lots of different things (from his business, to earthquakes & volcanoes, to the origin of the upcoming Independence Day). It's always so great to meet up with local friends because you get a different perspective on the place you're staying! But he does have lots of work to do, so we bid him farewell and head next door to the mall, Multiplaza Escazu. On the way we note how strange it is to be passing right next to the InterContinental Hotel where Lisa's ex-employers held a big conference just after she left!
Chris' sandal is on the verge of collapse and we've been struggling to find his size here (US 13 = huge)....it feels like Lisa's boot hunt in Korea all over again. But we luck out in the mall and find a great pair of Hush Puppies, not only in his size but also on sale! We fuel up at a tasty salad & smoothie place (Go Green = best fast food ever) after eschewing the McCafe, which resembles a fancy patisserie & has prices to match. (As a "McDonalds of the world" aside, we also see - for the first time - dedicated McFlurry counters in front of all the McDonalds in San Jose...and even one stand-alone McFlurry kiosk.) Then we hop on a bus to WalMart, where we are inordinately thrilled to find camping fuel that's compatible with one of our travel stoves (you might recall that we bought a new stove in Kathmandu since it was impossible to find Camping Gaz for our old stove - the new one again turns out to be the easiest to find fuel for!). You wouldn't believe some of the non-compatible options we saw in Panama and Costa Rica....safety regulations must be REALLY different here!
Next, we are headed back downtown. It's a bit of a challenge to board the buses into town now that we are one stop past the shopping mall - they are all so full they won't even let us try to squeeze on! A school bus which says "Service Especiales" pulls up and emits a few dozen people, and we notice that most of the other passengers at the stop are hovering near it. One fellow confirms that this bus is going to downtown San Jose, so we climb aboard and jostle with others standing in the aisle, shopping bags & various other items. We end up rather west of downtown so we get the dubious pleasure of walking through what definitely looks like a red light district, but it's still daylight and there are plenty of people around so it doesn't feel too scary.
We're on our way to meet Anna, a new Couchsurfing friend. Lisa wrote to her after spotting her request for people to travel with on weekends. She is interested in going to Poas so we promised to give her a full report when we got back. We end up in a moody & cool-looking bar (which has a secret room in the back that is filling up with musicians while we are chatting) and have a long talk about lots of things travel-related. Her background is really interesting - she's Nicaraguan but was adopted by a German couple when she was a baby, so she's in central America trying to improve her Spanish and learn more about her roots. Her boyfriend was coming to Costa Rica to study for 6 months so it worked out perfectly. And now she can hopefully learn from our visit to Poas, so she can plan her trip to ensure that she gets some good weather!
Eventually we all agree that it's time to go home. We can walk from here so we say goodbye to Anna and head across the road to grab a bite at a bakery. We get an assortment of pastries; some for dinner (nicely heated in the microwave) and some for tomorrow's breakfast. Lisa has an early start to Uvita and Chris has an 8am dental appointment (because his new crown didn't fit properly!!) so we want to be prepared! On the walk back to the hostel, we enjoy the view of San Jose's nightly lightning storm. In fact, during this season there seems to be a country-wide lightning storm every night - but fortunately for us, not too much rain so far.
After a brief night's sleep, we crawl out of bed at 4:30am to make the trip to the bus station. Unusually, we get a taxi - we've read a few bad things about the neighbourhood near this bus station and it's still quite dark, so we don't want to ask for trouble. It turns out that the station is a bit isolated but we don't see much to worry about, so after Chris sees Lisa safely on the bus he heads out on foot towards the Coca-Cola area (armed with Lisa's advice about finding the bus to Escazu).
Lisa has taken the "collectivo" bus which stops at every little village along the way. This might sound dull but she really enjoys it - in particular, the first 2 hours of the trip when we are winding through the mountains are really picturesque, as is the village of San Mateo. After that we follow the Pacific coastline with alternating views of palm tree plantations, swamps, farms, and sweeping ocean panoramas. We also encounter 2 separate groups of torch-bearers (it's an Independence Day thing!), including a school group which is stretched out in pairs along the highway. Each group has a police, ambulance & school bus accompaniment.
