Week 3 – the week off!!! With Julia! yay!

January 5th, 2009 by Zoe Methven

The much anticipated event arrived… JULIA!!!!!!!!!!!

I went to the airport to pick her up and I was very overexcited and babbled far too much to the vague and dis-orientated Julia! Sorry… Anyway… we did our catch up and I got all the gossip as we headed back to our hostel. Slept for 4 hours leaving at 5am to cacth the bus, but not without seeing the San Jose night life ( a lovely visual of a he-she prostitue bending over) to get the bus to head to the caribbean! Pureto Viejo, known as a party town, New Year’s Eve yay!

We got there, found accomodation for 1 night only (the town was full) searched for more accomodation and found a very $$$$ apartment to stay in for new year’s eve ( we decided to treat ourselves but also the only option!)

So then we checked out PV and it was pretty cool, Reggae Beats, shell and cocunut style bracelets, relaxed atmosphere ( due to the walking in time with the reggae beats!) Only, problem was that it was raining a little and the ocean was rough! Julia was v. jetlagged so after dinner and having bumped into people i’d met in San jose we took off to bed early.

Next day we hired bikes and rode down the coast, heading towards the Panama border, we stopped alot along the way so it took us 3 hours to get to Manzanillo (14kms) away. it was a beautiful day and a nice ride, swam in the caribbean sea, which was nice and warm, i must say though… we are spoilt with the beaches in australia, my imagined picture of the caribbean as crystal waters and white sandy beaches has been shattered… it’s actually brown sand, muddy and rough water… ok ok , it’s still the wet season and they are recouperating after a massive storm hit the area 4 weeks ago! Anyway… we rode 28 kms on New Years Eve, needless to say we needed to disco nap when we got back to energize for New Year! We headed out about 9pm and the bars were farily empty – not a good sign, but really people were eating dinner so we pulled up a bar stool next to the cocktail maker and started our night… he took quite a shine to us and after making cocktails for others he would give us the remainder if the drink from the blender – yum! So officially 2 cocktails later we were plastered! not that we realised this until we stod up to find the next bar!!! hmm…. we found our place for the night ’stanford’s{ – because we thought Fluer would like it! there was very funky music playing and a good crowd. At midnight 5 drummers arrived and started playing the coolest beats and it was all very exciting and alcohol fuelled fun! SO… HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!

so, there was a serious recovery day… checkout was at 12pm ( we had found yet another hotel for the next night) i woke up wondering what the time was (where was my watch??) 11:55!!!! packing up was interesting!

the next day (after New Year’s Day) went to Cahuita National Park on a recommendation from the crazy guy we met at the hotel… and walked for 7 kms around the penninsula.. we wanted to go further but it was closed due to clean up needed after the big storm that had hit. We saw loads of monkeys, sloths, blue butterflies, it was great!

Next day we decided not to go into Panama but to go north to Tortuguero, only accessible by boat or plane. so we sat on a small (20 person boat) going up through the canals towards tortuguero. Completely different scenery… lush rainforst (6000mmm of rainfall a year) we were lucky and got a rainfree day! We canoed through the canals the next day on another rain free day and saw lots of wildlife (or life wild as Julia liked to call it at 5:30 am!) after the tour we did see a toucan, a basilisk and a 3 iguana’s just sitting in the cafe! All lovely. Today we left there to return to San Jose, left in the middle of a down pour… we were supplied with bright blue raincoats by the boat driver and it was an amusing sight 3 tourists, 17 locals in bright blue raincoats on a small boat in torrential rain I wanted a photo but would’ve ruined my camera… anyway… got back to San Jose after a boat, 2 buses and a taxi! phew… we start our next project tomorrow… no electricity…. in somewhere called Samara… or Buena Vista ( it keeps changing! Plan T here we come!

xxx