Blog 14 - It's Still Raining

From La Fortuna, we took a bus to the capital city of San Jose.  The journey should have taken us 4 and a half hours, but due to a huge traffic jam it ended up taking us 6 and a half.  This meant that when we arrived, we were STARVING, and consequently I made the mistake of suggesting we eat in the very first place we saw, as I “just couldn’t go on anymore”.  It was a KFC and a pretty horrible one at that.  Ten pieces (between us) of greasy, grisly chicken later, we walked the two miles uphill to the  hostel we’d booked, feeling more and more nauseous with every step.  We did witness an amazing sunset while on the bus though, which made it more bearable.

Castle Tam hostel was pretty weird – I wouldn’t recommend staying there.  It was decorated in a “London theme”, with each of the rooms having a different tube line painted on the door.  It was also FREEZING cold and the window to our room wouldn’t shut.  There were rules everywhere you looked – on the walls, the fridges, the doors.  A couple of examples: On the bathroom mirror – “Do not leave your bathroom items in the bathroom overnight.  Any items found here in the morning will be destroyed.”  Bit unnecessary, we thought.  On the fridge – “Alcohol may be stored in the fridge.  However, if alcohol is not removed by 9am it will be thrown out.”  Funny how the bathroom items get destroyed, but the alcohol does not….  

These clocks were in the lobby area.  Nick thought it was mega lols, so took a photo.

Anyway, we were looking forward to the “best hostel breakfast ever”, as stated by numerous visitors on Hostelworld.  It turned out to be a giant pancake – the American kind, not the delicious English/possibly French ones we have on Pancake Day with lemon and sugar.  Also, there was nowhere to sit and eat breakfast, just a teeny tiny desk in the kitchen where the two of us plus the cook crammed round (all of our knees touching) and ate in silence.  All very strange.  Before we left though, we were treated to a HOT SHOWER!!  This was our first since leaving New York 6 weeks ago, so it was reason to celebrate indeed.

A pretty flower in La Fortuna

We had no desire to hang around in San Jose as it’s pretty much just full of shopping malls and office blocks, and we are nature-loving hippy traveller types now so we have no love for such cosmopolitan surroundings.  So, we took a bus to Puerto Viejo: a small surfer town on the Caribbean coast.  It’s a cool place, and it would have been good to spend a few days here on the beach sunning ourselves, if it had not been raining, as it had been throughout our whole time in Costa Rica.  We stayed in a nice little cabina-type hostel for a couple of nights and as our money was dwindling away rapidly, we cooked all our meals in the kitchen on site. 

I believe I have come a long way since the beginning of this trip, when at first I would not even entertain the idea of eating anything that had been prepared in a hostel kitchen, as let’s face it, they are always really dirty, no-one washes anything properly and as the plates, cutlery and cooking equipment do not belong to me, basically I don’t trust them. However, I've persevered and can now eat pretty much anything off a surface that hasn't seen a sponge this decade.  And I've only thrown up once so far…..Hurrah! 

A lizard

So, on we went across the border to Panama.  We’d arranged a Workaway placement from 15^th December lasting a month, in a small hotel on Isla Colon, Bocas del Toro.  This border crossing was the most interesting of all.  I’ll let Nick tell you all about it in the next installment as I’m very tired due to not having a siesta today.

P.S. Apologies for the random pictures again.  We don’t have any pictures that go with this bit of the trip, so instead you’re treated to some that don’t really make sense with what you’re reading.  Also, as there are a lot of lizards i n the part of the world, I’ve decided that the next couple of entries will include a picture of a lizard.  Because we have about 100 of them.