It takes about 6 hours for the journey but she still arrives in plenty of time to arrange their beds for the night (hammocks in a tree house!!) have some lunch with a new friend (Marie from Rochester, NY), and book the whale watching tour for the next day. There is actually a Whales & Dolphins Festival in Uvita this weekend, so there are short (1.5 hour) tours available for just 16,000 colones (about US$32), compared to the usual half-day tour for US$60 or more - great news for budget travellers! It also means that there's a cute village "fairground" set up where we can do some people-watching and enjoy a cheeky beer ;-) On our way back we encounter some drummers and a few families heading to local Independence Day festivities (which apparently involve quite a bit of fire - the earlier torches were a good clue).Meanwhile, Chris has caught a 2pm "fast" bus and it gets him into town just before 6pm. These "fast" buses were pretty hard to figure out - every resource in Costa Rica has a different bus schedule, and many people swore that there were only 2 buses to Uvita (the collectivos at 6am and 3pm), whereas others said that some additional buses stop there but kept giving us different times for these. Even in the bus station there was different information available from each ticket window, and the final bus times conflicted with the posted schedules in the station. But at least it all worked out in the end, and we've taken the hint that we shouldn't believe in schedules we see anywhere here!
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| Independence Day, Uvita style |
By the time we've attended our "orientation talk" about the tour and walked back to the beach, the tide has advanced immensely. A large river which was flowing into the sea when we first arrived has now been completely swallowed by ocean...and as we wait for our boat to arrive, we have to keep backing up further & further to avoid the incoming waves. It's a long wait (see above - Costa Rica & schedules do NOT go together) but our noon tour finally sets out about 12:45. We hold on tightly as instructed and bounce over the waves, heading for an area where several boats are bobbing in a wide circle. Not surprisingly (but still very impressive!) there is a large whale in the center of the circle, bobbing gently near the surface. We soon realise that we are looking at a mom & baby - our guide informs us that the baby is small (it's not, but we suppose by whale standards...) and about 2 weeks old. Apparently the babies drink more than 200 litres of milk every day!! We also learn lots of other whale facts, such as:
- The mother's milk is 35% fat, compared to 2% in humans
- The gestation period is 12-15 months. After this, the baby stays with the mother for at least 1 year, during which time she can't get pregnant. Therefore, these "birthing grounds" see the mother whales in 3-year cycles.
- Whales only flip their tails up in the oft-depicted manner when they are diving to deeper waters. Their tails are unique (like fingerprints) and are used by scientists around the world to understand the travel patterns of individual whales.
- Moms & babies live in shallow waters until the little ones have time to develop their lung capacity for deep dives. They also need the warmth that comes with the shallower areas.
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| Whale ahoy! |
Marie heads off on her own in search of lunch (we're still full from our tortilla!) and we walk back to town. We pick up a couple of batidos (smoothies) and some groceries for dinner, including the elusive Costa Rican beer "Bavaria Dark". Then we try to track down the Streets family for a Skype chat, but we're rather late after the tour delay so they're all in bed!
When Marie gets back, we all decide to head to the local waterfall to cool off. It's only about 15 minutes walk from our hotel, and has a couple of pools where we can finally escape the heat. We opt for the smaller pool which is just right for 3 people (and one keen Labrador who has adopted us!), and also doesn't require entry by rope swing ;-) It's well worth the 500 colones (US$1) entry fee, especially since the water at the beach was weirdly hot, so not very refreshing.
We stroll back down the hill to the hotel, stopping to admire a beautiful sunset and to make several futile attempts to shake off the dog. He finally leaves us when we reach the hotel gate, but we'll see him again tomorrow....
