note: the lighting at the internet cafe was incredibly weird... I am not this pale.
Since I've been obsessing over the fact that Kelly is here, I haven't written as much. I will present an abridged version of the many exciting happenings:
- We spent a few nights in San Jose drinking copious amounts of alcohol and climbing things in the middle of the night.
- We took Six and Kelly to the neighbors and worked for a few hours. Luz loved them. She gave us homemade coconut liquor with lunch.
- Watching Six and Kelly -- two incredibly fit, shirtless men -- playing chess is probably one of the sexiest things I've ever seen.
-Doing certain activities in a rain forest in the midst of a violent thunderstorm is exhilarating.
- Kelly trained me yesterday and I could barely walk today. SUCCESS (get your mind out of the gutter, people -- we were actually exercising).
- I used a machete to cut off Liz's hair, then I proceeded to give her the most badass haircut ever using only kitchen scissors and razor blades. I'll have to post a picture. It looks so good.
Here's a little something I wrote in the San Jose hotel room as Kelly was sleeping. Enjoy.
October 10th, 2010
I’m not quite sure where to begin.
I’ll start with the windows. The glass is thick, embellished, and translucent. Ornate patterns and textures are carved methodically on the horizontal four inch slots that open with the twist of a creaky, obstinate lever. The sun illuminates these shimmering diamond paisleys – these crystalline chrysanthemums.
I am right by the sidewalk – a silent voyeur privy to moments of conversation stolen out of context. I am a priest hearing confessions. In Nomine Patris. An American tourist strolls past. He’s from the Midwest or some other state that you wouldn’t visit unless you got excited by miles of corn fields and people who haven’t left their porches for decades: “She’s more mature that way – ” (with that irksome hardening of the t instead of the ch sound in mature– that little linguistic discrepancy that somehow reveals his age, his place, his identity) I can tell that she’d just want a friend, you know, she isn’t looking for – ” and his voice becomes unintelligible as his footsteps mosey out of earshot.
Our ice is melting. Every few minutes I hear a subtle crack or drip or tinkle or crunch as more condensation collects on the outside of the silver canister. The liquid diamonds drip down the ribbed sides of the metal and pool onto the glass table. The pooling water reflects the hazy light cast through the floral windowpanes. I’m reminded of A Cut Glass Bowl by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Beyond the windows – steel bars and razor wire. Maybe I’m feeling vast and astute and metaphorical because of the catharsis of today. Inductive instead of deductive. Without being cryptic, without expecting others to pick up on my almost invisible nuances, this harsh juxtaposition struck me. What is it about the fusion of elegant glass and harsh steel that moved me to reflection? I implore the lever to bend to my will as the horizontal panes glide open. Prison bars. The glass masks the harsh reality of the dangerous San Jose streets. This hotel is nice, moderately priced, and relatively authentic. It is obvious, however, that it was constructed with American tourists in mind. People don’t travel here to see the city in totality. They take taxis long distances to avoid the foetid, over-breathed air of the public buses. They dine at overpriced restaurants with bilingual menus boasting hamburguesas and coca colas. They order vehemently in English, pausing their otherwise uninterrupted anglocentric flow about children or politics or money only to say “Gracias”. They think it’s quaint when people play street music or sell homemade bracelets or peddle produce. It’s patronizing. It may be the 21st century, but time – or the illusion of progress – is completely irrelevant. This metaphysical-intellectual colonialism is alive and well. I know it intimately – it’s exactly the perspective I had when I first arrived. It’s not entirely negative I suppose. I still romanticize the bright crayon box tin-roofed slums and the cracked sidewalks impaled by harsh vines and stubborn weeds.
My muse is back. My writer’s block is gone. It’s Kelly. I can feel my heart beating again. Those fifteen minutes we waited for him in the terminal felt like days. Maybe even weeks. He held my head and kissed me for the duration several eternities as tears were streaming down my face. Yeah, I’m that person. Everything since then has been a blur. He’s sleeping now. I suppose our post-arrival sheet romps combined with the length of his flight demolished any energy he had left.
I feel amazing.
Yesterday, Six arrived. God. He is incredible. The four of us are going to have the perfect dynamic as a group. They’re both staying the whole time until January as well.
