Hey
So after we arrived in Gracias, we did the usual, get a Chinese, sit on the internet in Guancascos, hang out with Holly and Lena. The following morning Mercedes wanted us back super early to paint the ‘new’ school. Yeah, we’d moved building again to another school, a REAL school this time. We now had a few of the rooms from the public school in San Juan, we painted them up (using my paint, Mercedes owes me money for that, I was going to return it and I am now skint...again) and decorated them with school related stuff... and now they look really good!! It was a lot of effort, I lost my only pair of jeans to DIY damage in the process, but it was worth it :)
I also returned to a letter from my cousin Tricia (HAPPY BIRTHDAY BY THE WAY 17 you big babe! (belated now, I apologise, the internet has not been kind to me of late...) and THE SAME TO STEPHY (though I can’t say you’re 17...) but happy birthday anyway, I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you, I wish I could have been, but I hope you had a really great day, both of you, regardless of the dark EMPTY feeling you felt knowing I wasn’t there ;) teehee. Happy birthdays!)...
...and a package from mum! Just a little one though, it had a new sleeping bag liner in it (it got stolen before Christmas when we were living in the hotel in San Juan...) and A MEMORY STICK full of TV programmes, a couple of movies, and some photographs. The photos were really lovely, there were some from my fundraising ceilidh (all the way back in March, almost a year ago now!), some from the sponsored walk up Conic Hill (thanks guys...and apologies again for my mashed up ankle at the time that stopped me from getting right to the top) and some other classics from the past few years...
At the school, we met a little girl from Miami, and her brother (Jessica [8] and Tony [10]) who were hilarious, and like little white versions of ALBERT from Roatan...their accents just made me laugh soooo much haha... and they were typical little American kids...obsessed with TV programmes and cringeworthy phrases such as ‘awww COME ON!?’. I have mixed feelings towards them, as is clear...
That weekend, we went to Gracias again, did the usual, and on Saturday, we planned to head up the mountain to some of the American teacher’s house, near the school that Holly and Lena work in. The girls went early because I had some stuff to do on the internet, and I went up the mountain a little later by moto-taxi, to the school. The guy told me I had to get off there because the wheels were getting damaged by the ground... and naive little Jen forgot that 8 minutes in a car was about half an hour walking... and got out. I then realised I had a half hour walk from the school to the girls’ house ahead of me in the dark, armed with a laptop bag, and a plastic bag full of crisps, cookies, snickers and leftover Chinese...
I stumbled around in the dark on my way up the terrible rocky ground of the mountain, panic slowly growing...as I’d already phoned Holly who was giving it all ‘just WALLLLKKK’ and I was like ‘NO I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE I AM GOINNNNGGG AND I CAN’T SEE A THINGGGG...’ and eventually I persuaded her to send Emma and one of the teachers, Sarah, to my rescue in another little moto-taxi. It was so dark I could barely see my hand in front of my face, so there was hardly going to be a chance of me seeing the massive rocks at my feet without my contacts in, and I ended up BOOTING one so hard I cut my toe and broke my big toe nail (all have to ‘awww’ in sympathy of poor Jen).
EVENTUALLY they arrived, and I jumped in, soooo tense and sad and we got to their house. I was greeted by homemade pizza fresh out the oven, which really helped me feel a bit better :) I put on the rice to heat and we talked about music for ages. Our original plan had been to watch the 3 Bourne movies in succession, but that fell through to the cause of new music mwahahaha...
Jackie made brownies for us (and maaaaan they were good) which vanished fast, and we decided to made another DOUBLE batch to satisfy extra sugar cravings! We had camomile tea and talked about the Villa Verde scandals (the school they all work in) which i reckon would bore you so I’m not going to share them...
The next day we got up and had pancakes and fruit salad! We took a little stroll to a nearby stream just 3 minutes walk from the girls’ house, it was so tranquil and picturesque (PICTURE SKEW). We returned to the house where LAURA COLLINS (The partner of Laura and Renske from La Union) just appeared at the house (La Union is about 3 hours from Gracias) with her dad! They only hung about for long enough for her dad to get a photo of us all together, and then they were away up the mountain :)
We headed back to San Juan, as it was a Sunday, to a house full of dirty dishes, which Emma and I take turns with every night. Nobody else in the family washes their dishes so we have to wash for 7 people every meal time... :(
That night there appeared to be no dinner on the go, so I had to spend my dwindling funds on pasta...The only food available was simply refried beans...and nothing else. So I watched Emma shovelling that down and realised I would never be able to stomach it if SHE could hardly do that...so I resorted to buying some pasta. I also had to donate my bed to Nena’s family and her children, as they were too late to get back to Gracias that night. I always feel truly happy and content to return to our home here in San Juan after such a terribly boring and hostile weekend in Gracias (PFFTTTT).
...And we were up the next morning at 6.30 for ‘school’.
The only way to put the last week of school was ‘a farce’.
No need to go into the ins and outs, but basically it was the most disorganised, boring, unfulfilling, de-motivating and pointless institutions ever known to man. We had 3 students between the 2 of us, and we had no resources... I don’t even want to talk about it, but every day I returned in a HORRIBLE mood and tried so hard to stop myself crying all the way through ‘class’.
I left at 11am with Emma one day, to go and get lunch for everyone and cook it... I got pork, and there was some rice in the house, so we were going to eat that. I thought that I had messed up the rice so spectacularly, so I called Andrea to let her know to pick up more if that was what they wanted, cos I was going to resort to pasta again, for me and Emma to eat with our pork.
To cut a long story short, they thought I was going to buy enough pasta for 7 people and cook it in anticipation of their return...which I didn’t do, because that wasn’t how I thought it had been agreed. They returned to some AWESOME fried pork (seriously good, not even kidding) but no pasta, and Mercedes had a fit. She screamed at Emma and basically we thought that it was make or break at that point...we planned our escape route from this placement in San Juan, should we have felt it necessary... and went to sleep.
Thursday 4th February, we had informed Project Trust of how bad we felt the situation was becoming, and after a lot of deliberation, said that we would stay here until the official start of school the following Monday, to see if it would improve at all, if not, we were going to Gracias to try and get a placement in one of the other bilingual schools located there.
By Friday we were supposed to have received our allowances...overdue for 3 months, and GUESS WHAT!!! We didn’t get them.
