San Jose - Turrialba - Siquirres -Puerto Limon - Puerto Veijo

I figure I better do a lil update since I have been down here for almost a week and haven't posted anything yet...

So I met Paul in Atlanta where we boarded our flight to San Jose. It was an easy 3 hour flight that was only slightly terrifying when we hit a bit of turbulence and the plane felt like it was falling out of the sky a couple of times. When we landed in San Jose we had the hostel we were staying at pick us up, as did about 12 other people who were staying at the same place.

Things seemed to be going pretty smoothly till I woke up the next morning and was unable to find my debit card and about $40.00 that I had in my wallet.. I only had the wallet out a couple of times the night before but I couldn't figure out when or where someone may have been able to get a-hold of it... Needless to say I spent the majority of my first day trying to cancel my card and figure out how I was going to gain access to my money while I'm down here... Thanks to email and Pay Pal I think I have the whole thing sorted out for now...

Other then that Paul and I roamed around San Jose which is a pretty modern and clean city...to a degree.. (If you ignore all the drug dealers and prostitutes ..and the fact that most of the buildings are built like fortresses complete with iron cages and razor wire strung everywhere). There are dozens of parks scattered throughout and it's pretty easy to find your way around...Even though most of the streets aren't labeled and everything that is is in Spanish.. I´m enjoying being back in a country full of speeding diesel buses, turcks, and cars and all the raging horns.

Turns out not knowing Spanish and traveling out of the touristy areas is a bit trickier then I had thought it would be... So far we have managed to get by on our brief knowledge of a few key phrases and a lot of hand gestures.

We booked a bus from San Jose to Turrialba, which is supposedly the epicenter for the rafting industry down here... but it doesn't seem like a lot of people are traveling down there right now since I'm pretty sure we were the only two English speaking people in Turrialba and the rafting companies we could find were all closed...

We found ourselves a cheap hotel... which was more like a room located above a bar... and a very rowdy bar at that. There was a big soccer game on tv that night and everyone partied late into the early hours of the morning after Costa Rica's team was victorious...

The next morning... with the music and the yelling of the prior evening still ringing in our ears we packed up and originally were just going to find some coffee... but we ended up boarding a bus to Siquirres and towards the coast..

From there we also found a bus to Puerto Limon with the help from two girls who are down here working for Peace Corps.. and then caught another bus down to Puerto Veijo where we are now.

Puerto Veijo is more of a surfer/party town, especailly on the weekends. Right now it's pretty quiet around here since most people have gone back to the cities for the work week. We are staying in a hamock hotel... basically a paviallion with dozens of hamocks strung up (not a lot of privacy) and cold water showers which is located right on the beach just outside of town. Turns out the walk into town isn´t exactly safe at night, or I guess anytime for that matter, and muggings happen pretty regularly.. one of the girls we have been hanging out with had a knife to her throat just the other night...That and there may be even more drugs offered to us on a Daily basis then even in the city of San Jose.. but that may have to do with the large amount of drugs that are trafficked along the carribean coast.. Other then that it´s a pretty nice place where people just lounge around all day and read in between surf sessions.

We have been here for a couple of days now and are planing to stay atleast another night until we figure out which way we are headed next... I really haven't been taking a ton of photos but I'll try to get some posted up here soon...