We left the hotel yesterday afternoon looking for an adventure. We found a set of steep, crumbling, concrete steps that led to a violent river overlooked by lines of pastel and neon colored barracas. We went further and found a soccer field, then a playground. We went on the monkey bars and climbed the rope and slid down the slides. There were little signs all around the park in Spanish – I don’t remember them verbatim. Some simply were advising to respect nature, another one specifically said “in life, happiness can be found in planting a tree, reading a book, and making a friend.” I love this place. We went further downhill and admired some political graffiti denouncing neoliberales. I didn’t know what that meant. I mean, I know what liberalism is in the vague American sense, but I knew this was something more specific. I asked Six because he knows everything about everything. He then explained to me about the profit-driven IMF and how they would give money to countries in exchange for amending their laws or creating new policies. Yeah, I’d hate them too.
We found a skate park and watched the kids do tricks on their bikes and skate boards. There was one kid who couldn’t have been older than five or six doing toe slides with the other rowdy teenagers.
This blank word document has been glaring at me for the last twenty hours or so. I keep putting it off – waiting until I’m drunker. More sober. Happier. More Miserable. Waiting for “inspiration”. The right weather. The right music. The right mood. These variables are all part of an elaborate illusion – a false construct. Now that I’ve been forcing myself to write on a regular basis, it has become a chore. It isn’t really a chore, though. This is an excuse. Let me try to be more honest. With these little verbal excavations, I keep digging deeper and deeper. Recently I stumbled upon a lot of things I never thought I’d let see the light of day. I know that to let them emerge is better. It is the right thing to do (if you can forgive my use of vague moral abstractions).
Maybe I’ll always be addicted to living outside my own head. Being incoherent is intoxicating. I am addicted not to a substance, but to a feeling. It is my only relief when my brain function slows down, when It’s hard to form sentences, when I can feel my vocabulary slipping as I become more inebriated. Sometimes, I can’t even fall asleep because of my incessant thoughts. This is why I long to jump from distortion to distortion. I know if I continue this way, it will eventually destroy me. But, what won’t? Being active and healthy in the sun will destroy me. Sunlight is a carcinogen. All of these hills will cause my knees to become weaker and my joints will begin to grind upon one another. Yet, staying inside will kill me. My mental health will take a drastic downward spiral. I’ll become inactive again – pale and weak and brooding. I’ll die of heart failure or complications from diabetes. I’m so close to where I want to be, and yet, nothing seems to matter anymore. So, what’s worse? We’re all doomed to an untimely end – an abrupt swoosh of those heavy, dusty, velvet curtains closing before our soliloquies have concluded.
You can’t have a standing ovation when you’re singing to an empty auditorium.
I was never meant to have a prolonged speech. Those are for pretty girls, intelligent girls. I’m stuck here in the corner somewhere between those two states of being. I’m not dumb enough to be ignorant of my ignorance, but I’m not smart enough to transcend it. I’m not ugly enough to be a novelty, but I’m not pretty enough to be a prize. This is where I reluctantly accept my mediocrity.
I don’t know if getting used to writing for an audience has made me better or worse. Maybe I’m the same. Maybe I’m just the same as I always have been – the same rotting trash compiled into a more refined shell. But see, I don’t always feel this way about myself. It’s only when I’m sober. No – only sometimes when I’m sober. I love myself sometimes. Yet, it is not these periods of self-adoration that prompt me to write. Is this me admitting that I have a problem, or that I have the potential for one? I already know that I don’t need to drink in order to function. I got used to functioning miserably at least a decade ago. (It’s an underlying skill taught to young women in the Mormon church – how to live a visibly “happy” life amidst a torrential sea of internal desperation.)
My mom’s birthday is soon. I don’t have anything for her. I intend on getting something for her, but everything I consider just seems useless. Additionally, I have to consider the practicality of shipping it to her. Will it be heavy? Will it break? I guess it’s really just the thought that counts. More honesty: I’ve never been a fan of commodified affection. Yet, here is where my hypocrisy returns: I love getting gifts. I’d like to believe that I remain unaffected by receiving gifts. It’s not true. Somehow, It still sickens me – the thought of labor becoming currency becoming goods becoming emotion becoming reaction. Maybe it disgusts me more because I enjoy it. I do know this: there is no such thing as altruism. I know, this is a stereotypical 21st-century-student-quality-post-modern-pseudo-marxist rant. Even my “intellect” (god how I FUCKING HATE scare quotes) is just a byproduct of modern academic structures. There is no such thing as being “self-taught” unless you’re a feral child living outside the realm of language. It’s true: most of what I’ve learned has been outside of classrooms. Life experience, self-directed study, however you want to label it. It doesn’t matter. There were still specific variables catalyzed by current intellectual trends which drove me to read certain authors who then caused me to think a certain way.
