Descent into the Den of Sin

This weekend LaToya and I went to the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. We wanted to leave Friday afternoon, but when we got to the bus station there were no more tickets left for the 4:00pm bus!! Irritated, we bought tickets to leave early Saturday morning, and went to have coffee. Saturday we were at the bus station at 5:45am, and we got to Cahuita, our destination, at about 10, just in time for a snorkeling tour of the coral reef in the national park. Unfortunately, it´s been raining a lot so the visibility was pretty bad. And there were a lot of jellyfish.... But oh well, it was still fun. We met a cool Canadian couple who had just gotten married in Costa Rica and were backpacking around the country for their honeymoon. Soo cute.

So Cahuita and neighboring Puerto Viejo, which is slightly larger, are apparently infamous for being frequented by druggies and women looking for a fling with a "rasta man", as my guide book put it. LaToya and I were skeptical about going, but her boss has a cabin there and said it´s worth a trip. There are two national parks nearby, and Puerto Viejo itself is just a fun place with lots of restaurants, shops, and bars. We enjoyed the snorkeling and the black sand beaches, and of course, the people watching that comes with a town of such repute. We affectionately called Puerto Viejo the "Den of Sin". The theme of the weekend was, "no, gracias". Here are some examples:

sketchy man: ganja brownies?
us: no, gracias

sketchy man touching my arm
us: no, gracias (followed by a quick change in location!)

sketchy man: want to dance?
us: no, gracias

You get the picture. Another theme was waiting for buses. On Sunday morning we wanted to take the 9am bus from Cahuita to Puerto Viejo. The trip is only 7km, but it takes about 30 minutes due to poor road conditions and the presence of bus stops every 10 meters. We were at the bus stop at 8:30. The bus did not come until 10:15. Ahhhh! We hadn´t eaten breakfast because all the restaurants were closed. Why were they closed? That´s theme number 3, which I will discuss shortly. Anyway, we did finally arrive in Puerto Viejo. Later that night, Anna had to take a bus back to another town where she had meetings the next morning for her research. The bus was supposed to arrive at 6:30pm. We were there at 6:15, and the bus didn´t come until 7:15. Yay!!! It was shorter that time!! I have to say that I don´t envy all the backpackers here. I´m traveling around with my school backpack with clothes for 3 days, while they have huge packs that they´ve been carrying for weeks. Backpacking in Europe hardly seems like roughing it now. It´s mostly a matter of infrastructure, but also climate. Everyone has rain covers on their packs because it rains almost every day.

Theme 3: Being hot, sticky, and dirty. Welcome to the tropics, where after you shower you immediately slab on the sun screen, followed by the bug spray (it´s dengue season in Costa Rica!). Then you go outside and add sweat to the mix. Go to the beach, add sand. Go to the bar, add beer. Now you´re a hot, sticky, greasy, sweaty, sandy, stinky mess. After a few hours like that you just get used to being dirty and it´s not so bad. No really, it´s not. In Puerto Viejo soap is no where to be found, so forget about washing your hands. Yeah, it was okay for a day. But the first thing I did when I got to San Jose was take a long, cleansing shower. Ahh. I don´t think I could ever live in the tropics. The lack of air circulation is really suffocating. Especially when the one weekend you decide to go to the region there is a scheduled "down time" in the electricity from 5am to 9am on Sunday morning. Yes, that means the fan stops working. And the toilet stops flushing. And the restaurants don´t open. And apparently, the buses stop coming, or come late. Oh, what fun we had! So, yes, it was a challenging weekend, but we survived, and none of us are presenting symptoms of dengue or malaria (yet!), so hopefully we will continue to survive.