This morning our wake up call happened without any consideration for how we felt at all! We were picked up at the front door of the hotel by a huge tour bus. The roads here are very narrow and I wondered just how this bus was going to get around some of the corners.... Well, it did, although at times it looked very close. It is very sad to see how trashy this part of San Jose is. We obviously have not seen much of it at all, but this part, oh boy its bad! Huge piles of stinking trash/rubbish everywhere. Some places the heaps are burning but mostly it just lays there or blows all over the place when the wind blows. All houses have very high - like 8 - 12 foot fenses around them with razor wire on the top of that... even the yards are fenced in and the cars are all parked behind the fenses. And then we saw this evening, that many people drag out a chair onto the sidewalk - outside the fence, and sit and watch the world go by.........
Even the tin shanties are painted different colors, the wiring would give any inspector a full on heart attack and the kids playing in the street would have serious problems elsewhere...... But here - it all works together to make a vibrant, interesting and very colorful culture. Its great to see so much outside the tourist places that one normally gets to see on vacations. Little scooters buzz all over the place and red taxis are evidently kept very busy. Some benches at the edges of a spot of grass were made from a tile pipe chipped away until just the rounded bottom part was used and stuck on block.... that also worked. Fruit trees are everywhere and they are laden with ripe and ripening fruits of all sorts - some I know and others I wish I did. Papaya, pawpaw, oranges, naartjies, banana - just to name a few. Cant wait to find a market we can wander around in.
And so we sat up high in this airconditioned bus for the two hour drive to Puntarenas, which is on the west coast of Costa Rica - on the northern end. The countryside is lovely, lush green with rolling hills and a fair bit of farming going on.. mostly just smallish farms, it seems. We drove over a good many rivers on a new toll road that cuts a good hour and a half off the trip. We stopped off for breakfast along the way and took a shot at the local meal - well, the choice was a ham and cheese sandwich or the local type food - no brainer. and it was good too! We wandered around the grounds of the resturant and tourist store for a while - they made amazing wooden art - and then headed back to the bus.
The roads at Puntarenas are even narrower than in San Jose! But we made it and boarded the catamaran after buying ourselves some much needed hats with fairly wide brims. And the fun really began... I love being out on the water and the day was just perfect and we found the whole front of the boat unoccupied, so we plonked ourselves down and had a lovely two and a half hour boat ride past other ships, boats - both small and little, with and without sails and between a good many very green and lovely looking islands. All of them had the black sand - its from the volcanos forming most things around here. After going through yet another narrow channel between some islands, there lay Tortuga Island - looking just like a lazy turtle...
The palm trees reached high into the sky while the blue water and white sands almost made me drool! We quickly got off the boat and looked for a good place to swim.. Oh was that water beyond perfect! We floated and played around for a good hour or so, just bobbing around and sometimes being dragged back onto the shore by the incoming tide and current. It was glorious. And then the band started playing again, which meant that lunch was ready. The marinaded raw fish they had given us on the boat just was not enough..... We did taste it, but quickly decided to leave it to the locals! It was literally raw fish floating in something like watered down vinigar, with a bit of parsely. Raw wobbly fish. eeeew. Now we know.
After lunch we lay around or sat under the shade area drinking a beer and listening to the 4 man band play some more. A few of the other tourists got a tad 'plastered' and had a very happy time dancing and cavorting to the music - it was great fun to watch. It was really hot out there and we both got quite red, not too badly though. The island is really beautiful - well, the part we could see.. pure white beach, green elegant palm trees and some other ones that only grew to a certain height and then went out sideways, pretending to be tables, or something. The water really was that beautiful see through blue, but just a bit less so right close to the shoreline. They had recently had a big storm and it pretty much muddied up everything.
After another long boat ride back to the mainland, more music, a long bus ride with a good many snoring people, we are now back at the hotel, had supper, all packed up and ready to head out to the Caribbean coast tomorrow. We wont be on the beach there, but in the jungle. The drive is around 5 hours with a two hour boat ride after that.... Its going to be very interesting. I am not sure about internet contact from there..... we will see.
Love light and Laughter
from two very tired but happy people.
Annie and Frank
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