Danielle suggested our hostel, a find at $10 a night, which is located in the town of Heredia. It´s a city by Costa Rican standards, and very americanized. Most of the houses are low to the ground and connected to one another (reminiscent of squished town houses). The majority of the homes are gated and they make great use of bright colors and plants.
Upon arriving, we all swore that we would have the local currency, colones, all figured out before venturing outside of our hostel room. Ha!
Our first night, we went to a bar to meet some of Danielle´s friends. The bar was nearly empty, but did boast a couple of pool tables. It´s a good thing that there weren´t many people there, seeing as it took us each quite a bit of time to figure out how much to pay the bartender. Very stressful. = )Since we were all wiped out, and since the bar closed about an hour after we got there, it was a pretty uneventful ´night out´, but it was nice to meet Danielle´s friends (students primarily and one local).
The next day Amelia, Jen and I braved the outside world in order to find an ATM and the market. We got horrifically lost. People gave us directions to random locations, and we walked for hours before realizing that the market is actually a district in Heredia. Riiiight. Good to know!
The ATMs were just as confusing. First off, if you go near a bank, you are given a scary once over by a guy carrying some type of heavy artillery (there was a shotgun, something that looked like a machine gun and one guy just had a couple of pistols). The first couple of ATMs didn´t accept our cards, so we went into those banks to see if they could give us advice. I must admit, I was pretty proud of myself for being able to communicate the situation to the teller.
We found an ATM for Amelia and Jen, but sadly my card wasn´t accepted anywhere (yes, horrible!). I´ve contacted my bank, who I also contacted before I left and was told that there would be no problem. Yeah, right. Whatever. I´m still waiting to hear back from them. I have enough money to get buy until we hook up with my professor...Cross your fingers that my bank knows what´s up!
After this exciting day, we couldn´t find our hotel. Ha ha. Yes, laugh now, we´ve learned our lesson. It´s really not our fault, the woman at our hotel told us that our hotel was in one place (on the map) when actually it was no where near that place.
We wandered around for a couple of hours, asking people periodically where we were and where they thought our hotel was (that was fun, at least my Spanish improved!) Then we ended up flagging down a taxi. Our hotel was about 3 blocks from where we caught the taxi. Amazing, right? I doubt we would have found it on our own though.
And that was our day in Heredia!
2 comments:
That's great that you are getting so much Spanish practice. It's funny that you forgot where your hotel is. My first night in Lima, I forgot where my hotel was. I also had left all of my luggage there, I didn't know the name of the hotel or where it was, and I ended up wandering around a really sketchy neighborhood in the dark. I didn't make that mistake again. After that I at least remembered the name of the hotel and the cross streets.
I hope BECU follows through---when I was in spain and china my credit union atm card worked fine....maybe they think it is not you? good luck and i miss you!
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