Greetings, all!
I’ve just returned from my first solo excursion. It was such a blast!! I absolutely love traveling alone—I meet tons of interesting people that way, and plus, now I have friends to visit in
I left Friday morning to go to Manuel Antonio, one of the national parks located about five hours south of Sámara. We passed through
My hotel in Manuel Antonio was spartan, and I mean spartan. A room with four twin beds (?) and a plain bathroom. The shower vacillated between gouting water and stubbornly refusing to release it. A strange invasion of tiny little ants took place in the sink at some point, and I found out that the cheap plaster walls were not at all suitable to use as a bottle opener. (More on that later…) But you know what? I had it all to myself, and that was tremendously fantastic. Plus there was a long covered veranda/porch outside the room with plastic rocking chairs. The absolute best part about the whole thing was that it was two minutes to the beach and damn near within the park itself—I honestly felt like I was in a jungle. In fact, after I’d scoped out the beach when I first got there, I went to the souvenir shop next door and bought some gifts, some ice cream, and a wonderful Mexican magazine called Travesías: inspiración para viajeros (“Journeys: inspiration for travelers”) and then sat on the porch and watched the tropical downpour while I had my ice-cream dinner. Then I read a few articles—learned tons of fun new words relating to travel, very useful stuff—and wrote the beginning of what I hope will be a short story about a guy who finds himself stranded in the middle of a tropical jungle in a terrible storm. I was so inspired by my surroundings that I just started writing without having any idea at all of where it will go. Sometimes life is better that way, isn’t it?
At the gift shop I’d found out that there was a restaurant/bar in the nearby town that had live salsa music on Fridays, so you know where I went that night! Yup. Found a guy who was also there on his own and asked if he wanted to have dinner with me. Nice guy from
After breakfast the next morning—wherein I met a nice Norwiegan couple who sort of knew a Norwiegan girl I’d known in my university days—I went to the national park. It was insanely tropical and verdant and utterly beautiful, even with all the tourists. I’m sure I’ll be torturing any masochists out there who want to see a billion pictures of the park later on, but for now, I’ll just say that an Indiana Jones movie could have been filmed there. Met a nice couple from
After a shower, a nap, and a new, dry set of clothes, I went to the bus stop to wait around to see if one would show up. To my utter surprise and joy, guess who drove by and then stopped for me? Steve and Jan, my new friends from
I walked around Quepos a bit to check it out. One of the street vendors recognized me from the previous night at the bar—“Puede bailar muy bien!” (“you can really dance!”)—and we chatted for a bit before I continued my roving. To my great relief, I found flúido para lensos de contactos in the pharmacy, and to my great joy, I found a bottle of Leffe Belgian blond beer in the Super-Más grocery store!! I squeaked when I saw it on the shelf. And it was only 1,000 colónes! ($2)
Armed with the beer, my favorite brand of mixed-tropical-fruit juice, dark-chocolate-covered macadamian nuts, and a banana, I went to the bus station to wait for the next one to Manuel Antonio. A deaf-mute guy tried to talk to me in a combination of Costa Rican sign language and mime expressions. Most entertaining, actually. The woman next to me was part of the three-way conversation; we had fun figuring out what he was saying. Then on the bus I met a guy from
Got back to the lovely porch/veranda and settled in a for a comfy night of reading Travesías and having another odd dinner. My stomach sank a bit when I realized that the bottle required an opener. Dammit! I thought, and started looking for something I could use. As previously mentioned, the wall didn’t work. I was determined to get at that Belgian beer—by far the best cerveza I’ve found since I got here. Finally figured out that the only thing in the room that was durable enough to do the trick was the metal latch in the doorway where the bolt locks in. It took some jiggling on my part, but I got it open! And with a minimum of sprayage. (Though it did shoot a surprising distance onto the porch.) Settled back in with my beer in my hand until one of the huge flying bugs got into my hair one too many times, at which point I squished the damn thing under my sandal (again) and retreated to the dimly-lit interior. (The outside light was three times brighter than the inside one. Ticos don’t go for high-wattage bulbs…) Washed more ants down the sink, finished the beer, read a really interesting article about volcanoes in
Got on the InterBus at the crack of dawn today, and guess what? Lauren—my British friend—was back! We had a nice time all the way to Mi Finca (got to be the interpreter again), at which point I changed buses and got onto the one for Sámara. The only other two people on the bus were German, so guess what? Yup. I just love that I get to speak German around here. And the best part was, they had to ask where I was from because they couldn’t tell I was American. I got really excited when they told me that my accent was so minimal that they couldn’t figure out where I was from. Yet another cool day. And maybe I’ll visit Lauren across the pond someday…I hope she comes to
Well, that about sums up my weekend! It was really fun to travel alone, and being able to do so certainly validates all that time I spent teaching myself Spanish. (And the 60+ hours of class-time I’ve put in here…) I am really, really enjoying this trip. Can’t think of anything better I could have done with my tax return!
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