Last night in Paradise

Well, here we have it .. the last night in Costa Rica. I am sitting in a hostel in San Jose preparing to go to bed as I have to get up at 4am to go to the airport.

As I said previously, I lost a lot of my writing of my adventures along the way due to technical difficulties, but I am going to try to recap some of it now. Easier said than done ...

Santa Theresa:
On one of those days following the celebration of Joyce's last night, I decided to spend the day in Mal Pais and Santa Theresa where the beaches are pillow-soft and stretch on for as far as the eye can see. It is also one of the surfing hotspots in Costa Rica so most all of the men were bronze, broad-shouldered and chiseled and most of the women were bikini-perfect. You know, those 20 somethings that make you both envious and pissed off at how perfect they look. It was like walking onto a beach paradise photo magazine shoot or something.

Santa Theresa is where I realized I was truly relaxing as I managed to pass 8 hours doing absolutely nothing and not even noticing how much time had passed. When at home, I don't think I can go 20 minutes without feeling like I should be doing something!

The last days of Montezuma:
I returned to the waterfalls with my SF roommate Jennifer and her boyfriend Walter. This time, I climbed up to the upper falls where locals and traveler's alike can jump 30 feet into a deep, cool pool of water. I didn't do any jumping because me and swimming aren't the best of friends, but I watched many people do it and it looked fun in that "this is really dangereous and stupid" kind of way. The hike alone was pretty treacherous, but I am living to tell about it. Nuff said.

That night, I hung out with Jennifer, Walter and this girl Camille (from LA) at her bungalow. We spent the night talking, drawing and drinking lots and lots of rum. I met Camille at the pool that afternoon and she invited us up to her cush pad for the evening. It was lots of fun to hang out on the porch in hammocks and rocking chairs drawing with one another and getting away from the weekend madness of Montezuma. Oh, and did I mention we were drinking rum? Yum!

Of course, drinking rum until 3am and then getting up at 5am the next morning to take a very very bumpy boat ride across the sea is not such a great idea. Though I wasn't hung over, I think I was still a bit drunk which made the hour+ ride all the more adventurous. I can't say I enjoyed the back-crunching, bone-drenching ride across the Pacific, but it cut 5 hours out of my travel time which was worth it.

On the ride, I met an Isreali named Limor and a Canadian named Michael (who I had been on the bus with to Montezuma). We spent the rest of the day traveling together - which basically meant sitting on the side of the highway for 2 hours in the blistering heat waiting for the bus south to Quepos. We met many locals along the way, including Carla - a stunning 20 year old who was born and raised in this part of Costa Rica and hasn't ever been outside a 100 mile radius of home. She told me all about the dos and don'ts of the town and where to go for ladies night on Tuesday. I had to remind her I wasn't a lady, but then my Spanish is so-so, so I'm not sure what we were really talking about anyway.

Manuel Antonio:
(Okay, so recapping past days of my trip is actually not very fun nor easy to write about, so I'll spare you and cut to the highlights)

Sloths! Okay, I want to come back in another life as a sloth or at least have one as a pet. They're all zen-ninja-yoga-masters and totally cute ta boot. I was hoping to see a sloth stampede, but I suppose that will just have to happen next time.

Beaches! The beaches at the Manuel Antonio nature preserve are, like, the most scenic beaches I have ever been to. Totally lush and jungly and the water is like room temperature. Ahhhh.

Animals! I was going to write about all the stupid people in the park, but we all know about how stupid people are. Instead, I'll tell you that monkeys are cool! And so are iguanas and toucans and crazy big spiders and coatis and agoutis and ... sloths!

Basically, the last three days of my trip were spent on the beach and walking around the jungle. Due to a bus snafu, I wasn't able to visit one of the volcanos in Costa Rica, but that's how it goes. I wouldn't recommend the town of Manuel Antonio to anyone becuase it's basically a tourist trap-craphole of a town, but once inside the park, it's all worth it to get down there.

Okay, that's it for this Very Uninspired Post. I actually wasn't going to write anything about the end of my trip, but figured I might as well touch on a couple things. Apologies for the total lack of inspiration or quality story telling. I'll tell you more in person if you ask. I just don't want to be sitting behind a computer anymore!!