I don’t know why humans are so preoccupied with the myth of freedom. It doesn’t exist. Even on the most arbitrarily abstract level, humans are imprisoned by the daunting inevitability of their own mortality. Let’s not take into account societal expectation. The modern relationship between individuals and commodities has been placed on an absurd level of false necessity. I’m not going to reiterate what every 22-year-old hyper-political, middle class, self-proclaimed intellectual is regurgitating. We’ve all read Karl Marx and Ayn Rand and Chuck Palahniuk. Some have moved on to worshiping Zizek or other public philocelebrities. We’re anarchists cooking substances in our kitchens – 21st century Betty Crockers with cyanide instead of cupcakes. We’re vehement nihilists venting about the meaninglessness of the universe as we misunderstand Nietzsche and quote his aphorisms out of context. We’re toking socialists who advocate free health care for all but secretly hate paying high taxes with our minimum wage pay (a liberal arts degree ensures an entry-level position at any soul-crushing service job). We’re proud democrats who volunteer and campaign and thoroughly enjoy condemning every hick president who has sat in the white house. We’re militant libertarians – we know who John Galt is – making antiquated right-wing arguments seem controversial and happening -- “Down with big government!” Or, we are simply apathetic – however, the choice of apathy itself signifies a calculated judgment. The ones of us who are self-proclaimed apathetics tend to be the most narcissistically elitist of all. The cherry on top: we’re facebooking and tweeting and blogging these deformed opinions like frequent heart palpitations. It doesn’t matter how highly one values their opinion, we’re still part of this structure. The amount of in-depth analysis and self-motivated study required to illustrate and cultivate this modern intellect is completely futile. We’re still all on the inside -- and it’s impossible to see what the whole structure looks like from here.
I am a hypocrite. Despite all of this, I will continue to read, to explore, to feed my perverse hunger for more knowledge. I know that I will never learn anything. I’m actually glad that I don’t understand precisely how the world works, and that I never will even come close. I don’t want justifications for this force labeled “evil” – this force that could be more adequately named “humanity”. I’d rather accept the notion of complete entropy.
Again, in spite of everything, I will continue to “better” myself – in the objective sense. I’ve already sold out – gone from awkward yet endearing to cute but bitter and soon I’ll be gorgeous and empty. I am obviously conflicted – I’ll keep running, keep climbing, keep sweating. It doesn’t matter. Nothing does.
October 6th, 2010
I am my senses. My heart beats in unison with the ripples of sound echoing around me. I can hear the crickets, chickens, cicadas. It extends beyond mere perception, mere reception – these sounds permeate me. I feel the sounds resonate under my skin: the rustling of leaves as the wind moves around them, through them. The flow of water outside. After the noise of a city, you forget how raucous silence can be.
I’ve never been the jealous type. I’ve always defaulted to insecurity before assuming anyone else is at fault – naturally believing that I am less, but not desiring to be more. In embarking on my transformation, I can feel the overly self-conscious part of myself slowly disappearing. It’s trickling out, drop by drop. There are truths emerging, however, that have always been relevant. Today, I realized that I don’t need to be a trophy to be beautiful. I don’t have to be an ornament to be breathtaking. Maybe this is what I needed to know all along. I finally have someone who has loved me at my worst – who has celebrated my improvement – and who will embrace me at my best. It’s strange. I always had this expectation that I had to be a certain way to be loved – less intelligent, more beautiful. Maybe it’s the Mormon in me, but I was consumed by this secret antiquated notion that a man would never choose a woman who thought too much. I thought I needed to make myself into somewhat of an utilitarian mantelpiece -- equally functional and aesthetically pleasing. I was sure that I needed to be less adventurous, more complacent. It isn’t true. When I firmly decided to engage in this treacherous and challenging battle with self improvement, I decided to do it only for myself. Maybe that’s why I’ve been successful. Most people fail. Maybe that’s why love just stumbled into my lap. Well, more like it (he) strode gallantly into my lap.
I can think more freely here than in the city. There’s a comfort to the rotting wooden planks – how their termite-ridden insides creak and moan as I step over them. I am suddenly penned by Jonathan Swift – surrounded by ubiquitously reverent Lilliputians. It makes me feel powerful and humble at the same time. It’s funny, how these bugs are slowly eating away at this house. They seem so small and inconsequential. Yet, in the thousands, they’ll demolish this place completely. (Termites throw the most jive parties ever – bringin’ down the house.)
