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| The Early Morning 5am/6am Bus (D.Philpot) |
09:00
Now I am sat on the bus, so my entry here in the journal is very messy, with
the two cooks and one of her sons, heading to the ferry. I discovered the crazy
drunk guy lives near the town of Cabuya, I was just glad he didn't get the bus
as although he is fairly entertaining these bus journeys out here are longer
and few between.
After
a quick burger I hung out with the ladies (cooks) on the ferry and we watched
some Costa Rican TV, that ended up being Maid In Manhattan, so I decided to
bond with the son instead.
23:30
Upon arriving in Puntarenas the ladies left their bags in a hostel under the
care of a friend but I didn't feel comfortable leaving my stuff as well and we
continued shopping around for a little while. We had a good laugh but that was
cut short when we got to the bus stop for Monte Verde (Parada para Monte
Verde), as the only afternoon bus (standard buses are 6am and 2pm only) we were
on time for was bad/broken and so it had left earlier at 1pm instead of 2pm. We
spoke to DL and some locals who eventually arranged a taxi for us all the way
to Monte Verde (roughly a 3/4 hour drive mostly uphill on dirt track roads). I
was sat looking out to sea with the son whilst eating biscuits.
On
the way we drove along the panamerican highway the stretches from Alaska to
Brazil or something crazy like that, and along a minute piece of that I spotted
a Pizza Hut that has a full size t-rex standing outside. Heading uphill from there the taxi ride
became slower and bumpy, complicated by some of the roads being flooded. The taxi driver and the cooks felt like we
were lost though I had a little more faith until I accidently took the wrong
(downward instead of upward) dirt track road at San Luis so we had to take a
fairly long detour around back to this point to go the right way.
When
we eventually got to the town (dirt road up goes to the town, down goes to the
host families and the L's home) the ladies were laughing at me when I was
giving confident directions to the driver in Spanish, and then I spotted ML.
Upon
returning to their (L's) home we rested up and I opened my gifts/parcels from
home, one of which was a rubber toy snake where I did a Spanish 'what is this'
routine before flinging it from the parcel towards the cooks - I can be a
little mean but it was in good spirits and was taken kindly soon after the
initial surprise. I then assisted ML with the water system outside learning a
little about tropical plumbing. We then
sat down for a lovely pesto shrimp dinner and ML then hunted down/chased these
loud crickets that were practically impossible to find in the tall room. DL showed
me Costa Ricas national bird that was out on their porch making a nest and then
I was introduced to my host family.
In my room here I found the following friends joining me:
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| A New Moth (D.Philpot) |
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| Star Wars Room - Yay! (D.Philpot) |
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| Golden Brown Moth (D.Philpot) |
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| A Yellow Moth? (D.Philpot) |
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| Another Cute Critter (D.Philpot) |
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| Underwing (D.Philpot) |
I got to know my host family a little before having my diary writing interrupted by what I
called a mistake of nature - evolution gone wrong in a hideous beetle-moth
creature. I was late told it is an Adult
Ant Lion, little things that create cone-shaped pitfalls in the sand but then
grow up into horrid looking things - muy feo, no me gusta nada!
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| An Adult Ant Lion, Half Moth - Half Beetle That Flies... Filth! (D.Philpot) |