We share dinner (homemade soft tacos) & our newly-acquired Cafe Rica liqueur (from Poas) with Marie, who contributes some pastries for dessert. Lisa teaches her how to play our favourite travel game, Honeymoon Whist, while around us the hotel closes down for the night. It's pretty strange that they switch off all the lights in the central courtyard at 10pm, even on a Saturday night, but as Chris points out this is good news for the guests who are all either in a room fronting onto this area, or in a hammock in the center of the courtyard! We're given strict instructions not to latch the outer gate on our way to the tree house since the owner and several guests are at a party that we can hear nearby. FYI, the ladder for the tree house is outside the gate, which made us a bit nervous at first (especially after many warnings not to bring ANYTHING out with us when we went to bed)....but actually all trappings of security in the hotel are just for show, such as the entrance gates which are "locked" at night with the type of clasp you use for a dog leash! Anyways, the town feels pretty safe to us and we can safely lock our valuables inside the owner's house at night. Our backpacks are locked in the kitchen. This added security is good for peace of mind, but not good if you want to get an early start; the reception doesn't open until 7am and the owner, Tra (pronounced "tray") - a seriously laid-back Memphis native - gets up when he feels like it ;-)
Chris awakes the next morning to the sound of a family picnicking under the tree house. Soon after, Lisa is woken up by the crowing of an enthusiastic rooster (also under our house!). There is a lot of birdsong in the early morning and this is a great way to wake up. We grab some breakfast from the hotel and set out to the bus stop - we've decided that it's time to hit the road northwards towards Nicaragua. We're not very confident in the posted bus schedules, since no two are the same, so we just go to the stop when we're finished breakfast - it's shady there and a great place to people-watch, so we don't mind that the next bus doesn't seem to be expected for at least 1.5 hours. We get lots of honks, waves and headlight flashes from the passing highway traffic (especially when Lisa is alone at the stop for a few minutes while Chris runs an errand), and our Labrador plus another canine friend keep us company while we wait. In the end, the alleged 11am bus pulls up around noon! Just in time, because it's starting to rain and two passengers awaiting the bus have a LOT of stuff which we're sure is better off dry (one woman & child look like they're actually moving house by bus?!).
It's a beautiful ride to Quepos along the Pacific coast, and Chris gets the pleasure of travelling through Dominical, a cute surfing town which Lisa passed through on her way to Uvita. Actually, for some reason the buses pull in, drive along the town's one road until they reach the beach (= end of the road!), then turn around and come back the same way. The town is tiny and the road is awful, so it's a mystery why they don't just pick up passengers at or near the highway!
We want to continue north from Quepos but the next bus (to Puntarenas) isn't for about an hour, so we head into the rather over-developed town in search of food and wi-fi. Even in this tourist trap, almost everything is closed on a Sunday at 2pm which gives it a rather desolate feeling. A chap named Danny who works for one of the hostels in nearby Manuel Antonio adopts us and leads us to the Best Western, but we think the menu's a bit overpriced (and Lisa has spotted a seafood place - she's been dying to have some ceviche for the past couple of days, but it's hard to find a restaurant that actually has some in stock - it seems to only be available on Saturdays??). Turns out that the seafood place is chock-a-block since it's showing the football game, so we drift into "Wacky Wanda's" next door - also showing the football, but with a smaller (very friendly!) crowd, a compellingly dark & shady interior, and some cooling fans. It's only after we order that we realise there's no wi-fi.... oh well! There's also no ceviche, nor any shrimp (for shrimp & rice), so we end up with a chef's salad & some chicken fingers...but actually it's all pretty tasty!
Back to the bus station, where our friend Danny waves us over to the Puntarenas bus. He tells us that we might make the connection to the final bus to Liberia which leaves Puntarenas at 6pm - but it's 3pm now and at least a 2.5 hour journey, so we won't count on it. In fact, we get stuck in a traffic jam (caused by a badly-designed merge on to the Interamericana highway - lots of people are travelling home to San Jose after Independence Day celebrations) so we don't get to Puntarenas until about 6:15. We discover that the last bus to Liberia was actually at 5pm so we're definitely here for the night. At least we get to enjoy the sunset (out the bus window) over the Pacific, with the hills of the Nicoya Peninsula silhouetted in the foreground.
