Alejuela

So I woke up this morning with way too much hair (did I tell you it´s hot here?). While waiting for Amelia and Jen to get ready for today´s adventure, I cut off my pig tails. Pretty easy! It looks a little silly, but it´s sooo much cooler. I´ll post a picture when I can so you can giggle over my cutting technique.


Immediately post pigtail surgery

 

We decided to visit one of the volcanos today, which meant that we needed to travel to Alejeula. I spoke with our hostel keeper (not entirely trusting them after yesterday´s fiasco) and found out that the bus ran every 20 minutes, and would stop right around the corner. Woo hoo! It sounded so simple.

 

And that part was simple, I even got to chatting with a local old guy while waiting for the bus. Very interesting...

 

When our bus came, we all jumped on, and then spent 5 minutes getting yelled at by the bus driver. We didn´t understand him, he didn´t understand us, he was in a hurry and we were making him late. Aaack! Not fun. The passengers enjoyed our discomfort. = ) Can´t say I blame them!

 

Whatever, it all worked out in the end. It definitely wasn´t pretty, but we made it, and learned a valuable lesson. If there is a situation in which speed is necessary, just give the bus driver a bigger bill, and pay for everyone at once! We´re going to try that on the next bus. I´ll let you know how it goes.

 

Our guidebooks had small maps of the city, but they were pretty useless since street signs are very rare here. Magically (I´m totally serious, I have no idea how it happened) we got off the bus one block away from our destination. Hurrah!

 

I already like Alejeula better, it´s a big city still, but has more green stuff and the drivers are a little less crazy. (In Heredia we were constantly getting ´almost killed´ by cars, trucks and scooters that take stop signs as suggestions and see pedestrians as sport.) Our hotel is amazing, a dollar more than the last place, but cleaner, prettier, and with a more knowledgable staff. (Also free internet and breakfast!!)

 

We missed the bus to the volcano though, so are brainstorming about what to do instead...

 

Heredia

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!

Arrived in Costa Rica!

So I arrived in Costa Rica last night after a supremely fun day of travelling (planes, layovers and spanish speakers-oh my!) and met up with two of my friends. It felt really nice to see two friendly faces after a long day and some confusion in the immigration lines. The pal of my friend Amelia, Danielle, who spent Winter Quarter studying in CR, met us and helped get us to a cheap but quality hostel. Thank goodness. Her Spanish is excellent and she helped us get not ripped off. Definitely appreciated. Especially since we just wanted to crash.

This morning we woke up to blue skies and views of the mountains that were hidden last night. Hurrah! Definitely a lovely morning. We´re headed to the market, hopefully we won´t get lost.

The internet is really slow here (and relatively pricey), so that´s all for now.

Amelia and Jen in our hotel room

Leaving on a jet plane...

Brian and I have been house & dog sitting in a quasi-mansion for his step-mom. It may seem like a mansion since we've been living in a palace of leaky faucets, clogged drains, moldy ceilings and a swinging bedroom door...

It's been fun, and hanging out with their dog-Rio-has been even more fun. Man! He has a ton of energy though!!

Yesterday we headed to an awesome dog park. They've fenced in a huge areas where dogs can hang out sans leash. Rio was in doggie heaven, although he seemed to have some trouble hanging on to his frisbee.



Tomorrow morning Brian will be driving me to the airport, and from there I have a 5 hour layover (in Houston, TX-Why couldn't it be Austin?) before landing in San Jose, Costa Rica's International Airport. I will be arriving 4 days before my school program starts, and hope to see a few sights before meeting up with the group.

I'll keep you updated!