Holly and Lena, for the first time, were coming to see our home in San Juan. We didn’t know if we would go through with this, what with all our tension...but Saturday came, and the girls arrived. Mercedes stopped us from doing the dishes that day (even if just for appearances sake, it was still nice), and the 4 of us went a big walk up to the beautiful stream we found one day when we were handing out leaflets for the school last month. We sat by the stream, and we walked up through the coffee plantations, and talked for hours about what we were going through and what the girls thought of it. They, like me, agreed that we shouldn’t be dealing with it, and thought it was time to take action. The plan was set, we would wait and see how the following week of school panned out, after being informed we would be getting a schedule and resource books...this was the final straw, and we agreed on it.
Aside from our San Juan struggles, we had a really nice lunch that day, pork, rice, boiled potatoes and beans, it was delicious! We had our walk around San Juan, and we returned home that evening, full of resolution to lose weight in this tortilla forsaken country...and the girls told me about ‘tribal dancing’ ...basically put on some music with a really strong beat, good bass and sort of tribal style (MIA for example) and then just dance like a loony for an hour and you work up such a sweat and like stretch and tone and stuff and it reeeeeeally worked! It’s kinda my evening ritual, it also helps us waste an hour of the afternoon in San Juan when there is nothing else to do!
On Sunday we all decided to walk up the man road leading to the near town (hour car drive)to La Esperanza. On the road there is a gate leading to natural pools, and Mercedes told us it was about a 15 minute walk towards Esperanza and we would come to it.
But no, it turned out to be about an hour and a half walk to the frigging pools... it was a case of “it’s okay, it’ll be around this corner....or the next one...no, no, it’ll definitely be around the next corner...wait, I think I can see it! Oh maybe not, that’s just someone’s house...” and by the time we finally got there, we didn’t even believe it was the right place! ...but it was :)
We went down to the pools and it was just the 4 of us, but some Honduran guys were there too, they had brought rice and chicken and tortillas and coke, so they gave us some lunch which was nice! Then we left the pools for the hour and a half trek back to the house. I wanted to hitch but the girls wanted to hang out in the sun...so that’s what we did, I was so burnt when I got back, it was like walking through the desert in the midday sun, just one really long road through the mountains!
The girls left and we braced ourselves for school the following day...the first real day of real school in a real project...
....
Okay so to explain the past few weeks of school...
We now have timetables. I teach grammar or maths first period to grade 5, I was supposed to teach English to one student but she left, so I now have a free period 2, then I teach spelling to grade 1 and 2, then it’s snack...i take the babies for half an hour, then get my snack after that, then I teach grammar to grade 1 and 2, and then spelling to grade 5. Then it’s lunch time. I have a free after lunch and then I teach maths to grade 5.
We start school at about 7.15, whereas for the first week it started at 7, so I was up at half 5 every morning so we could leave the house in time to be there at 6.45... luckily Mercedes changed that to a bit later so now I get up at 6am :)
In kinder there are 5 kids...Magdalena, Scarleth, Karen, Brayan and Milton. They’re a nightmare, but pretty cute all the same J
In grade 1 we have Jeffry.
In grade 2 we have Milton, who is taught at the same time as Jeffry.
In grade 5 we have Lizbeth...and occasionally Ernesto (Mercedes son) if he feels generous enough to grace us with his presence...pffft.
So yeah, 9 pupils, and like 5 teachers? A bit ridiculous. I can deal with it, we had almost double the number of pupils at the start, but suddenly some rumours started being spread around San Juan, so now the campisinos have left the school. (campisinos are the Honduran ruffians)
These rumours are along the lines of...
1) Mercedes was previously renting a different building to house the school, and the landlord claims that Mercedes wont pay her rent, and threatened to kill her. Mercedes then told us ‘If I was going to kill her, I wouldn’t have told her, would I?’
2) When Emma and I lived in the hotel, there was some creep who constantly annoyed us, so we politely told him to get stuffed and leave us alone, and about 2 months later he now claims to be about to shut down the school because he doesn’t like us.
3) The woman who owns the paint shop in San Juan has been spreading the rumour that Emma and I are stealing the local children and sending them to America with us. WE DONT EVEN COME FROM AMERICA YOU RACIST.
But anyway, that’s what we’re at right now... I’m just trying to blank it out to be honest, there is no need for me to get all caught up in it, Mercedes doesn’t care too much so I’m not going to either. It’s just so frustrating, it feels like the locals don’t want us in their community, and that is a really horrible feeling...it feels racist.
We’ll take a break for now
Love, Jen xxx
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Thursday, 11 February 2010
Costa Bombbbbaa Part 2
Hey again.
Okay so I’d just purchased probably the best $9 Subway I’d ever eaten, and we began our walk back to the hostel. When we arrived, I met two older women from London (I mean around late 50s), the elder one called Elsie, with a chubby red cheeked face :)
At this point I was trying to negotiate with Sean using the free internet where we were going to meet him, as he was currently in San Jose also, but planning was getting difficult, as neither of us had working phones in Costa Rica.
After that, Joan, Aron, Emma and I sat for a while discussing near death experiences, animal attacks and that type of thing, which was very interesting when Joan had been a surf instructor for a very long time...and Aron trained horses!
Then the two of them went to bed, they had early plans for the morning. Emma and I were going to follow suit, we chatted for a bit and were literally about to walk out when a guy came to our table and was like ‘can I sit here?’ and started up a conversation. This man turned out to be called John, and he was very confident and definitely the creator of the ‘not so early’ night which soon followed! Another bunch of Americans came to our table, some guy called David from Minnesota and 3 guys from Milwaukee – Dustin, Kent and Kevan.
Outside on the balcony, we were soon to discover, was ‘THE PARTY TABLE’. This consisted of Alice the birthday girl, a bunch of random people and 2 particularly camp guys. I commented on Nick, one of the camp guys, to Dustin, who continued to misuse my phrase...by saying ‘camp as the Queen’s tent’. Bless...
Elsie and Nick came to join our table (the NEW AND IMPROVED party table) to play a game which John suggested, called Preferences... it was HILARIOUS with Elsie involved...that woman was definitely not shy!! She was the source of the most laughter for the night, and in the end, we ended up getting chucked out the bar for being too noisy!
We moved down to the pool area for a while and chatted in a group of about 20...eventually the groups separated to different areas and I hung out with Alice the birthday girl, Kevan, Nick the Queen’s tenter, and some random German bloke. We played truth or dare using an app on Nick’s iPhone, the best of which involved me wearing a hat made out of toilet paper, having to jump in the pool fully clothed, and some bloke had to make his underwear solely from toilet roll! The party soon ended as I was practically dying from hypothermia from jumping in the pool fully clothed (luckily I wasn’t the only one who had to do that though haha...) so we headed to bed.
The following day, we met up with Kent, Kevan and Dustin to move over to the Costa Rica Backpackers Hostel about 20 minutes away. They intended to go up a volcano at some point over the next few days so we decided to tag along, it’s all about saving the money, taxis are a lot cheaper in a group!