Best way to start the morning: David Bowie and oatmeal with cinnamon, freshly ground nutmeg, and bananas from our farm.
I haven’t written much because the owner of the farm was here for a couple days. He covered for us while we were on vacation, but there was still a two day overlap. Oh MY GOD. He is one of the most intense, eccentric, unusual, bizarre people I’ve ever met. I wish I could adequately explain, but no amount of description nor recollection will do him justice. He’s an older white guy who lives in Florida but grew up in Boston. He has a thick accent and long hair – textbook definition of a crazy hippy. Every thirty minutes or so, he breaks out in a rhyme (think: oompa loompa-style meter and vernacular without being set to music). These rhymes were on a variety of topics and most of them were improvised. Some of his favorite subjects included: the Vietnam war, farming, fast food, Liz and I, Bill Clinton, Tantra, Sexuality, Republicans, Buddha, and Vida the cat. Yes. This is real. I don’t really think I’m adequately conveying his level of insanity, so you will just have to take my word for it. He never once attempted to speak Spanish. Every time he talked to a local or one of our workers, He would just yell loudly in English. Once in awhile he’d just add an “O” to the end of a word. Oh, another hilarious thing he said: “Be careful about those ants. Those bastards hurt like hell. You think they’re biting you? Well. You’re wrong. They’re pissing acid all over you, and not the good kind.” He also told us about the 1001 erogenous zones on a woman’s body, and proceeded to rub the inside of our palms with the tips of his fingers. Then, he told us the story of Buddha and somehow tied it in with how he’s been married four times and has three children – all from different women. I will have to leave it at that. He brought a massive amount of weed with him and he was basically high the entire time he was at the farm. The last night before he left, he rolled an enormous joint (reference: Ron Jeremy’s penis) and smoked with us. I’m not really much of a smoker, so needless to say, afterword I couldn’t even differentiate between up and down. According to him, this was “the finest shit in Costa Rica”. I have never been that high before. Well, we talked about politics for a few hours…actually, that’s incorrect. Liz and I listened to him ramble about politics for a few hours. He basically ended up telling us his life story.
Now for something completely different. Rather than present more banal accounts of my day-to-day, I’ve decided to compile a list.
Things I’ve Learned in Costa Rica (including, but not limited to)
How to:
Wield a machete
Harvest bananas
Plant seeds
Milk a cow
Identify poisonous snakes
Make bread from scratch
Harvest eggs
Identify edible plants in the wild
Kill a scorpion
(this list does not include the many intangible life lessons that have been forced upon me by this place)
Yesterday was one of the most amazing days of my life. It started out with breakfast at the hostel. We decided that we wanted to take a tour of the volcano – but we wanted to “shop around”. There were tons of tours advertised at our hostel, but I just wasn’t jiving with the prices. On our way into the center of La Fortuna, Liz stopped at a roadside booth selling jewelry. We talked to the guy and told him what our plans were, etc… He then told us about his friend Julio who ran RedLava tours – that they were the best in town at the best price. I know, a likely story, but for some reason I took word of mouth over our crazy hostel concierge trying to sell us a lava-dancing-horseback-riding-atv-ziplining-million-dollar tour. So, we went over and talked to one of the guys there. Pay close attention to this one – he enters the story again later. We talked to him in Spanish, and originally he was going to charge us $45 for the tour, but I talked him down to $35. I was prepared to walk if he made me pay any more. So, we got both of us tickers $70. This included a guided tour, admittance to the observatory, transportation to and from our hostel, a hike down to the water fall, nighttime lava watching, and some time at the natural hot springs. Our hostel’s tours included admittance to baldi hot springs, but it was an actual spa (not natural!). The hot springs we went to were definitely off the beaten path. More about those comes later. Our tour, in total, lasted from 2:00 p.m. to about 10:00 p.m. And oh my god, our tour guide was INCREDIBLE. This is where my adventure begins.