Puntarenas is one of the weirder towns we've visited on this trip - built on a long sand spit, it's only about 5 blocks wide through the "downtown" area and has a feeling of being well past it's prime. We're used to seaside towns feeling a bit shabby but this place takes the cake, and it's probably exacerbated by the fact that it's a Sunday night. The first hotel we check (Sol y Arena) has cardboard walls that don't even pretend to reach the ceiling, and ensuite shower/toilets that appear to have been built into dark closets. It feels very overpriced at $20 for a double! On our way out, we meet another traveller (Gilad from Israel) who is being shadowed by a "helpful" (and rather hyper) local guy who insists he will help us all find a room...at his family's hotel, for $40. He is soon shooed away by another local, wearing a resort T-shirt (which he uses to "prove" his legitimacy...he also claims that our previous helper is NOT a local, and that the hotel we're looking for was flattened by a hurricane last week...hmm). At least the 2nd fellow actually does take us to the requested hotel eventually (as you can imagine, this requires some fast story creation on his part to undo his earlier claim....umm, there are two hotels with the same name and the other one was flattened, but this one is OK!), and we find a barely acceptable room there for $26. Gilad also chooses to stay and we are all introduced to the receptionist, a friendly fellow called Freddy who doesn't seem to speak a word of English - or is this another con? In this town, who can tell.
After dumping our backpacks in the room and locking our windows & doors (the word "secure" has been used to describe the hotel not less than 10 times, so we're feeling paranoid), we head out on the town in search of food and perhaps some sign of life. We find half a dozen Chinese restaurants, a pizza place, and an exceptionally loud but tiny kitten (ah, so hard not to adopt him!). Eventually we stumble across a pescadoria (fish place) which has the long-coveted ceviche, plus affordable pina coladas and a huge serving of squid tentacles (with rice & beans of course) for Chris. We try to watch "The Mexican" on the restaurant's TV, but it's dubbed in Spanish and halfway through, so we don't stand much of a chance. It's more amusing to watch the small daughter of one of the customers winding her way around the tables charming people.
We haul our over-stuffed selves back through town & along the way we notice that EVERYONE is watching The Mexican. Along the way, we rescue an Israeli couple who are emerging from Sol y Arena hotel with a horrified look on their faces & deliver them to our hotel. There is absolutely nothing happening unless we want to join in the local karaoke (if there was a competition, we would win - they are pretty dire) so we retire to our room to rub our bellies and watch "Resident Evil - Extinction" on TV. We've seen it before and the dialogue is hardly important, so in this case the Spanish dubbing is easily overlooked. This is good news for our neighbours since we can turn the volume right down so as not to carry through the paper-thin walls & open mesh windows!
We're up early the next day and keen to get out of this place, so we walk to the bus stop to check the times. Unfortunately we have probably just missed the 7am bus to Liberia, which means 1.5 hours wait until the next one, but at least that's plenty of time to find breakfast & maybe some wi-fi, which seems to be very elusive in this town! (and in case you're wondering, we're not totally addicted to the internet- we're trying to send an email to a friend so we can arrange to meet up with her over the next couple of days!)
No luck with the wi-fi, but after some advice from locals we locate all the options for breakfast and decide on Soda Janet. We have some OK desayuno (the usual gallo pinto with a couple of eggs & some bread) accompanied by carrot juice, a nice change. As we're finishing up, we notice Gilad walking past with his luggage. We know that he came to Puntarenas to catch a ferry to the Nicoya Peninsula - reputedly a very beautiful & remote area - but they have all been cancelled for a week or longer due to pier damage from the recent earthquake, so now he's trying to figure out how to get there by bus. Kudos for his tenacity but we think we'd take this as a sign that we ought to do something else ;-)
We wait at the bus stop with a small crowd of locals, although a fellow we met earlier tries to convince us to take a taxi to somewhere else where there is a "better" bus service. Luckily the bus arrives only 20 minutes late and we clamber aboard. We're pleased to see that the luggage compartment under the bus is actually locked by the driver so we don't need to check out the window at every stop - good news, because we stop pretty much everywhere on the way to Liberia!
Again, it's a beautiful drive, although a bit stormy today. We enter Guanacaste (the northernmost region) which is reputed to be particularly gorgeous. It's hilly and full of ranchos (ranches) - Lisa even spots a cowboy rounding up some of the region's wattle-y cattle! We finally reach the outskirts of Liberia, where we are greeted by a shiny new (and strangely isolated) shopping mall; a few streets later we are at the bus station, which has several sodas/cafes, a MusAnni bakery (we see these everywhere in Costa Rica), and some nicely printed large schedules for the buses to the border - just what we need! Like Puntarenas, there are a lot more buses than can be explained by the 2 or 3 schedules which are posted - we guess that if you are going to a more local or less popular destination, you'd just have to ask around to find the correct bus & it's timings.