We walked to the new hostel which looked pretty blissful also, but was a bit big, making it harder to meet new people. After my negotiations with Sean the other night, we concluded that he would meet us at this particular hostel at some point that day. Meanwhile, we dropped off our stuff, and decided to head back to the market, then the supermarket. The hostel had a communal kitchen, so Kevan and I were crowned chefs for the evening and decided to feed our group! We bought pasta, chicken, tomato sauce and other such ingredients...and we cooked the most awesome chicken and tomato pasta ever known to man. I say ‘we’, I mean ‘kevan cut the chicken and I did everything else’, it was awesome. We added tabasco to the frying pan of chicken which was definitely a GOOD MOVE.
Kent had brought a load of disposable cameras with him, so he took a few photographs (we’ve got his facebook so I’m going to steal his photos haha...) of the pasta! There was a little pasta left over (no sauce) so we left that on the counter in a big pot for Sean to get when he arrived, and I turned round in my seat at one point to see SOME MAN EATING MY PASTA WITH BARBEQUE SAUCE, WITHOUT ASKING!!!! Let’s say I was a very angry person and we’ll leave it at that.
We decided to resort to the classic game of Kings again while we waited for Sean, and when he arrived he joined in with us :) we had to go to the shop again to stock up which was hilarious, us all trotting down the main road in San Jose to the AM-PM shop. Good times.
Me and Kevan were sitting on one of the 2 man hammocks and Sean came and sat on it with us...that is until it broke! Hahaha...
We all moved to some seats on the grass near the others, and listened to our new dorm mates telling us stories. They were two guys from Israel, and they had some really interesting stories. Ignorance, I know, but I found out that they go straight from school into the army in Israel, where they stay for 3 years, then they get a year out to travel and THEN they head to further education! I had no idea! We talked a lot about politics and modern war and so on...really fascinating stuff. And then we all went to sleep.
The following day, Sean decided he didn’t want to go up the volcano with us and instead wanted to travel on to Panama...so Emma, Kevan, Kent, Dustin, Sean and I left the hostel and walked to the bus stop. We left Sean part way there, and reached the bus station. We took a bus from San Jose to Alejuela, and unfortunately missed the rare bus to Poas from there, so we took a taxi to the town the volcano was in. There were 5 of us in a 4 seater taxi and I was the one to lie across everyone on the back seat. Emma is smaller than me for goodness sake but it was still a good laugh!
We drove for about half an hour to Poas, then a little bit up the mountain to a small bar/mountain shack place called Lo Que Tu Quieres. We had previously purchase long French loaves, salami, cheese, sandwich spread, starfruits, carrots and beverages of course, so we dragged our stash to an area of open grass in front of the mountain shack. The boys decided to set up their tents there, Emma and I, however, went for the better option of a room, with a REAL BED, real covers, real pillows and a real door. The expert camping option I would say. It was a good decision, I wanted a good night’s sleep before clambering up the volcano the next day...
So that evening, we spotted a few HUGE moths, about the span of my hand (and I have big hands)! Jose, the man who owned the place, gave us a huge discount on the camping land and the room, gave us free shots and ice cream and banana and hot chocolate! He helped us gather wood for the best campfire in the world, and Kent had a great time with the machete!
We spent the evening around the campfire, relighting and rebuilding it as it grew old...we could see every single star in the sky, and I saw some unbelievably amazing shooting stars, one of which lasted about 5 seconds and had a huge tail across the sky. We watched the stars rotating around our heads, we played preferences IN SPANISH with jose, which was a good laugh too, and we heard about the tiger cub that lived on the mountain near the shack. We talked more about religion, we talked about our take on the creation of the earth and universe, we talked about what we think happens when we die, and we talked about life on other planets....Kevan was ‘a jerk of all trades’ as he called himself, and reminded me a lot of Stephen (no offence intended there mate haha). He knew a lot about science and astronomy and it was really interesting listening to some theories which had NEVER entered my head! The fire grew old and turned into golden orange embers burning on the grass, and we decided it was time to retire :)
The next day, we got up early and packed our stuff to get ready to walk up the volcano! Jose said we could leave our stuff in Emma and my room while we went up and we could collect it on the way down. We made the last sandwich and got ourselves organised for the 5km walk from the hostel to the entrance of the volcano grounds.
We began our trek, staring out over what looked like the whole of Costa Rica...and got pretty exhausted after about 20 minutes of walking uphill! I spotted a white people carrier bus coming up behind us and hailed it, though the guy wanted $2 each to take us to the gate, even though he was already going there with his empty bus! We decided to reject that idea and he drove off...only to remain hidden around the next corner waiting for us! We hopped in and agreed to the $1 each fee. He offered to take us IN to the volcano, instead of paying the $7 each entry fee, as long as we gave him a donation and hid under the seats of his van. We obliged, and paid him $4 total, so $1 transport and $3 entry fee! SAAAVEEEE!
So yeah, there we were, the 5 fully grown adults hiding under the seats of a minivan. Thank goodness the thing was clean...!
We squeezed out from under the seats ( I recall my exit from that location was the most graceful thing anyone had ever seen, like a Bambi on ice...) and started our walk to the crater!
We, for some reason, decided to take this ‘walk’ at full speed and I thought my lungs were going to either explode or cave in...My throat was definitely seizing up, but it was a HEALTHY kind of pain...it felt fulfilling! We reached the Laguna of Volcano Poas, and were a mixture of impressed and irritated. It was an incredible sight, a natural wonder, but it was SO FAR AWAY! The volcano park was really tourist focussed, and it was so built up and manufactured... I wanted natural, I wanted to BE ON THE EDGE of the Laguna, not looking at it through some frigging binoculars :/ ...but that still couldn’t take away from how truly stunning it was...
We continued our full speed march to the crater and were disappointed for a long time...and then amazed for 5 seconds, and then disappointed again. The top was completely clouded over, and for a VERY BRIEF 5 seconds, the clouds shifted, so we took a few snapshots, and then the cover was back...but yet again I am just so impressed and humbled by the beauty and existence of such an incredible thing that I don’t mind seeing it for such a short time, the image of the smoking crater will not be erased from my memory!
We began our descent from the volcano, and instead of taking the 5km winding road back to the mountain shack, we decided to take a vertical path straight through the fields...that was fun! We got back and had beans, egg and corn tortillas, and grabbed the bus back to Poas town, and I slept on the journey. I also slept on the journey to Alejuela too!
