I woke up at 4:30 am Saturday and my host mom took me and two of my friends to the bus station in San Jose to catch the 6 am bus to Puerto Viejo. We got to Puerto Viejo about 10:30, only to find out that the next direct bus we could get back to San Jose was on Sunday at 4 pm. We wanted to leave by at least 11, so we already weren't happy. We checked into our hostel (which we were going to sleep in hammocks), and began looking for bikes to rent to ride to the next beach where all of our friends were that had arrived earlier. We were unsuccessful in our quest. At this point, we decided to eat, and then sit on the beach where we were at, which wasn't very good for swimming because of all of the rocks. This put us all in a bad mood. I pitched the idea that we see if should get a direct ticket back on the 4 pm that afternoon, which they had none availble. After debating it, we decided that we weren't that excited to spend the night there for various reasons, so we decided to take a gamble and get a bus to a town about an hour away and hope for tickets to San Jose from there. We were successful. Moral of the story, we spent 5 hours in Puerto Viejo, 1 hour on the beach, and 4 hours wandering around trying to find bikes and bus tickets. But today was a great Sunday, and I am sure that the other two are excited to be here today, as well.
Also, today in Costa Rica were the elections of their new President. Voter turnout in Costa Rica is phenomenal, and it is a pretty exciting time for them. There were cars honking in celebration all day and the roads were packed. It was kind of neat to see the excitement compared to the US on an election day.
Check out the pics from the weekend.
The beach we were on. The rocks made it hard to find places to swim, but they made calm little pools away from the waves, which were breaking farther out. It looked like something from the movie Castaway, and was actually pretty cool looking.
Taken from a trail just off the beach. The beach you see is not sand...it is rock.
There were some neat spots where there were pools of water with fish in them, many of which you would find in a saltwater fish tank in the states. Can you spot the fish in this picture?
For my agriculture fix, I snagged a photo of these banana trees. What you can't see is the blue bags that are over the bananas to protect them from insects so they look nice for the Americans that buy them. The bananas that Costa Ricans eat are actually extremely small, and probably not much longer than your middle finger.
This is a photo of the school were the elections were taking place in our town. People of every age and background were there casting their ballot...a true example of what it should be like in a democracy as people take advantage of their right to have a say in their government.
Pura Vida,
Billy
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