Waiting in San Jose

Santa Teresa turned out to be a good choice of towns to get washed into. It´s a very famous surfing destination (though I´d never heard of it) and I only met a single person who showed up for anything else. After I wrote my last post I ran into my dorm mates at a bar on the other side of town. They´re a group of 3 Virginia Tech students who rented a car and are drifting to various surf towns. The movie PCU taught me that you have to identify the person in your dorm who has a car4 and become their best friend. I accomplished this and it led me to drive out to some distant beach with them that had the bigger waves. I surfed for a while but I really can´t handle myself on the big ones (let alone the small ones) and we called it quits after 2 hours. At least I got a little tanning in. Sadly the camera ran out of batteries at the beach and I didnt get the surf pics I would have liked so well.

Later on we got some dinner, watched a local soccer game for a while, and drank a bottle of rum that I was really sick of carrying with me. It was really good stuff and I´ll have to bring a bottle back for Derek. I woke up early this morning w/o a serious hangover and hiked 2 miles with my gear to reach my bus to San Jose at the last second. It was a pretty uneventful trip. I went back today beacsue I wasnt sure hpw far I could get today and I wanted to be here for when Samantha flys in tomorrow. Maybe I could have spent one more day at the beach, but whats the sense in risking being late. Anyways, I met some guys and we´re gonna go get some food. ttyl

Resting Peacefully

It's been a few days since I've been able to do a decent update but I've finally found both the time, a nice air conditioned cafe, and an SD card reader... a rare combination indeed! So, last I left off I was on the beach in Nicaragua... Playa Majagual. Nice place that was. I could definitely have stayed for another week but I of course had to keep working my way South.

So, for my last day there I made it a busy one. That is busy by beach standards where a trip to the store an a nap constitutes a hard days work ;) I started my big day by sleeping in till noon. After that I wandered down to a beach just to the south (Playa Madera) and followed the signs to the Hideout Surf Camp that I had heard so much about. After following a sign down a path off of the wild beach I climbed a cliff and reached the camp's sole building, a dilapetated shack with a view of a surf and a skate ramp. The area was populated by a small crowd of skater/surfers playing the Misfits and Ramones. I had a couple beers with them and headed out since I failed to find lunch there.

After that I went down our beache's sole cantina and found some cerviche, a curry chicken sandwich, and a very rare Coke Light. I met up with a couple that I met the night before, Jerimiah and Michele. He's a programmer but I managed to go the whole day w/o really talking about programming much to his disaproval. Anyways, we went swimming in the ocean, played boche ball at sunset, ate the 2nd biggest papaya I've ever seen (2 gallons big I'd say), watched the movie 'Ants on a Plane', and later on we hatched more turtles that dug their way into the yard. That's a big day in these parts!

Unfortunately I had to travel the next day. I caught a van into town with the afformentioned couple, plus Hilda and Ida (a couple Norwegian girls), and a Swiss/Hungarian couple that I ended up spending the whole travel day with. After town we caught a taxi to the border and crossed on foot. From there I caught another taxi with a ton on peaople crammed inside and rode to Liberia, a big travel hub in the North of Costa Rica. I really wanted to go to Montezuma but it was already 3 and it looked like it could be too late. It was a good thing, because there was a really big festival in town that night. All the stores closed and the whole town took to the street. There was a big horse parade, everyone wore cowboy hats and plad shirts, and there were a lot of ...interesting... food dishes that could be bought on the street. I've never seen so many horses in one place before and I've been to more than a few rodeos. They werent just in the parade, people rode them all night, and would take their food and drink(s) on horseback. I even saw a outdoor discotech just for people on horseback with colored lights, loud music, and unnaturally nimble horses. After that I went down to the bull fight on the edge of town. They built a huge wooden arena and the fans could climb into the middle at any time. Had I a few more drinks I would have been in there too, but the couple were vegetarians and wouldnt go so I had to watch my own back =/ Anyways, it wasn't much of a bull fight. The bull would be let loose and would try to ram the crowd of drunks throwing beer bottles at it. I left after 15 minutes of that and went to bed.

The next day was just the worst kind of travel day. I left early and got into town after dark. From Liberia I rode 4 hours south to Punta Arenas. I walked over 3 miles with all my gear in horrible heat to get to the ferry station and rode that for 1.5 hours. After that I got on a bus and rode for a couple hours to go towards Montezuma. The trouble is, I haven't got a guide book for Costa Rica so not only do I have no idea how far things are apart but I also don't know what hotel I was going to. The bus ended up in Santa Teresa and they kicked me off since I didn't know the name of a hotel or Hostel to go to. On the plus side, they didnt charge me since they felt bad for me I guess. Oh well, I walked a little while in the dark and found a good hostel. That was last night, and today I've got to get out there on the waves since this is a SERIOUS surf town and I havcen't met anyone who isn't here for that. Tomorrow I'm going to start heading towards San Jose to meet Sam on Tuesday but I don't know if I'll get there tomorow night or not. ttyl

Hello Costa Rica!

I had a great time at the beach the last few days... no doubt. I fought my hangover this morning and decided to head south into Costa Rica in search of new vistas and beers. Unfortunately I can´t upload pictures here so this will have to be a brief update. I´m heading to Montezuma in the NW of Costa Rica tomorrow, but tonight I´m staying in the dusty travel hub of Liberia. I´ll do a propper update tomorrow =)

Fresh Off the Beach

I just popped into town to get some supplies and I thought it would be a swell time to give a quick update. Unfortunately my SD card reader isn´t working anymore so I can´t upload any more pictures. I´ll search around town to try and find a replacement but im not optomistic =( I just found out that this place has a mini UBS cable so I guess I´m in luck today but who knows about tomorrow... but back to the beach talk.