We arrived back in San Jose and the boys decided they were going to begin their travels to Nicaragua that night, so we said our farewells and headed back to Hostel Pangea for our final night of luxury!
We arrived, exhausted, and realised we had to do a LOT of planning to make sure we had enough funds to bring us back to Honduras...considering my debit card hadn’t been working the entire time we were in Costa Rica, I had to borrow money from Emma...luckily she had enough, until now... we were really scrimping and saving to make sure we had enough (our dorm mate for the night gave us a packet of stale cornflakes which we took most gratefully...saved us having to spend ANY money on food for our travels back. We made our money plans, and the internet had stopped working in Pangea so we decided to get our first and only early night! (After an absolutely FREEZING shower...)
We woke up the following morning at 6.30am, and went to reception where the man told us that SEAN had stayed the night. we were pretty gutted to have missed him, I had an email waiting from him that I couldn’t read the night before, when the internet had broken down, so that was probably what he was going to say! We were just about to leave when Sean appeared out of the corridor beside us (at 6.30am) wearing a pair of swimming trunks and a shirt.
He then proceeded to tell us that he had been watching some street dancers downtown in San Jose before heading for the Panama bus, when some guy grabbed his backpack from leaning against his leg and ran! Sean followed but 2 guys came out of nowhere after he caught the guy, so he decided to let it go... so the reason he had just a pair of swimming trunks, a shirt, his passport and a debit card are because they are the only things he had on his person at the time!
We had to depart pretty quickly after hearing this in order to catch our bus, but it was still a massive shame, he had everything in that backpack, almost nothing had been left in his house on Roatan, so he really lost a lot that day :(
We said a quick farewell and headed for the bus stop...the ride to Nicaragua was pretty long. We arrived in Managua and checked into a different, horrible, much cheaper hostel where we met Eric and Chris, two guys from America who were also travelling around Central America. We went for a bit to eat at the same eatery as we had on our journey TO Costa Rica, and then sat watching a documentary about elephantitis and discussing our future plans. Eric was a wild firefighter (forest firefighter) and aspired to be a librarian upon his return to the states. Chris had studied creative writing and was a waiter (yes waiter, not a typo) until he decided to go travelling to surf!
The next morning he was on his way to El Salvador with Tica bus so we got up early and walked to the station with him. We got on our respective buses, ours was stuck in a million traffic jams between Tegucigalpa and San Pedro...so it took us ages to get home! We got to Damaris’s house again, and briefly met Mercedes’ mother and father...and then had egg and bean tortillas again (staple diet). We went to sleep.
The following day, on mercedes’ advice, we went to the immigration office, to find out WE DIDNT NEED TO GO THERE at all... I spoke to fraudsquad, my card was sorted out, and we lifted money at the ATM in the bus terminal...major weight lifted from us there!
We got a direct bus to Gracias...which BROKE DOWN midway between Santa Rosa and Gracias (the last hour of the 5 hour drive...). The bus spluttered a bit and then rolled to a stop! We hung about outside the bus for about an hour at least, just chatting to people and rolling our eyes at the unreliable Honduran bus service (aren’t all bus services unreliable in their own way? *cough* the 44 *cough*). Emma thought I looked like a ‘Russian immigrant’ with my scarf around my head in the rain...mwahaha.
Standing outside it, I met some guy off the bus who spoke English and lived in the city...he had an eyebrow piercing (very rare to have any rebellious piercings in Honduras...) and, unprompted, he confirmed my suspicions of his homosexuality, another MASSIVE shock to my system – homosexuality is not only frowned upon, but can be punished too! He thought Emma and I were together...as in TOGETHER TOGETHER. Hahahahahahaha. He gave us some tajaditas (banana chips fried into crisps) and we just chatted for ages. I sat reading the paper in the bus driver’s seat HAHA.
Another bus eventually passed us so we hopped onto that, and finally arrived in Gracias...and this is where our Costa Rican Visa Renewal Trip comes to an end!
Love, Jen xxx
Okay so I’d just purchased probably the best $9 Subway I’d ever eaten, and we began our walk back to the hostel. When we arrived, I met two older women from London (I mean around late 50s), the elder one called Elsie, with a chubby red cheeked face :)
At this point I was trying to negotiate with Sean using the free internet where we were going to meet him, as he was currently in San Jose also, but planning was getting difficult, as neither of us had working phones in Costa Rica.
After that, Joan, Aron, Emma and I sat for a while discussing near death experiences, animal attacks and that type of thing, which was very interesting when Joan had been a surf instructor for a very long time...and Aron trained horses!
Then the two of them went to bed, they had early plans for the morning. Emma and I were going to follow suit, we chatted for a bit and were literally about to walk out when a guy came to our table and was like ‘can I sit here?’ and started up a conversation. This man turned out to be called John, and he was very confident and definitely the creator of the ‘not so early’ night which soon followed! Another bunch of Americans came to our table, some guy called David from Minnesota and 3 guys from Milwaukee – Dustin, Kent and Kevan.
Outside on the balcony, we were soon to discover, was ‘THE PARTY TABLE’. This consisted of Alice the birthday girl, a bunch of random people and 2 particularly camp guys. I commented on Nick, one of the camp guys, to Dustin, who continued to misuse my phrase...by saying ‘camp as the Queen’s tent’. Bless...
Elsie and Nick came to join our table (the NEW AND IMPROVED party table) to play a game which John suggested, called Preferences... it was HILARIOUS with Elsie involved...that woman was definitely not shy!! She was the source of the most laughter for the night, and in the end, we ended up getting chucked out the bar for being too noisy!
We moved down to the pool area for a while and chatted in a group of about 20...eventually the groups separated to different areas and I hung out with Alice the birthday girl, Kevan, Nick the Queen’s tenter, and some random German bloke. We played truth or dare using an app on Nick’s iPhone, the best of which involved me wearing a hat made out of toilet paper, having to jump in the pool fully clothed, and some bloke had to make his underwear solely from toilet roll! The party soon ended as I was practically dying from hypothermia from jumping in the pool fully clothed (luckily I wasn’t the only one who had to do that though haha...) so we headed to bed.
The following day, we met up with Kent, Kevan and Dustin to move over to the Costa Rica Backpackers Hostel about 20 minutes away. They intended to go up a volcano at some point over the next few days so we decided to tag along, it’s all about saving the money, taxis are a lot cheaper in a group!