We drove to the volcano and started at the observatory. The observatory was a giant wooden deck with chairs at the foot of the volcano maybe a mile away from the base. It was huge and vast and looming and we had excellent views of the volcano and lake arenal. I learned SO MUCH about biology. Our tour guide, Ian, had the most amazing accent. He had studied geology and environmental conservation in college -- and it showed. He was like a fucking encyclopedia. His was fluent in english, and he spoke eloquently with this rhythmic costa rican accent. The best part, however, were the words he threw in. He said “man” a lot – I realized where it came from later when he was telling us how he managed a bunch of Rastafarians doing tours in Belize. He said they never got any work done. Ha. He also had a creole twang – he spoke creole for us (the only way you can order chicken in Belize!) Anyway, he was probably in his late twenties or early thirties – tattooed and strapping. He told us all about how Costa Rica has more endemic species than almost any other place in the world because of its geographic proximity between the two tectonic plates. Many species have migrated from the south to the north – likewise, from the north to the south. Because of the mountainous pockets in Costa Rica, many species remain in these separate miniature ecosystems. BIODIVERSITY FOR THE WIN. I could go on, but there is so much more to say. Lake Arenal is one of the largest manmade lakes in the world – it was created for an impressive hydroelectric energy project. It now supplies 30% of all the electricity for Costa Rica.
So, from there we saw the CUTEST little creature that was apparently a cousin of the raccoon and several amazing tropical birds. Of course, I don’t remember any of their names. I was too distracted by how much our tour guide new about EVERY SPECIES in the rainforest of plants and animals AND his encyclopedia-like knowledge of evolutionary biology. He showed us plants that form their leaves in a helix around the stem as an evolutionary advantage – that way they can all absorb sunlight. I also learned about philodendrons – as their etymology describes, they are tree-lovers. They grow by wrapping around really tall trees to get sun at the top of the canopy. They also have spread out grooves in their leaves to prevent them from catching wind and rainwater (it would tear them from their stems at that height – thus killing them). Ian – being the badass that he is – harvested a sugar cane stick (he told us to watch out for park rangers, hahaha) and cut it up for us to eat after we jumped into the waterfall. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. At one point, he stopped, and was like “Does anyone have a cigarette?” I seriously didn’t think he could be serious. One of the guys handed him one. He lit it up, took a few puffs, then picked a few flowers. “What are the rules of a creating a chemical reaction? High school chemistry anyone?” No one had the answer. “Combining elements or adding heat.” As he said this, he pressed his cigarette to the pink flower first and it turned a BRIGHT NEON BLUE. It was fucking AWESOME. Then, there was a darker shade of magenta on the second flower. It turned a deep purple. I am still amazed at how much of a badass this guy was. Once we started off the beaten path and into the foliage around the base of the volcano, we got to see a male howler monkey. It turns out that howler monkeys are all brown except for their genitals, which are a bright white. Ian told a story – borrowed from the oral tradition of the Bribri tribe. (The Bribri were the autochthonous people of the Talamanca region, living in the mountains and Caribbean coastal areas of Costa Rica and northern Panama. They’re still around – they live without electricity and subsist entirely on agriculture. Central American Amish, perhaps?) So, the story is that the howler monkey made a lot of noise. It would screech and scream and wail. Finally, one of the other monkeys warned the howler monkey that the God Sibu was becoming angry at its antics. The howler monkey continued wailing until, one day, Sibu struck it with a bolt of lightning. All it could to was put its hands over its monkey junk. That’s why it’s black with a white penis and balls. So awesome. We wandered through the rainforest for awhile longer before scaling the side of this really steep cliff down to the waterfall. After we climbed down, We were able to strip down to our bathing suits and dive in. It was absolutely exhilarating. There was mist everywhere, the sound of the water pounding down from the waterfall was deafening. We couldn’t see anything beyond the dense foliage and incredibly tall trees. The sky barely peeked through the canopy. It was freezing. I’ve never felt anything like that in my life. So, I layered on my clothes over my wet bathing suit and trudged back up the cliff. We had to make good time because daylight was almost gone. We got back to the observatory quickly. Ian talked with Liz and I for awhile. We told him how we’re staying here until January, what are farm is like, etc… He gave us his email and phone number and said we could stay with him in Arenal anytime we wanted. He also said he has a house in San Jose that we can use if we’re ever there, and that he’s taking a trip to Cocorvado in the south in mid September and we are welcome to come with him. He’s doing geological work, and he is going to show us the whole preserve. Apparently, it’s really exotic there. Turtles, dolphins, whales, tropical birds of every kind…I’m so excited. He also spent about 30 minutes