Days 42-45: San Jose & La Fortuna
Posted by Erik Frey Wed, 27 Apr 2005 10:50:00 GMT
The first leg of my trip ended in the same place it began. I spent a few days in Costa Rica before heading home. I partied vigorously!
I write down my travel notes in an old, cheap HP 200LX that runs off AA batteries and fits in my pocket. Then, when I have time, I refer to the notes to write these journal entries. Just for variety’s sake, rather than refining this particular series of days, I’m going to give you access to THE SOURCE - the pure stuff, copied directly out of my HP via its handy memory card:
*day 42*
found a reasonably priced taxi by walking around censored. no problems at the airport.
in san jose, talked a guy down to 6000 colones to drive me to gaudy's. wish i'd known better to take the bus.
gaudy's is a nice hostel. certainly my favorite in san jose. had a nice dinner at a columbian place on paseo colon and then collapsed.
*day 43*
took the super early bus to la fortuna. no surprise that i talked to some girls about costa rica and gave them info. now I am the old pro. ha ha! kate was cute. ended up staying at the hotel dorothy with some young investment banker guy from san francisco named mike. other girl was named charmagne.
the sky was clear. clear! not a single cloud. i couldn't believe it. the view of the volcano was. you know. incredible. i was quite pleased, especially considering how disappointed i'd been to not see the volcano on my first visit.
walked out to the watering hole with kate and the other two. nice as before. decided to splurge and went on a tour that included a hike out to the volcano followed by the baldi springs. boy was that worth it.
crazy american/canadian woo woo party troup.
i finally saw a toucan! right at the end of my trip i got my wish. saw a howler. the volcano even blew as we hiked through the jungle. after dark we all sat next to a river and watched molten lava rocks roll and splatter down the side of the volcano. horse flies.
had fun at baldy. everyone got drunk, unsurprisingly. we caroused around like obnoxious loud americans. i didn't care because it was my last day. mike and i dove into the hottest pool (scalding) and convinced an old lady to do it with us, as the girls cheered on. old lady ended up scraping her nose up. blood everywhere. oops.
met a cool couple from southern alabama and arranged for them to come hang out with us later. got back to la fortuna, bought chips and booze, and sat out on the front porch of hotel dorothy. girls tried to concoct some bizarre fruit coctail thing. alabama couple shows up and dude has a bottle of 11 year old flor de cana. i say "oh hell yes," and break out a censored cigar. alabama guy got so excited! we were doing it up in style.
good times.
talked to some girl about reiki and so she ended up doing a session on me. it felt nice, although admittedly it could have just been the flor de cana.
afterwards we walked to bar luigi. they were blaring some traditional old salsa music and the girls danced with a few horny old men. i was talking to alabama guy and he says "i got a cd that'll get this place going". he steps out for a minute and comes back with a cd. puts it in and it's fucking james brown. man everyone got down. even the old locals, in their funny "we don't know this white people music" way.
so we got down to some james brown and some beegees. on our way out mike almost got into a fight with some tico because he asked the guy for a kiss.
*day 44*
mike and all the girls except for kate took off early. i woke up later and found kate in town. we talked for a little while and she gave me her email. i'm beginning to wonder if maybe claudia isn't right. what am i going to do with a boatload of email adresses of people who i think are cool but live millions of miles away?
keep in touch with them?
i don't know.
did some errands in town and took the bus back to san jose. saw someone get their camera stolen on the bus. got to gaudy's, got dinner and had a quiet evening watching tv with some girl who i think was thinking the same "what's the point" stuff i was. we talked about the movie we were watching, and about nicaragua, but never actually said a thing about ourselves or intimated any kind of desire to form a bond. it was nice.
*day 45*
early morning flight out to miami. breezed right through customs and inspections even with my cigars and other stuff. no problem.