We walked to the new hostel which looked pretty blissful also, but was a bit big, making it harder to meet new people. After my negotiations with Sean the other night, we concluded that he would meet us at this particular hostel at some point that day. Meanwhile, we dropped off our stuff, and decided to head back to the market, then the supermarket. The hostel had a communal kitchen, so Kevan and I were crowned chefs for the evening and decided to feed our group! We bought pasta, chicken, tomato sauce and other such ingredients...and we cooked the most awesome chicken and tomato pasta ever known to man. I say ‘we’, I mean ‘kevan cut the chicken and I did everything else’, it was awesome. We added tabasco to the frying pan of chicken which was definitely a GOOD MOVE.
Kent had brought a load of disposable cameras with him, so he took a few photographs (we’ve got his facebook so I’m going to steal his photos haha...) of the pasta! There was a little pasta left over (no sauce) so we left that on the counter in a big pot for Sean to get when he arrived, and I turned round in my seat at one point to see SOME MAN EATING MY PASTA WITH BARBEQUE SAUCE, WITHOUT ASKING!!!! Let’s say I was a very angry person and we’ll leave it at that.
We decided to resort to the classic game of Kings again while we waited for Sean, and when he arrived he joined in with us :) we had to go to the shop again to stock up which was hilarious, us all trotting down the main road in San Jose to the AM-PM shop. Good times.
Me and Kevan were sitting on one of the 2 man hammocks and Sean came and sat on it with us...that is until it broke! Hahaha...
We all moved to some seats on the grass near the others, and listened to our new dorm mates telling us stories. They were two guys from Israel, and they had some really interesting stories. Ignorance, I know, but I found out that they go straight from school into the army in Israel, where they stay for 3 years, then they get a year out to travel and THEN they head to further education! I had no idea! We talked a lot about politics and modern war and so on...really fascinating stuff. And then we all went to sleep.
The following day, Sean decided he didn’t want to go up the volcano with us and instead wanted to travel on to Panama...so Emma, Kevan, Kent, Dustin, Sean and I left the hostel and walked to the bus stop. We left Sean part way there, and reached the bus station. We took a bus from San Jose to Alejuela, and unfortunately missed the rare bus to Poas from there, so we took a taxi to the town the volcano was in. There were 5 of us in a 4 seater taxi and I was the one to lie across everyone on the back seat. Emma is smaller than me for goodness sake but it was still a good laugh!
We drove for about half an hour to Poas, then a little bit up the mountain to a small bar/mountain shack place called Lo Que Tu Quieres. We had previously purchase long French loaves, salami, cheese, sandwich spread, starfruits, carrots and beverages of course, so we dragged our stash to an area of open grass in front of the mountain shack. The boys decided to set up their tents there, Emma and I, however, went for the better option of a room, with a REAL BED, real covers, real pillows and a real door. The expert camping option I would say. It was a good decision, I wanted a good night’s sleep before clambering up the volcano the next day...
So that evening, we spotted a few HUGE moths, about the span of my hand (and I have big hands)! Jose, the man who owned the place, gave us a huge discount on the camping land and the room, gave us free shots and ice cream and banana and hot chocolate! He helped us gather wood for the best campfire in the world, and Kent had a great time with the machete!
We spent the evening around the campfire, relighting and rebuilding it as it grew old...we could see every single star in the sky, and I saw some unbelievably amazing shooting stars, one of which lasted about 5 seconds and had a huge tail across the sky. We watched the stars rotating around our heads, we played preferences IN SPANISH with jose, which was a good laugh too, and we heard about the tiger cub that lived on the mountain near the shack. We talked more about religion, we talked about our take on the creation of the earth and universe, we talked about what we think happens when we die, and we talked about life on other planets....Kevan was ‘a jerk of all trades’ as he called himself, and reminded me a lot of Stephen (no offence intended there mate haha). He knew a lot about science and astronomy and it was really interesting listening to some theories which had NEVER entered my head! The fire grew old and turned into golden orange embers burning on the grass, and we decided it was time to retire :)
The next day, we got up early and packed our stuff to get ready to walk up the volcano! Jose said we could leave our stuff in Emma and my room while we went up and we could collect it on the way down. We made the last sandwich and got ourselves organised for the 5km walk from the hostel to the entrance of the volcano grounds.
We began our trek, staring out over what looked like the whole of Costa Rica...and got pretty exhausted after about 20 minutes of walking uphill! I spotted a white people carrier bus coming up behind us and hailed it, though the guy wanted $2 each to take us to the gate, even though he was already going there with his empty bus! We decided to reject that idea and he drove off...only to remain hidden around the next corner waiting for us! We hopped in and agreed to the $1 each fee. He offered to take us IN to the volcano, instead of paying the $7 each entry fee, as long as we gave him a donation and hid under the seats of his van. We obliged, and paid him $4 total, so $1 transport and $3 entry fee! SAAAVEEEE!
So yeah, there we were, the 5 fully grown adults hiding under the seats of a minivan. Thank goodness the thing was clean...!
We squeezed out from under the seats ( I recall my exit from that location was the most graceful thing anyone had ever seen, like a Bambi on ice...) and started our walk to the crater!
We, for some reason, decided to take this ‘walk’ at full speed and I thought my lungs were going to either explode or cave in...My throat was definitely seizing up, but it was a HEALTHY kind of pain...it felt fulfilling! We reached the Laguna of Volcano Poas, and were a mixture of impressed and irritated. It was an incredible sight, a natural wonder, but it was SO FAR AWAY! The volcano park was really tourist focussed, and it was so built up and manufactured... I wanted natural, I wanted to BE ON THE EDGE of the Laguna, not looking at it through some frigging binoculars :/ ...but that still couldn’t take away from how truly stunning it was...
We continued our full speed march to the crater and were disappointed for a long time...and then amazed for 5 seconds, and then disappointed again. The top was completely clouded over, and for a VERY BRIEF 5 seconds, the clouds shifted, so we took a few snapshots, and then the cover was back...but yet again I am just so impressed and humbled by the beauty and existence of such an incredible thing that I don’t mind seeing it for such a short time, the image of the smoking crater will not be erased from my memory!
We began our descent from the volcano, and instead of taking the 5km winding road back to the mountain shack, we decided to take a vertical path straight through the fields...that was fun! We got back and had beans, egg and corn tortillas, and grabbed the bus back to Poas town, and I slept on the journey. I also slept on the journey to Alejuela too!
We arrived back in San Jose and the boys decided they were going to begin their travels to Nicaragua that night, so we said our farewells and headed back to Hostel Pangea for our final night of luxury!
We arrived, exhausted, and realised we had to do a LOT of planning to make sure we had enough funds to bring us back to Honduras...considering my debit card hadn’t been working the entire time we were in Costa Rica, I had to borrow money from Emma...luckily she had enough, until now... we were really scrimping and saving to make sure we had enough (our dorm mate for the night gave us a packet of stale cornflakes which we took most gratefully...saved us having to spend ANY money on food for our travels back. We made our money plans, and the internet had stopped working in Pangea so we decided to get our first and only early night! (After an absolutely FREEZING shower...)
