Costa Rica

October 18th, Day 73 - The past few days have been sort of a vacation from my trip. From San Isidro, I came to the slow relaxing and touristy town of Quepos on the Pacific coast. Knowing my history with touristy places, I planned to stay only 1 or 2 nights. However, on my first night there, I met a group of locals at a bar called Wanda's and we hit it off. I then had a little click of friends made up of 2 Ticos, a Tica, and a Nica. All they were missing was an Iraqi-American!

When they took me along to the discoteque, we of course had a great time. I felt like I was doing so well chatting up the ladies and asking girls to dance. It wasn't until later in the night that I figured out most of them were up for hire! Oh well, at least I got to practice my Spanish!

I did make it out to Manuel Antonio a few times which is amazingly beautiful. The national park there is a must and I saw the standard array of monkeys, sloths, weird snails and crabs, huge lizards, and monstrous iguanas. Great beaches as well.

The days sort of continued in a similar manner and before I knew it, 5 nights had passed. It was time for me to go. I made it back to San Isidro del General for a night before catching the bus to Panama the next day.

October 13th, Day 68 - The past week was great and a very different change of pace from the rest of the trip. I spent my time volunteering at a Finca near San Isidro del General. It was an organic farm on 9 acres with great weather, pleasant air, good food, a bunch of animals, a picturesque river, and most importantly, great people! Amongst my experiences here have been a few bouts with wasps in which I lost once though I must say the sting wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Bathing in a river was new and quite refreshing adventure for me. There was an interesting adventure of going into town to purchase a machete with some of the other volunteers. Traveling in Central America, one quickly becomes accustomed to machetes everywhere. I try to picture everyone in NY walking around with machetes and what madness might ensue there!

Beyond that, there was some farming, lots of reading, lots of cooking, some yoga, and a good amount of practicing. There was a pretty talented guitarist here so it was nice to play music with another human again!

October 5th, Day 60 - I crossed into Costa Rica yesterday. So far it’s been very different from the rest of Central America. It’s more pleasant and things run a little smoother with buses and times and shops etc.. With this said, I moved through the northern area pretty quickly.

My first night was spent at the beautiful Playa del Coco. It had great food and a stunning coast. The weather was pleasant and people were nice. Again, as with many other beach towns, it moved at a pace that made me want to explode.

I figured it would be better to get to the city so I made it to San Jose. This place is big, dirty, and from what I hear, quite dangerous. I didn’t really feel threatened but I had a great shouting match with some guy who kept telling me it was unsafe for me and tried to aid in me in everything I did. The accommodations were also pretty bad as they seemed to either be backpacker centers or run down dingy place. Of course, I chose the latter and ending up sharing a bathroom with 2 prostitutes.