Saturday, 22 December
I got up and started packing all of my clothes. After breakfast I packed some more and then went to the bus station to see Katie and Sean off. Others left earlier in the morning and that was just too early for me to get up. Katie and Sean had a 9:30 bus ticket, so that was more reasonable. Oddly, the lot the buses go into was blocked off for a party. Lana and Sara were on the same bus and they made it sound like this happens often. So the buses had to park on the street and block traffic. Just does not seem like a smart thing to do. Besides, who wants to have a party at a bus station?
After their bus left, I ran some errands and then went to the internet cafe to try and pay my fee for uVolunteer again. I entered my bank info and then I get a new screen saying that paypal just put a deposit into my account and that I needed to enter how much they entered in order to verify my account. Ok, sure. Except that it would take 3-5 business days for the deposit to appear. WTF! This is not how electronic payment systems are supposed to work! Maybe this is just a sign that I should not do this volunteer stint.
On the way back, I stopped at a store that sells bamboo and hemp clothing. I ended up buying a bamboo shirt for I thought it might be good to help keep me warm in Monteverde. I went home and finished packing and then went downstairs to spend some time with the family. Mileidy said that if Monteverde does not work out I am welcome to come back and stay with her. This was the most time that I spent with them at one time. It was nice to not have to leave early to go do homework.
The bus was on time and I was glad to sit up front. I almost got car sick on the way from San Jose so I was hoping to get the front seat in case we were doing a lot of hills again. It did not take very long to go over the bridges – the longest wait was 10 minutes. Since I was sitting up front I took a few pictures to show how scary these things are. The trip took about 3.5 hours and went mostly straight up the coast before turning in to go to Monteverde. On the drive up the hill, it was night, clouds were rolling by and the full moon was out. I rolled my window down to look at it and it was just amazing. I thought about taking a photo but I knew that it would not come out well. After seeing this and doing some thinking, I realized that a trip that I need to take soon is to Tibet, Thailand, Bhutan or somewhere spiritual like that. I do not want to go there in the winter time so I do not know if it will be anytime soon, but I will be going. One thing that also occurred to me during the drive up the hill was that it as quiet. No buses, no dump trucks using their engine brakes, no speakers blaring from on top of a car. Just wind. Ahh, silence, how I have missed thee.
I got to the hostel at about 7pm and got checked in. I sent a quick email to my folks to let them know that I got here ok and then I went to look for food. I understand what it means to be in a cloud now. It is pure water and it is wet everywhere. It is not raining – it is just water being moved through the air by the wind. I put on my rain jacket and went up the hill (another damn hill with no sidewalk) to find some dinner. I went into the grocery store to see what it had and it has a good selection, including a lot of american type of snacks. I eventually found a little restaurant and had a quesadilla and looked through pamphlets that Romy (the hostel manager) gave me. I was pretty tired since I only got about 5-6 hours of sleep last night, so I headed home. The TV was on so I went in to see who was in there and what was being watched. Romy’s kids were watching the Cartoon Network and there was another person in there from Chicago. We chatted a bit and then he went off to bed. Shortly after, Ralf came in and it turned out that we were sharing the same dorm room. He is from Germany and has been traveling through central america for the last 10 weeks and he heads home on Monday. He told me about the trips he went on today and then we chatted about what to do tomorrow. He has a pretty nasty bruise on the bottom of his foot that was probably going to prevent him from hiking tomorrow but he said he would wait and see.
We went to bed and it weird to have a blanket on my bed but I was totally thankful for it. It definitely feels like winter now, even if this is the normal weather for here.