The deal is that I´m staying at this cool little spot down on the beach north of town. It´s got maybe 5 houses that each have a few rooms for rent and one house that will cook for you if you pay them. I think I´ve heard a word for that before... the beach there is amazing! Huge waves crash right in front of me and the sound of the surf in the morning is deafening from my bed. Everyone that I´ve met at this beach went there for just `a couple days´ and ended up seeing 5 weeks fly by so it was great fortune for me that I rolled in the day after a big group left and picked up the best room there for $25 a night.

Most people there cook their own meals and then spend the rest of the night drinking and what not so last night I hung out at the home of `mushroom mark´who is so well established that he built a bar/kitchen out of driftwood and entertains there. Actually he just talks endlessly but he´s fairly entertaining so I guess its ok. Also, on the bus ride into town today I ran into a girl who´s also from Moraga, CA! She said that her name is Julia Sakkis and that she´s a friend of my sister. She also mentioned that on the islands in Panama that I´m headed towards (Bocos del Toro) the owner of the most popular bar (Mondo Taitu) is from Orinda. Small world.

This morning I got woken up when Mario was running aroung shouting ´Tortuga´which means turtle. Turns out that baby turtles were popping up out of the sand and we all needed to see it. After the turtles do their thing on the beach at night, the owner of my hotel digs them up and reburries them in the yard so that the locals dont dig them up and eat them. So, the turtles were popping up in the sand filled yard and we helped by digging them out, putting them in buckets of water and helping them to the surf. I got lots of great pictures.

I think that this afternoon I may actually go surfing or maybe just swimming and get some reading done. I paid for 3 nights at this hotel and I think I´m going to regret not doing more. Most importantly though, I need to get a bottle of Flor de Cana, the best rum in the world by most accounts, and some coke for cuba libres on the beach. I met a bunch of other guys staying a few rooms away from myself and they showed me some of the other nearby beaches. The one just north of us is a small one entirely occupied by a walled compound belonging to the richest family in Nicaragua. That means that we get the whole place to ourselved and the sand has been meticulously combed of rubbish. Sweet.

Out to Lunch

Over lunch I decided that this town was full of old people and not so much with backpackers so I need to move on. Too bad... it´s a nice place. Anyways, I´m heading up to a surfing school a few beaches north that supposedly has a cool hostel. If there´s room I´ll stay there but I doubt that it has internet so I may not update for a few days. Sorry Sam =( ttyl

Off to the Beach

I find myself in a nice air conditioned net cafe near the beach, so it´s time to do a more legnthy update. I ended up deciding to stay in Grenada for an extra day so that I could hike the nearby `Volcan Masaya´. I met another gringo yesterday, Robin, who had come up from Costa Rica so that she could get her visa extended. She voulenteers on a Chocolate farm down there with a lot of other gringas. They don´t get paid for their work and in fact they have to pay out $10 a day to stay there. There´s no electricity and they all date the local Ticos. I think they might also be communist. Anyways, she didn´t seem so bad and we met up the next morning to catch a bus out to the volcano.

When we got to the volcano we vowed to hike the 7km from the road to the top and after a lot of sweating and swearing I made it there. Granted, it was one of the shortest volcanos that I´ve ever seen, but it´s also the first I did completely so whatever. The crater at the top has a very dramatic depth and the Spaniards considered it the mouth to hell itself. They put a big cross near the top for good measure but that didn´t stop it from eruping a few years later to wipe out a couple villages. Maybe they just provoked it. It´s been fairly tame for a while now, but last year it spat up some rocks and crushed a couple tourist vans but nobody was hurt somehow. Anyways, it still took a swipe at us with some killer heat but there were some girls selling cold cokes at the top so it didn´t bother me too much. At the bottom of the volcano was a rather large museum on the mountain that had mroe volcano maps and diagrams than I´ve seen in my life. They really went above and beyond. Robin turned out to be interesting in at least one aspect, she knows a lot about my new favorite historical figure, William Walker. Not that he was great in all aspects but he was an American Confederate who tried to conquor Central America with a band of mercenaries and was the president of Nicaragua for a while. He ended up losing a key battle (which is celebrated around here) after he pissed off one of the Vanderbilts who paid for another army of locals and mercs to fight him. Anyways, you should read a little about him... it´s a crazy story.

After the hike I returned to Grenada and wandered around town looking for a nice bar. While searching, Robin and I heard a lot of music and clapping coming from one building so we went in and watched what I´m guessing was a school talent competition for a while. There was some dancing, singing, poetry, and some funky costumes. After that got boring I found a bar with fantastic mojitos (my favorite) and I chatted up some welsh guy who´s sponsoring a local girl to go to university. Charitable fellow. I bought him a beer and headed back to the hostel so I could get to bed early for my ride out of town the next morning. I rode out to San Juan del Sur, the most popular beach town in Nicaragua. Oh, and on the way I got to stop by the lake and take a cool picture of the volcano island that sits in the middle. Some of the people in the van were going there and I was feeling a little jealous till I found out that they were going to hike up it. That thing is way too tall for me. Upon getting to the beach town I got a cheap hotel and started wandering. It´s pretty but seems kinda dead and I think that I´ll try to catch the ferry to a different beach a little ways north where there´s a famous surfing school. Lord knows I need it. The other thing that´s going on in this town is a diving school and if the prices are right I may try to get my certification here. I´m gonna go find some grup so ttyl.

Brief Update

I had a fun day today, but I´m writing from my hostel that doesnt let me upload pictures so I´ll do the real update tomorrow. Today I climbed a volcano and tomorrow I´m traveling to San Juan del Sur, a beach town in southern Nicaragua. Just wanted to say I´m still alive. ttyl