telling us how to identify snakes, how to tell which ones are poisonous, and how to treat snake bites. Pit vipers have triangular heads because their poison glands are behind their eyes. They can also open their jaw at 180 degrees, so they’re more dangerous. They tend to coil and strike, but they’re dormant for about 20 days after each kill. It also takes 15-21 days to regenerate the venom, so 20% of the time, a bite won’t kill you. He said he got a “dry bite” once in the Caribbean. His leg was swollen and sore for a week, but he lived. If it would have been a venomous bite, he said he definitely would have died. He was three hours away from the nearest hospital. He also told us that Costa Rica keeps these facts under wraps: 800 people each year in Costa Rica get bitten by snakes. Around 10% lead of these bites lead to amputation, and 1% of those bitten will die. Kind of terrifying. He taught us the following: Never use a tourniquet after getting bitten. It will lead to mandatory amputation. Don’t suck the venom out with your mouth. If you have a cavity or a hole in your teeth, the neurotoxins in snake venom (especially in the coral snakes) will get right into your central nervous system and you will be paralyzed within minutes. The hallucinations will begin soon after. He also said never attempt to make an incision on a snake bite. Most snake venoms have anticoagulants, so you will bleed to death. Also “black and yellow kills a fellow – red and black, you’re a safe jack”. Some of the non-venomous snakes mimic the colors of the poisonous varieties as an evolutionary advantage. So, yes. Good to know. After he lead us on the road for awhile, he took us to a natural hot spring. This was NOT touristy at all. Only locals were there, and it was pitch black in the middle of a dense outcropping of the side of the road. We had to climb down and slide down this concrete bank where the water was flowing. He pushed us one at a time. GOD IT WAS SO AWESOME. I wish I could explain to you how eerily beautiful the mist in the sparse moonlight. He hung a lantern from one of the trees, so we had a little light. The minerals made my skin feel AMAZING. So yes. Afterwords, he dropped us off at our hostel and we exchanged emails. I cannot wait to hang out with this guy in Cocorvado. He is so fucking awesome. He also said I can email him any pictures of plants, bugs, animals, etc… if I have questions. He can tell me what is edible, what is poisonous, how to make certain plants grow better, and so on. Anything related to nature, costa rica, geology, or just the rainforest in general. Caring for dengue fever. God. So good.
After we got back to the hostel, Liz and I changed really fast and decided to go out for a few hours. I had at least 10 drinks. Liz had more. The bartender was really cute and making eyes at Liz all night. In the middle of our conversation, these two sleazy guys came over and tried to talk to us. The bartender wrote us a note in Spanish telling us not to talk to them – they were dangerous. Earlier a fight had broken out outside, and I guess they were involved or something. So we pretended not to speak any Spanish and just ignored them. They eventually went away. THEN – LATER – the guy who sold us the red lava tour (not Ian) was at the bar too! He came over and started talking to us. One of his friends came over too and they stayed with us for a few hours. The bartender looked butt hurt that someone else had Liz’s attention. She did look really hot. Haha. So, we went next door and danced with them for awhile. They bought us shots and drinks. The guy’s friend apparently knows EVERYONE. Turns out, he started the tourism bureau of Arenal. He started the first tours 10 years ago when he was 15 in the back of a pickup truck. Now, he owns one of the largest tour companies in the city. He walked behind the bar and just started talking to us and throwing drinks together. He didn’t work there, and the manager didn’t even blink an eye. He even lit up a cigarette behind the bar – other people would ask him for drinks – real customers – and he told them that he was a “vip” bartender only for Liz and I. So good. Eventually, the guy who sold us the tour ended up being a creeper mccreep with Liz and feeling her up. I decided it was a good time to “get really tired” and “have to go home”. They were pissed at me, but I played the part. They tried to keep us there with the promise of marijuana – but Liz made a good point that it’s probably not wise to take drugs from strange men who want to sleep with us. So, we pretended to go home and ended up going back next door to where the cute bartender was. He was GRINNING when he saw us (Liz) come back. We talked for a bit, then Liz went to the bathroom. I, of course, was wasted. So, in my broken Spanish, I told him that Liz thought he was “muy guapo”. He grinned from ear to ear. He kept coming over and talking to us. Well, I conveniently was tired. I went back to the hostel (it was really close) and she waited for him to get off work. He even drove her home! Super nice guy.
Yeah, so overall it was an epic day. I’m sad to leave La Fortuna. The volcano is looming over the hostel as we speak and smoking a little. Quite scenic.
I got six or so hours of sleep and I feel INFINITELY better. Just in case anyone was concerned. Now, I'm savoring a cup of coffee and basking in the cool rainy air. This hostel really is awesome. If anyone ever stays in Arenal -- I'd highly recommend it. Arenal Backpacker's Hostel. $14 a night.
Now, I'm mentally preparing myself for our hike to the volcano. It's going to be incredible.