We finally find some wi-fi at a cute cafe, and get a chance to email our friend Rosa while enjoying some madures (a mystery - luckily for us it's some delicious plantain, and we later discover that it translates as "maturity"!) and french toast. We are too lazy to move on today, so we check into Hotel Liberia (just $20 for a tiny room with one set of bunkbeds - there is even hot water for the shower, bonus!) and spend our afternoon in search of a raincoat to replace the one which Lisa left on the bus to Uvita! We have tried this before in San Jose (while she still had the old raincoat...but frankly, it didn't work very well after coming into contact with some DEET!) but it seems that Costa Ricans don't wear raincoats....or coats of any description, for that matter. Luckily Liberia seems to have a very unique shopping culture - all the stores resemble secondhand shops, with piles of one-of-a-kind clothing, and in one "American shop" we clamber over some bags of excess clothes to find a selection of large raincoats. Lisa selects one which is not too thick & plasticky, and looks large enough to fit over her daypack which is the main reason for owning a raincoat here at all! She even manages to negotiate a 1000 colones "descuento" since one sleeve has a stain on it (the coat being almost white, this stain will have a few friends before long!).
We enjoy a delicious meal at a soda run by a women's co-operative (complete with the requisite cute kid running from table to table). Lisa is secretly pleased that her chicken tortilla platter is served without the ever-present rice & beans, but ashamed that she is so spoilt by her usual dining options that she can get bored of something so quickly! We grab some beers and chill out on the hotel's wide veranda - Lisa is blogging as usual (and posting travel tips on the Lonely Planet forum!), and Chris is catching up on his reading. Of course, there is a lightning storm to enjoy, and also the comedy of the hotel's intermittent electricity (which goes off while Lisa is in the shower- she thinks the vaunted hot shower is to blame, see photo....)
Tomorrow we're heading for Nicaragua, with an amibitious plan to reach Isla Ometepe. This border crossing is legendary so it ought to be an interesting day!
(p.s. from Lisa: I have to share the chat-up line I got from a teenager in Uvita...made me wonder where he's learning his English from! "Hey cutie, I want to meet you later!" He actually shouted this (slowly) from across the street while taking part in the independence day torch ceremony hee hee!)
When Marie gets back, we all decide to head to the local waterfall to cool off. It's only about 15 minutes walk from our hotel, and has a couple of pools where we can finally escape the heat. We opt for the smaller pool which is just right for 3 people (and one keen Labrador who has adopted us!), and also doesn't require entry by rope swing ;-) It's well worth the 500 colones (US$1) entry fee, especially since the water at the beach was weirdly hot, so not very refreshing.
We stroll back down the hill to the hotel, stopping to admire a beautiful sunset and to make several futile attempts to shake off the dog. He finally leaves us when we reach the hotel gate, but we'll see him again tomorrow....
We share dinner (homemade soft tacos) & our newly-acquired Cafe Rica liqueur (from Poas) with Marie, who contributes some pastries for dessert. Lisa teaches her how to play our favourite travel game, Honeymoon Whist, while around us the hotel closes down for the night. It's pretty strange that they switch off all the lights in the central courtyard at 10pm, even on a Saturday night, but as Chris points out this is good news for the guests who are all either in a room fronting onto this area, or in a hammock in the center of the courtyard! We're given strict instructions not to latch the outer gate on our way to the tree house since the owner and several guests are at a party that we can hear nearby. FYI, the ladder for the tree house is outside the gate, which made us a bit nervous at first (especially after many warnings not to bring ANYTHING out with us when we went to bed)....but actually all trappings of security in the hotel are just for show, such as the entrance gates which are "locked" at night with the type of clasp you use for a dog leash! Anyways, the town feels pretty safe to us and we can safely lock our valuables inside the owner's house at night. Our backpacks are locked in the kitchen. This added security is good for peace of mind, but not good if you want to get an early start; the reception doesn't open until 7am and the owner, Tra (pronounced "tray") - a seriously laid-back Memphis native - gets up when he feels like it ;-)
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| Our pet in Uvita |
It's a beautiful ride to Quepos along the Pacific coast, and Chris gets the pleasure of travelling through Dominical, a cute surfing town which Lisa passed through on her way to Uvita. Actually, for some reason the buses pull in, drive along the town's one road until they reach the beach (= end of the road!), then turn around and come back the same way. The town is tiny and the road is awful, so it's a mystery why they don't just pick up passengers at or near the highway!