We woke up the following morning at 6.30am, and went to reception where the man told us that SEAN had stayed the night. we were pretty gutted to have missed him, I had an email waiting from him that I couldn’t read the night before, when the internet had broken down, so that was probably what he was going to say! We were just about to leave when Sean appeared out of the corridor beside us (at 6.30am) wearing a pair of swimming trunks and a shirt.
He then proceeded to tell us that he had been watching some street dancers downtown in San Jose before heading for the Panama bus, when some guy grabbed his backpack from leaning against his leg and ran! Sean followed but 2 guys came out of nowhere after he caught the guy, so he decided to let it go... so the reason he had just a pair of swimming trunks, a shirt, his passport and a debit card are because they are the only things he had on his person at the time!
We had to depart pretty quickly after hearing this in order to catch our bus, but it was still a massive shame, he had everything in that backpack, almost nothing had been left in his house on Roatan, so he really lost a lot that day :(
We said a quick farewell and headed for the bus stop...the ride to Nicaragua was pretty long. We arrived in Managua and checked into a different, horrible, much cheaper hostel where we met Eric and Chris, two guys from America who were also travelling around Central America. We went for a bit to eat at the same eatery as we had on our journey TO Costa Rica, and then sat watching a documentary about elephantitis and discussing our future plans. Eric was a wild firefighter (forest firefighter) and aspired to be a librarian upon his return to the states. Chris had studied creative writing and was a waiter (yes waiter, not a typo) until he decided to go travelling to surf!
The next morning he was on his way to El Salvador with Tica bus so we got up early and walked to the station with him. We got on our respective buses, ours was stuck in a million traffic jams between Tegucigalpa and San Pedro...so it took us ages to get home! We got to Damaris’s house again, and briefly met Mercedes’ mother and father...and then had egg and bean tortillas again (staple diet). We went to sleep.
The following day, on mercedes’ advice, we went to the immigration office, to find out WE DIDNT NEED TO GO THERE at all... I spoke to fraudsquad, my card was sorted out, and we lifted money at the ATM in the bus terminal...major weight lifted from us there!
We got a direct bus to Gracias...which BROKE DOWN midway between Santa Rosa and Gracias (the last hour of the 5 hour drive...). The bus spluttered a bit and then rolled to a stop! We hung about outside the bus for about an hour at least, just chatting to people and rolling our eyes at the unreliable Honduran bus service (aren’t all bus services unreliable in their own way? *cough* the 44 *cough*). Emma thought I looked like a ‘Russian immigrant’ with my scarf around my head in the rain...mwahaha.
Standing outside it, I met some guy off the bus who spoke English and lived in the city...he had an eyebrow piercing (very rare to have any rebellious piercings in Honduras...) and, unprompted, he confirmed my suspicions of his homosexuality, another MASSIVE shock to my system – homosexuality is not only frowned upon, but can be punished too! He thought Emma and I were together...as in TOGETHER TOGETHER. Hahahahahahaha. He gave us some tajaditas (banana chips fried into crisps) and we just chatted for ages. I sat reading the paper in the bus driver’s seat HAHA.
Another bus eventually passed us so we hopped onto that, and finally arrived in Gracias...and this is where our Costa Rican Visa Renewal Trip comes to an end!
Love, Jen xxx
Friday, 5 February 2010
Costa Bombbbbaa Part 1
Well HELLO again!
It’s been a while, sorry... I just keep thinking that there is nothing major to update and then all of a sudden there is SO MUCH. I’ll try and keep them shorter and more regular AFTER this one :)
Okay, so we had just returned from Roatan to the new house...and we were still in spare beds, not in our designated rooms. Luckily, Mercedes travelled to Lepaera to collect all the stuff from the old house and bring it to this new one, so we ended up unpacking the lorry and moving our stuff into our new rooms :) I ended up with a WONDERFUL queen bed, and a kinda metal frame style shelf and rail for my clothes! So now Emma and I have our own rooms, which is so awesome, it’s nice to finally have somewhere to call MINE instead of living out of a suitcase...
So there were no pupils at the school the last time I wrote, and it kinda remained that way... one of the pupils (also called Emma) turned up each day, but nobody else did, so it was kind of a lost cause... Mercedes ended up cancelling school until the 1st February. Her reason for no children coming any more was that all the fathers drink away the money. Sure Mercedes, EVERY father was doing the same thing, which is why NOBODY came to school... uh-huh.
So school was cancelled til February, which was good with us, seeing as nobody was coming anyway. I used the time to paint my room, two walls red and two walls cream, and to dedicate myself to go on a diet! Emma decorated her room with pictures and so on too, they both look really awesome now :)
Still during our time off, we went to Gracias (our staple weekend escape...which is becoming a much more common way of escape...) and hung out with Holly. Laura and Renske came from La Union also because Lena, the newest PT volunteer (and Holly’s partner) was finally arriving! She had chosen the 8 month Particip8 course rather than the full year, hence her arrival at the beginning of January. As usual I spent the weekend on the internet in Guancascos (they have WIRELESS!), we all went for Chinese at the restaurant which really delicious, our favourite meal out location! They serve portion sizes big enough for 4 people, so you can imagine the mistake we made the first time we went... at least you can take stuff home with you!
Wednesday 13th January, I got a package from Grandma! It contained (definitely past tense) Haribo sweets, Percy Pigs, and Wham Bars! I also got a magazine and a few puzzle books to contain my boredom in San Juan...she’ll never know how grateful I am for those! Unfortunately still haven’t received the big package from Mum, cos the big things take ages to arrive.
As I said, we were not teaching until February, but Mercedes asked us to walk around the whole of San Juan handing out leaflets for the school...uuuft. Emma and I traipsed around the ENTIRE town and surrounding suburbs handing little bits of paper out to every man and their dog, and sticking signs up in every pulperia on every corner...tiring work, but it had to be done! The main issue I had with that was not actually the walking, it was more the fact that walking through the dirt roads to people’s houses poses ‘natural’ issues...stray dogs, violent dogs, aggressive dogs, and dogs in general...mothering cows and their calves, aggressive bulls (one chased me right into someone’s house), marshy bog land after rain can always be a good laugh too, in flip flops.
