As a meloncollie wave of emotion sweeps over us we have look back longingly at our journey and nothing but fond memories. While it will be sad to leave the tropical lands that we have called home for the last 34 days we are excited to get back to the familiar and be able to slow down. The longing for home coupled with the fact that my ATM card was denied yesterday when I attempted to retrieve some dinero has made the timing of our return perfect.
So to catch up all of our avid listeners...all nine of you,
From Manuel Antonio Dan and I awoke and took the 8 am bus out of manuel antonio to Quepos. Slowed by an SUV pulling a broken down car we arrived in Quepos just five min. before our bus was schedualed to leave. From there we took a bumps, sweaty packed bus to San Jose. Four hours and some change later we arrived in SJ where we had to rush to catch a bus to Puerto Viejo, a small town on the Mar Caribe. The ensuing five hour bus ride was much more enjoyable because we were accompanied by an arrogant British cynic named Bill, who was exiled from the European Union for heading up an under the table brothel and drug cartel out of his night club in Madrid. He provided some interesting perspectives.
Puerto Viejo was a small Rasta town where the people speak spanish, english and a hybrid knowen as Patua. There we did little more than eat dinner, watch some of the Costa Rican soccer game and sleep surrounded by our first and only mosquito nets.
The next morning we departed early for Sixiola, a Costa Rican border town near Panamá. On the bus ride to the border a friendly Dutch girl approached us with what at first seemed like a shaddy proposition, she wanted us to assist her with brining some bikes across the border to avoid paying tax on the bikes. The plan was that we would go to sixiola where Jenny, our newfound friend from Holland, would buy six bikes, since each person can bring two bikes sin tarifa.
After some poking, prauding and negotiating we decided that she was no drug mule, just a struggling hostel owner that needed some new bikes for her place in Bocas del Toro, our intended destination. We settled on a deal where if we helped her bring the bikes across she would let us stay in her 50 a night private cabin for only 20 a night for 4 nights, including kitchen, private porch, private hammocks and bike rental for the duration of our stay.
As it turned out the ATM in sixiola had no cash, no colones and no dollars, but being the nice dutch lady that she is she kept the deal that we arranged. She even threw in the extra fifth night for the same price.
Bocas was surely a third world country, their only form of trash disposal was to burn it. One day we rode our bikes to Bluff beach, a 45 min. bike ride down some dicey roads and we saw their trash heap... when we returned later that day the pile was ablaze, real green I know.
Anyways, as always we brought the sun with us, five days or scorching heat and beach bliss, followed by relaxing to the towns reggae vibes at a few of the local watering holes.
I would love to say more but am growing sleepy and we need to awake in five hours to take our 350 am shuttle to the aeropuerto...
Keep checking because if we arrive safely tom. in MSP there will be an onslaught of pictures added to the Blog to illustarte our stories.
We love you all and wish us luck with our vuelta to the states.
Jojo
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