Tuesday, January 29, 2013

More Trees Than People

Well, our journey as come to an end. Sort of. As I write this, I am sitting in the house that Jahsiah, Timmy, and I have rented for at least one month. It is a two bedroom, two bath, jungle mansion, more or less, about 2 kilometers into the jungle, off a dirt road, just outside of Puerto Veijo, Limon, Costa Rica. Manzanillo, our desired destination, sits 13 kilometers south down the main road. Mission accomplished. Now for the hard part.

We crossed into Costa Rica after spending a few days on Lake Nicaragua, La Dulce Mar, the largest fresh water lake in Central America, with two huge volcanoes, one still active, jutting out of the middle. (Pictures will soon be up, but alas, my computer has gone on the fritz and the last round of photos uploaded are on said computer, so I am writing on Jahsiah's, as such, please forgive the lack of visuals this post provides.) San Jorge, just outside of Rivas, which was the city known for William Walker's failed attempt at becoming president of Nicaragua (check out the movie Walker, staring Ed Harris, in one of his lesser roles for more information on that little side step in history) is the tiny little town that we stayed in. Because of the lake, there is always constant, very heavy wind blowing in San Jorge, and since most people only visit San Jorge as it is the location to catch the ferry to cross over to the volcano island in the middle of the lake, that does have a little community living on it, the town of San Jorge is windy and desolate. We, due to the dogs and the car, did not take the ferry to the volcano island, but stayed instead in the windswept town for two nights, getting ready for our last border crossing. San Jorge was only about 30 minutes from the Penas Blancas border crossing, the only land route from Nicaragua into Costa Rica, and as such, a very busy border. We got up early, wanting to make sure we had plenty of time to not only cross the border, bueracracy and all, but to arrive in La Fortuna, Costa Rica early enough that evening to find accomodations and then go treat ourselves to the hot springs of Volcan Arenal, as a sort of celebration that we had finally arrived in Costa Rica.

Everything we had read prepared us for Penas Blancas to be the worst bordering crossing in terms of the go here, go there, get this stamped, come back, go back over there, get this stamped, now get this photocopied game, but we found this border crossing to be much less troublesome than either the entering or exiting of Honduras. After a few hours, and one last silly round of having our car fumagated, we were driving in our destination land. Since we wanted to start crossing the country, considerably north of San Jose, we had to stray from the Pan American Highway 1 and enter into lesser traveled roads, which at times were not paved, but after our experience driving to the end of the world in Guatemala, the roads seemed just fine to us. After a few short hours, with a stop for lunch and our first serving of Costa Rican beans and rice, gallo pinto, we found ourselves in the shadow of Arenal, one of the most active volcanoes in the world, with it's last erruption in 2010. I had visited Arenal on a previous trip and had spoiled myself then with a trip to Baldi Hotsprings. The area around Arenal is filled with hot springs, some of them free and only known to locals, still in their natural state, others like Baldi, are natuarlly hot but their apperances are very far from what they once were. Built up with swim up bars, rocks that glow different shades of green and blue, water slides (a new addition since I had last been there) and full spa services, Baldi was our one moment of decadance on this trip.We spent several hours soaking in the warm waters, hoping to catch a glimpse of lava flowing down the side of the 5,000 foot monster looming above us. After relishing in our success, we took a taxi back to the hotel and prepared for our last leg, crossing to the Caribbean.

We enjoyed a good cup of coffee, our first in quite some time since the rest of Mexico and Central America exports all the good stuff back to the states and are left with Nescafe, ate gallo pinto con huevos fritos and hit the road, with our eyes set on landing in Cahuita, a town just north of Manzanillo. We didn't quite make it. Round two of car troubles, which all things considered is amazing how few car complications we had driving a 1999 Yukon with 200,000 miles on it! We ended up staying for two nights in the town of Guapiles. If you're thinking to yourself, "Hmmm, I've had some friends visit Costa Rica but no one has ever been to Guapiles", well, that's because there is no reason to ever go to Guapiles. A city on the Caribbean truck route, Guapiles had only two hotels to chose from, one would be considered a crack motel in the states, and the other was a hotel casino with rooms for over $100 per night. We chose the crack motel. It wasn't so bad, but one night was enough, we hit the mechanic first thing in the morning. Hoping it was going to be a quick fix like in Mexico, where we only had a loose shock mount, we sat in the mechanics, dogs and all, and waited. We soon learned that we needed a part, a part that had to come from San Jose so wouldn't be there till the next morning, and would cost over $200, a bocina delantera, which I still, even after having it replaced, still don't know what it is. But, when the going gets tough, we get another hostel, and a Costa Rican cell phone.

Wendy, the manager of the mechanics, adopted us. She found us a nicer place to stay, so we wouldn't need to return to the crack motel or spend $100 at the casino. She hooked us up with a taxi driver with a pick up so we could get the dogs to the cabinas with us for the night, and on day two of hanging out with the mechanics, she walked me all around town helping me get a local phone so we would be able to get housing once we arrived in Puerto Viejo. Joseu, our mechanic, even bought us each a shot glass as a gift. Again, the hospitality of Central America was more than we bargained for. After two nights in the odd little town of Guapiles, we were finally on the home stretch.

We hit the Caribbean coast and suddenly our objectives changed. Rather trying to get somewhere, we were here. But that brought on the new tasks of looking for housing, linking up with our friend Sergio Ferguson who owns the hostel we are here to help finish, and figuring out what the hell we are doing living in the jungle!

So, we have a house, we've talked with Ferguson, who in addition to working on the hostel, is now also offering tours through his company Manzanillo Adventure Tours, and we've meet some friends in this new home away from home, mission accomplished. We have arrived in a land with more trees than people, and more snakes and spiders, and mosquitos, and monkeys, and birds, well, you get the idea. Now the real journey begins!

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