We want to continue north from Quepos but the next bus (to Puntarenas) isn't for about an hour, so we head into the rather over-developed town in search of food and wi-fi. Even in this tourist trap, almost everything is closed on a Sunday at 2pm which gives it a rather desolate feeling. A chap named Danny who works for one of the hostels in nearby Manuel Antonio adopts us and leads us to the Best Western, but we think the menu's a bit overpriced (and Lisa has spotted a seafood place - she's been dying to have some ceviche for the past couple of days, but it's hard to find a restaurant that actually has some in stock - it seems to only be available on Saturdays??). Turns out that the seafood place is chock-a-block since it's showing the football game, so we drift into "Wacky Wanda's" next door - also showing the football, but with a smaller (very friendly!) crowd, a compellingly dark & shady interior, and some cooling fans. It's only after we order that we realise there's no wi-fi.... oh well! There's also no ceviche, nor any shrimp (for shrimp & rice), so we end up with a chef's salad & some chicken fingers...but actually it's all pretty tasty!
Back to the bus station, where our friend Danny waves us over to the Puntarenas bus. He tells us that we might make the connection to the final bus to Liberia which leaves Puntarenas at 6pm - but it's 3pm now and at least a 2.5 hour journey, so we won't count on it. In fact, we get stuck in a traffic jam (caused by a badly-designed merge on to the Interamericana highway - lots of people are travelling home to San Jose after Independence Day celebrations) so we don't get to Puntarenas until about 6:15. We discover that the last bus to Liberia was actually at 5pm so we're definitely here for the night. At least we get to enjoy the sunset (out the bus window) over the Pacific, with the hills of the Nicoya Peninsula silhouetted in the foreground.
Puntarenas is one of the weirder towns we've visited on this trip - built on a long sand spit, it's only about 5 blocks wide through the "downtown" area and has a feeling of being well past it's prime. We're used to seaside towns feeling a bit shabby but this place takes the cake, and it's probably exacerbated by the fact that it's a Sunday night. The first hotel we check (Sol y Arena) has cardboard walls that don't even pretend to reach the ceiling, and ensuite shower/toilets that appear to have been built into dark closets. It feels very overpriced at $20 for a double! On our way out, we meet another traveller (Gilad from Israel) who is being shadowed by a "helpful" (and rather hyper) local guy who insists he will help us all find a room...at his family's hotel, for $40. He is soon shooed away by another local, wearing a resort T-shirt (which he uses to "prove" his legitimacy...he also claims that our previous helper is NOT a local, and that the hotel we're looking for was flattened by a hurricane last week...hmm). At least the 2nd fellow actually does take us to the requested hotel eventually (as you can imagine, this requires some fast story creation on his part to undo his earlier claim....umm, there are two hotels with the same name and the other one was flattened, but this one is OK!), and we find a barely acceptable room there for $26. Gilad also chooses to stay and we are all introduced to the receptionist, a friendly fellow called Freddy who doesn't seem to speak a word of English - or is this another con? In this town, who can tell.
After dumping our backpacks in the room and locking our windows & doors (the word "secure" has been used to describe the hotel not less than 10 times, so we're feeling paranoid), we head out on the town in search of food and perhaps some sign of life. We find half a dozen Chinese restaurants, a pizza place, and an exceptionally loud but tiny kitten (ah, so hard not to adopt him!). Eventually we stumble across a pescadoria (fish place) which has the long-coveted ceviche, plus affordable pina coladas and a huge serving of squid tentacles (with rice & beans of course) for Chris. We try to watch "The Mexican" on the restaurant's TV, but it's dubbed in Spanish and halfway through, so we don't stand much of a chance. It's more amusing to watch the small daughter of one of the customers winding her way around the tables charming people.