Saturday 15th, we were ready and packed for our COSTA RICA VISA RENEWAL TRIP! We took the bus to Gracias where we spent Saturday on the internet and relaxing, to get the bus to San Pedro Sula on Sunday. Mercedes had asked us to take a ‘box’ to her daughter Andrea in the city, so we obliged, as she described it...’is not so heavy’. Oh how wrong... we dragged this thing off the people carrier into Holly’s house in Gracias, then had to haul it to the bus station the following day, that was a good laugh.
We took the bus on Sunday lunchtime to San Pedro from Gracias, and ended up having to convert to a different bus at Santa Rosa, and almost forgot ‘the box’. This new bus had many a smashed window and bucket seat and ended up jam packed full of people, but by this time we’re used to that kind of thing. We arrived in the city and a friend of the family came to collect us in his taxi, after driving around the whole Bus Terminal ignoring our frantically waving arms (when they weren’t on the box) for about 20 minutes. The man took us to Damaris’s house (remember them? Mercedes sister, the family we stayed with the DAY we arrived in Honduras?!) and we managed to shift the box onto his responsibility to take to Andrea at Lourdes’s house.
It was really amazing seeing the family again, Damaris, Javier, Javier, Fernando, Damaris and Debora (they like repeated names in this country). They had all changed SO much, as had our perception of their home... I remembered looking at the shower, totally horrified, on arrival, the floor was of poor quality, and it just looked impoverished by my standards... OH HOW THAT HAS CHANGED. Their home is lovely! It was warm and inviting, it was clean (by Honduran standards) and it was NOT impoverished! Not to mention the change in the family, Fernando has grown a lot, Javier jr has lost weight and Debora looks like a right young woman :) they had all lost weight significantly because of their HERBALIFE diet, which apparently we may end up following in the near future...
We arrived at their home to a warm welcome of Javier making baleadas with his mum, and we got hugs and kisses from the whole family :) We had to attempt to get dollars that evening before we left for Costa Rica, so Emma, Javier sr, Fernando and I took a taxi to the city mall. We passed a synagogue which was truly stunning (yes, a Jewish place of worship, here?! I couldn’t believe it!) and eventually arrived at the mall. I literally, metaphorically, had a heart attack. I felt completely lost and awestruck by how URBAN it was! There was an ESCALATOR! This mall was full of bright lights, colourful shops selling millions of shoes, food malls, clothes shops, gadget shops... there was a model in the centre of the walkway containing a Wii and Guitar Hero! There was a Lacoste shop, a Zara... let’s just say it was NOT what I expected, and not what I was used to either! I felt so tiny because we’d been stuck in San Juan for so long, I’d forgotten what it was like to be amongst fashion and money and beauty...
We traipsed around the slippery, shiny mall floor looking for a cash machine that actually contained dollars, but to no avail. We headed over the road about five minutes away to another city mall, passing a McDonald’s, and even better, a SUBWAY (the food store, they don’t do trains or underground in these countries). Javier and I had a nice little joke about Italian BMTs with all the salad and Chipotle Southwest sauce...i promised myself I would get one in San Jose! Unfortunately there was no cash machine with dollars here either, so we had to make our way back...after passing a Guess shop too :P
We returned to the nicest baleadas I’d had in a long time (and I eat them A LOT – remember what they are? Large flour tortilla with refried beans, scrambled eggs, liquid butter and sometimes hard cheese. I added some chilli sauce too, for good measure). We were really exhausted that night and knew that Monday morning would start at 3.45am, so we hit the sack pretty soon after bed.
Our taxi (another family friend) was due to arrive at 4am, so there we were, all settled on the couches, barely keeping our eyes open, waiting for the taxi. We had to be 45 minutes early for the bus leaving at 5am to check in...and 4.15am came and went...eventually, at 4.30am the taxi pulled up, and then we had to make the JOURNEY to the bus station, so we didn’t arrive there until about 4.45am! We scrambled to the Tica Bus terminal, after I lifted a few Lempiras at the station cash machine. We should really have known, by Honduran time we were still early at quarter to 5 haha...
We bumped into a couple of English girls in the queue as we checked in, and smushed our way onto the bus. I was knocked out for 5 hours til we arrived in Tegucigalpa (Honduran capital city...if you could call it that. It’s the equivalent, we all know Glasgow is better than Edinburgh [yeah Kirsty] yet it’s not the capital...the same with San Pedro Sula hehe...). We had a 15 minute stop here where they were selling bogging baleadas and microwave reheated pizza, which I DID buy, and then we were back on the bus, with slightly protesting tummies. The journey to the border was rather uneventful, apart from some TERRIBLE movie called FIREPROOF (don’t even think about watching it unless you can’t get to sleep or want to vent your anger on the TV set, it was atrocious). We watched Fast and Furious (I think) and then Nacho Libre which was actually pretty entertaining in a mindless sort of way.
We arrived at the border and we both got ripped off for dollars, we ended up paying an extra 3 Lempiras per dollar cos Emma didn’t understand what the man was doing. Oh well, what’s done is done. We drove for a further 3 minutes until we reached the Nicaraguan side of the border HAHA (funny to me cos I was like, a minute and a half drive over the border of 2 countries) where we all filed out again. I got an orange (they’re amazing by the way, a woman sits with a massive plastic bucket full of oranges and a knife, and peels them, then cuts through it about a third of the way from the top and hands it to you... they’re so delicious, and mega cheap) and chatted to the English girls again, a woman called Libby who lives on Utila (one of the Bay Islands) and is a dive master for some place called Old Morgan’s or something like that. Was a good chat :)
We got back on the bus and nothing happened and we arrived in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua (I feel it’s my duty to inform you nothing happened because you may think I’m keeping something from you. Seriously, I tell you everything in this, as you can tell). The Tica Bus station was in the middle of a clearly bad neighbourhood...haha. So we walked out of the station and turned right, walked for 2 minutes to the end of that block and arrived at our hostel, after sorting out someone’s major organisation fail by putting Emma and I on different buses the following morning...
Our hostel was called Casa Vanegas, and it was decent enough, it had a low hammock in the wee tiny driveway, and a few different rooms, one computer with internet and some pretty cool backpackers! We got a twin room with a shower, fan and TV for $8 each. We met a guy called Harrison, from Austin, Texas, and we walked up to the pulperia to the left (in the Tica Bus direction... Harrison came from a different bus and arrived at the hostel coming from the RIGHT...and some guy in a car pulled up and was like ‘get the **** out of here, you wanna get shot?!” and all this kinda stuff in Spanish, and then we realised the hostel had a little sign on the counter that said ‘please leave the hostel and turn LEFT...’ which I think explains everything...).
So we went to the little shop and bought a few cans of beer and sat in a little food place and I had an enchilada! It was rice and cut up pork and vegetable in a thick pastry packet and deep fried ;) heaven.
