21 June:
This computer is set up to the Spanish keyboard so I don{t know where most of the punctuation marks are. Forgive me.
I{m in La Fortuna, by a giant active volcano, Volcan Arenal. I'm planning on touring it, but only when it's actually clear so I can see the lava. In the dry season it seems that only 50% of tourists see it, and I'm here in the wet season, so I may have to stick around for a few days.
Friday I did damn near nothing in San Jose, although the previous night I had an interesting evening helping some Canadian homebound surfer wrap her board with clothes, a sleeping bag, and a stolen-from-the-hostel blanket because she had not had time to buy a surf board. And Friday night I met two American women that had just gotten into town, and I showed them a little of San Jose. They'd gone to college, a women's college, together. They're only here a week, which is too bad for them.
Saturday I took a bus to San Carlos AKA Ciudad Quesada, which is a non-tourist town (as in there were no other tourists there at all) that I did, well, pretty much nothing in, except practice my Spanish and find a yarn store (actually a craft store). I stayed in this cellblock of a room, the walls painted light purple (one white), the ceiling this strange blue-green, with orange-yellow trim all around. But it was cool and quiet and nobody bugged me and it was only 2000 colones a night.
However. I am tired of cold water showers. I am about to blow my budget just to get some damn hot water. I can't get myself clean in these damn cold water showers because it's too cold and if you thought it was bad trying to clean the soles of your feet in a regular shower, try doing so in flipflop shower shoes in a freezing cold shower. It reminds me of being in that polar bears swim club at Girl Scout camp where we all ran into the lake at 6 am and clung around each other's shoulders and jumped up and down in a circle screaming to wake up camp--except nobody else is in the shower with me and I don't get the pleasure of disturbing someone's sleep.
Yesterday I went to some hot springs with some trails, etc and saw all kinds of awesome plants and bugs and a few birds. I almost thrust my arm through a spider's web which housed, no lie, a spider with a body the length of my thumb. Why did I almost do that, you ask? Because this is the "green season" and the stone walkway was covered 360 degrees around by green slime and moss. The spider and I are both OK, thanks for the concern.
I saw leafcutter ants carrying off their treasure and those bright blue morpho butterflies, some insect that was boring enough until you got up close to it and then it flew off flashing a bright red belly--almost like a dyed firefly. Then there was our pal the spider, a zillion other little bugs, some butterfly with almost clear wings, etc. It was neat. There were also, on the road there, some big cows that look more like Indian style cows than the ones we have in America, which probably isn't a shock since the cows here came from India.
Today I left San Carlos and took the bus to La Fortuna and wow, is the clear cutting and burning evident when you're driving along. Anyhow, a few days here with some tour of the volcano's national park and then it's on to Monteverde and Santa Elena (nearly one city) where I'll probably spend 4 or 5 or more nights since there is so much to DO there. Then I don't know where I'm going. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the choices and I feel like I'm not going to be able to fill up the time because I won't know where to go and then other times I feel like 27 days is not going to be enough.
No mail to anyone because I can not find any freaking post offices, which isn't a surprise since there isn't really mail service here. Most people don't even know which streets they live on. No, really, everything is done by landmarks.
Amanda
22 June
I meant to include some of this stuff in yesterday's email and I forgot.
Vultures are creepy birds, especially when they are--no lie--circling around you and you are the only big living mammal except for those Indian turned Costa Rican cows for a long distance. Creepy, creepy, creepy.
It is amazing the range of books one will read when alone and backpacking. I almost brought two books with me, and I wish I had, because I finished THE HOUSE OF DIES DREAR on the plane. I exchanged that in my hostels book exchange for HUNGER, some depressingly creepy book by a Norwegian dude about a guy who is starving to death. It chronicles his extreme mood swings. That book got swapped for a book called BACKGROUND TO DANGER, which is a book I would never read normally about espionage. I'm still reading that one.
The night before I left San Jose a Canadian woman in the hostel gave me a book that she hadn't read and didn't want to drag home with her. It had been given to her by a guy from the Caymen Islands who got it from who knows where. I passed it on to an American living in Costa Rica staying where I am. The book? THE BEST OF ROALD DAHL. You may remember him from JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH fame but he is one twisted, sick man when he writes adult stuff. Not sick in the sexual sense but in the evil twisted mind sense. Good stuff, actually.
Last night I happened upon a book published in 1983 called DRIVE IT FOREVER. I read that last night and now have a heck of a lot of respect for my car's engine. No more waiting for change my oil (especially since Mr. Aerospace taught me how to do it myself), I'm changing that oil when I get home. Now I know some new parking and driving habits that will help my engine, and I even know what non-Newtonian oil is. Ooh, look at me, learning all this car stuff. See what I mean about reading books I wouldn't normally read?
Black beans. I swear to God, black beans are like mana from heaven here. This morning my late breakfast was gallo pinto--painted rooster. In other words, fried rice with black beans, a fried egg, fried plaintains (but not the smashed flat and fried in salt way that I like), and a slice of cheese. Fried. At least the meals are really filling so you don't have to eat three fried meals a day but can get away with two or sometimes even one if you have granola bars and snacks. I had pizza for lunch yesterday just to get away from black beans.
Amanda