We haul our over-stuffed selves back through town & along the way we notice that EVERYONE is watching The Mexican. Along the way, we rescue an Israeli couple who are emerging from Sol y Arena hotel with a horrified look on their faces & deliver them to our hotel. There is absolutely nothing happening unless we want to join in the local karaoke (if there was a competition, we would win - they are pretty dire) so we retire to our room to rub our bellies and watch "Resident Evil - Extinction" on TV. We've seen it before and the dialogue is hardly important, so in this case the Spanish dubbing is easily overlooked. This is good news for our neighbours since we can turn the volume right down so as not to carry through the paper-thin walls & open mesh windows!
We're up early the next day and keen to get out of this place, so we walk to the bus stop to check the times. Unfortunately we have probably just missed the 7am bus to Liberia, which means 1.5 hours wait until the next one, but at least that's plenty of time to find breakfast & maybe some wi-fi, which seems to be very elusive in this town! (and in case you're wondering, we're not totally addicted to the internet- we're trying to send an email to a friend so we can arrange to meet up with her over the next couple of days!)
No luck with the wi-fi, but after some advice from locals we locate all the options for breakfast and decide on Soda Janet. We have some OK desayuno (the usual gallo pinto with a couple of eggs & some bread) accompanied by carrot juice, a nice change. As we're finishing up, we notice Gilad walking past with his luggage. We know that he came to Puntarenas to catch a ferry to the Nicoya Peninsula - reputedly a very beautiful & remote area - but they have all been cancelled for a week or longer due to pier damage from the recent earthquake, so now he's trying to figure out how to get there by bus. Kudos for his tenacity but we think we'd take this as a sign that we ought to do something else ;-)
We wait at the bus stop with a small crowd of locals, although a fellow we met earlier tries to convince us to take a taxi to somewhere else where there is a "better" bus service. Luckily the bus arrives only 20 minutes late and we clamber aboard. We're pleased to see that the luggage compartment under the bus is actually locked by the driver so we don't need to check out the window at every stop - good news, because we stop pretty much everywhere on the way to Liberia!
Again, it's a beautiful drive, although a bit stormy today. We enter Guanacaste (the northernmost region) which is reputed to be particularly gorgeous. It's hilly and full of ranchos (ranches) - Lisa even spots a cowboy rounding up some of the region's wattle-y cattle! We finally reach the outskirts of Liberia, where we are greeted by a shiny new (and strangely isolated) shopping mall; a few streets later we are at the bus station, which has several sodas/cafes, a MusAnni bakery (we see these everywhere in Costa Rica), and some nicely printed large schedules for the buses to the border - just what we need! Like Puntarenas, there are a lot more buses than can be explained by the 2 or 3 schedules which are posted - we guess that if you are going to a more local or less popular destination, you'd just have to ask around to find the correct bus & it's timings.
We finally find some wi-fi at a cute cafe, and get a chance to email our friend Rosa while enjoying some madures (a mystery - luckily for us it's some delicious plantain, and we later discover that it translates as "maturity"!) and french toast. We are too lazy to move on today, so we check into Hotel Liberia (just $20 for a tiny room with one set of bunkbeds - there is even hot water for the shower, bonus!) and spend our afternoon in search of a raincoat to replace the one which Lisa left on the bus to Uvita! We have tried this before in San Jose (while she still had the old raincoat...but frankly, it didn't work very well after coming into contact with some DEET!) but it seems that Costa Ricans don't wear raincoats....or coats of any description, for that matter. Luckily Liberia seems to have a very unique shopping culture - all the stores resemble secondhand shops, with piles of one-of-a-kind clothing, and in one "American shop" we clamber over some bags of excess clothes to find a selection of large raincoats. Lisa selects one which is not too thick & plasticky, and looks large enough to fit over her daypack which is the main reason for owning a raincoat here at all! She even manages to negotiate a 1000 colones "descuento" since one sleeve has a stain on it (the coat being almost white, this stain will have a few friends before long!).
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| Central America's idea of an electric hot shower |
Tomorrow we're heading for Nicaragua, with an amibitious plan to reach Isla Ometepe. This border crossing is legendary so it ought to be an interesting day!
(p.s. from Lisa: I have to share the chat-up line I got from a teenager in Uvita...made me wonder where he's learning his English from! "Hey cutie, I want to meet you later!" He actually shouted this (slowly) from across the street while taking part in the independence day torch ceremony hee hee!)
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