So Emma, Harrison and I sat in the little cafe and chatted for a bit, then wandered home drinking our beers. We stood outside to finish them (not allowed beers or drugs of any kind in the hostel...HA) and then some guy who was helping Harrison and his mate find their way around Nicaragua came out of the hostel and was like ‘welcome to the tropics guys!’ and we got all happy and excited about setting out on our travels, bless us.
We sat on the patio area outside Harrison’s room and I met his mate Bobby who he was travelling with. We talked til 11.30pm about all kinds of stuff, especially religion. I’ve come to accept that it is a BRILLIANT topic of discussion to have with other travellers, and it always seems to come up... you get such an insight from the massive variety of minds and opinions and beliefs that travel the world. I love having those discussions and honestly I keep feeling better and better about my own opinion the more I talk, and the thoughts I have seem to make the believers happy too, they like questioning their faith or something. I don’t really know how to explain but the talks I’ve had with people about religion and deep stuff are often the best. This one was a particularly good one...though I won’t go into it, we’d be here forever as you can imagine (though by the looks of the size of this essay we’ll be here for even longer...) We talked about other things too, the vast size of Texas, how it is as big as France seemingly, and other interesting stuff.
The next day I was up at 5am for the 6am bus to Costa Rica. The journey to the border was uneventful, though the 2 border stops were really long, about an hour on each side... I saw some girl with mango and asked her where she got it, and she just gave me it. It was all lovely and cut up in a plastic bag, and after I’d finished hers I went and got more cos it was super cheap! The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful, and then we arrived in SAN JOSEEEEEE!
We got a taxi from the bus terminal to one hostel that was meant to be amazing, but it was fully booked. We met some other girls who were going to try and book in there too, so we all took a walk to the second place on the Lonely Planet list that appealed to us, a place called Hostel Pangea...we got kinda lost wandering around downtown San Jose in the dark, and ended up being directed to the hostel, which was behind a massive metal wall and a little door with a hole in it...
Oh my goodness this place is AMAZING. You walk in, and as soon as the doorman shut the metal door behind us, we were in pure bliss. This place was stunning, modern, and so welcoming. The walls had all been painted in amazing patterns that let your mind go mad, there was a big pool area, and lots of dorms, 5 computers down the stairs, and another 10 up the stairs. There were 2 bar areas (one with wooden tables and benches for food, and the other with cream couches almost exactly the same as ours at home) and a huge balcony overlooking almost all of San Jose. We could see lights up in the mountains from that balcony...
So we all checked in and got settled. In our dorm were 3 girls from Argentina, who were the epitome of beauty. We met some guys from Australia in the bar areas and ended up chatting to them for a while about their time in Cuba with their broken down rental car...
May I just add right now, I was up at 3.45 am on Monday morning, and 5am the following morning...Didn’t stop me going out this night though DID IT?!
We hung out with the Australians, only 2 of whom made any real impact, Martin was hilllaaarious and reminded me completely or Martin Hislop from home. And then Liam, because Emma gravitated towards him a little :p (she’ll hate me for writing this...) anyway, they were the only 2 names I can really remember. They were talking about ‘smug’ alot.
Smug:
Person 1: “I’m going scuba diving tomorrow” (has massive smile on ones face, bearing NO TEETH)
Person 2: “you SMUG pig.”
Person 1: “What are your plans for tomorrow?”
Person 2: “Oh, I’m going surfing” (sweeps hair back in Loreal advert style, radiates smugness)
Person 1: “So, Jen, what are you doing around these parts then?”
(after a lot of instruction and teaching of how to pull off smug)
Jen: “Oh, I teach English to underprivileged children in Honduras...”
Person 1: stares awestruck and impressed at Jen’s smugness.
ANYWAY, we all decided to head out to El Pueblo, the club/pub/bar complex nearby, which turned out to be entirely empty of anyone but the staff at the bars, and us... We got some tequila at the bar while the American girls did air skipping rope dancing. Liam, Martin and I headed round to ANY other bar considering this one was expensive and only consisted of the group that came with us. We found a really cheap bar where the boys decided they wanted to do ‘tequila suicides’. For those who don’t know what they are...
Tequila Suicides
1. Sniff salt up nostril.
2. Down shot of tequila
3. Squeeze lime in eye
4. Kick person opposite’s shins.
I filmed this for them (yeah they offered for me to participate, I just took the shot haha, but they asked me to film them performing this idiotic ritual...) which was absolutely hilarious to watch, but I learned from their experience and will definitely not be doing it. Ouchhh!
I ended up getting some pizza cos this stuff looked amazing, and that is one thing I really really miss, a goooooood pizza! (Apparently we’re going to make homemade ones with Mercedes or something, great)
By this time everyone was thoroughly bored and ready for bed, especially us what with the amount of travelling we’d been doing, so we headed back to Hostel Pangea and off to bed :)
The following day, I had to check out, then check back in (pointless) but I met a girl called Joan from the Netherlands who was a good laugh, she worked as a surf master and had been around the world working for different hostels, she offered us a summer placement in a surf hostel in Spain whenever we want, which would be awesome in the coming years when I’m a poor student...
She introduced us to a friend of hers called Aron (just one ‘a’) and he knew of a local market in San Jose, so we all took a little trek up the bustling city streets to the market, which was indeed, pretty cute! I decided to be as efficient a buyer as possible and hunted for the best things, compared prices, then walked the entire length of the market back the way, bargaining with the best ones. In the end I got a really beautiful scarf for $11, managed to get Emma in on the scarf scene too, so she got one as well, and then Emma and I both got a pair of earings made from coconut shells...i love them!
We headed to a nearby bakery, the smell radiated up the central avenue, and Emma was immediately drawn in, with Aron and Joan following quickly behind. They each got a HUGE doughnut with toffee icing stuff INSIDE it (it had a hole in the centre too...this was a good looking piece of baking) and chocolate and sprinkles and stuff on top. I didn’t get one, I just drooled over theirs!
Then, I decided I’d saved my appetite enough and after questioning Aron on the nearest Subway, thought it was definitely time to be a tourist...and so we headed there for a footlong Italian BMT on Italian cheese and herb bread, with lettuce, olives, green peppers, onions, chipotle southwest sauce on one half and barbeque on the other, cheese and toasted ...with a fanta to share with Emma and a cookie. It cost the equivalent of $9, which I didn’t realise until I’d purchased it. I am not kidding when I say I DID NOT REGRET IT.
However, for the moment we shall take a brief pause (for a few days) and I will write more of this blog and post it soon. Bet you’re all relieved, eh?
Love, Jen xxx
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