drug trafficing in paradise

so we didnt go to the corn islands, lonley planet, the u.s. state department, and megans mom via wiki traveler say that is it a posibility that we could get muged at gun or knifepoint, raped, or have our room broken into. So we regretfully declined the islas de maize. We had to go to the capital anyways to get out and megan decided we should check it out for a night. The book says that its dangerous... and it is... but less dangerous at the book points out than the corn islands. We are staying in a hotel that is inside someones house, ruth´s house actually, and it doesnt look like a hotel... so we are pretty safe. We took cabs everywhere and it kind of looks like 28 days later here. the city was devastated by volcanos and doesnt have th money to restore itself... and another volcano is likely... so its part shanty town ... like houses made of trash and half shit hole... whith a art museum... that we went to that is partially closed. It displays drawings of animals that may have existed ( but i doubt it) and a few pàintings. We also saw prehistoric foot prints thatare cab driver had to ask for directions to get to ... he asked us if it was near the trash... thisconfused me until i say the town made of trash and the river of trash. The museums human remains it boasted were lying around on a desk... we looked through the windows to see them not really on display... and looked at the cave foot prints with the jehovas witness from texas who split the cab with us. After that we looked for a resturant to eat lunch at near our hotel... all we found was a place called the other fish. it was covered in murals of unicorns, the marlboro man, and che govera thinking about the styrafoam fish mounted to the wall. Musica romantica and cheezy american 80´s music sung in spanish and english was playing and we ate what wasnt fish.. beacuse the pro`spect of fish here is scary... not fishmeans fried food... and fanta in a flavor i can only describe as how bathrooom cleaner smells..... we are going to watch telenovellas in our room and leave in the morning.


on a more pleasant note ... in granada last night we ate at the resturant that was purple and had crepes. it was like eating at shouk in `philly. and we got a banana dark chocolate flambe crepe for desert that was seriously almost better than sex.... meagn and i felt like we had done somthing inapropriate in public afte eating it. and for dinner we had vegetable currycrepes! seriously.... go to granada... get your nails done... ride cariages, go to the street market... and go to NECTAR!

super gay carriage rides and 6 dollar pedicures... I love you granada.

So megan and i got into granada at noon. On our way to our hostel we walked through the open air market... which was pretty much a den of iniqueties. We both found flip flops to replace the ones that we had worn out before even ariving at our hostel. The first hostel we tried had exciting cheezy prints painted on the wall but disapointing service, prices, and bathrooms. We ended up at oasis... which i already talked about... sadly the usb ports cant handle my photos. We spent the day taking pictures in the market of the soup in bags, people carying everything on their heads and wearing ruffly aprons, and old women who upon asking to take their picture babble undicernably and then hug you. we walked around being thuroughly pleased by the colorful buildings. Then we went and got a six dollar manicure and pedicure combo... which was fricken fantastic after the volcano hike.... however i kept saying disculpeme... caminar mucho en las montañas... lo siento.. Apolagies realluy were unesicary because my feet after the rough cliping and buffing would emerge in allsorts of different shapes, but whatever i payed 6 bux and got to read an entire magazine about princess di in spanish. today meagan and i took a 5 dollar carriage ride tour of the city and pretended to be lesbians, and had a enjoyable ¨full american breakfast¨and we plan to eat at the returant that is purple and has crepes. We would dance but we found out last night that both el club ( the bar lonley planet tells us has grandpas and transvestites, and the other recomended club) arnt open during the week. We did get to take a light speed cab ride in a cab that kept stalling and not starting with a cab driver who reminded me of mr bean, instead of dancing... but tonight i think we will swim in the pool and prepare for our bus riverboat bus ferry voyage to the corn islands.

¨ I thought both volcanos would have an atm¨¨

so i have fallen a bit behind in the blogging.. were going to go back in time to when i crossed the border into nicuragua on a bus with air conditioning and middle aged woman´s vomit. Megan and I left tamarindo to flea costa rica in search of cheaper countries.... first nicuragua. we forgot to buy our ticket a day in advance so we wound up going on a private bus with air conditioning and a bathroom and romantic music videos. The bus stoped at what i thought was a legit border crossing.... I figured big building... cops with ak47´s ( lonly planet tell´s us this is normal.. in nicuragua) ... and money exchange people with badges.... this must be ok. I agreeded to changing my colones to cordobas... and imediatly got cheated out of 15 bux. Some nice costa ricans from our bus alerted the cops... who said they would look for the guy... but did nothing when i found him because he said he had never seen me before and smiled at me. The nice middle aged costa rican and his son who looked like a skeezy guy but was sweet and kept helping us and letting us in front of him, exsplained that i was cheated because i have curly hair and my skin is not brown... fair enough, lets call a spade a spade. We got to the crossing and the nborder people left right before we got the the front... to i dont know pick their nose... and a creepy guy kept inching closer to me like he was going to rob me or hit on me... i lucking am smart and did not get robed... the border people returned and barely looked at my papers and then we were back on the bus. I walked past some bright yellow vomit and an embarased chic european woman... the bus atendants were covering it with newspaper as if they were adam sandler in big dady. We were in the bus for all of 5 minutes before we stoped again... the bus people scarily took our pasports to be stamped ( but did not tell us this) we took all of our bags.. stood in line only to be instructed to push a large red button which controled a stop light... I pushed it and it did not turn green and the man with the gun looked concerned and asked me to push it again... the second time it turned green and i was instructed to walk to the guy loking at bags who glanced at me for maybe a second and then let me pass. It was sort of like the good and bad egg scale in willy wonka.... the long and short of it being had i wanted to smuggle drugs that would be aok. the buss people took our bags back and then called our names from the passports and then let us get on... sort of like dodge ball teams. I heard edderrrr nuinan and got on the bus, glancing for a moment at the woman selling hamocks wraped up on her head making her look like frida. I really wanted to take a picture but thought i might get mugged. from the bus we got off at the shell station the lonley planet says you can catch the bus to san jorge from. However we were informed that the bus costs more than the cab. so we got a jesus is my savior cab to the ferry to the island of ometepe. The ferry showed music videos that were definetly inapropriate for children, and the whole ferry looked like it was out of a 60´s sitcom. we took another bus once on the island... and meagn asked if i had gotten more money out, because only the island we were not staying on had an atm.... i had not but luckily... i was only 10 dollars short. after a good nights sleep in our ranchero style open air camp beds we went on the hike up the volcano. It was exsplained to me by our nonchalant aussie hostel owner that for 10 dollars we could go on a guided 8 hour hike up the smaller volcano... we thought thats a good deal why not. Yeah we now know that when the hike is described as easy, and a little muddy ... nicuraguans mean the hardest hike you will ever do that will take you 9 hours instead of 8 because you will be hand over foot climbing up the most mud you will ever see, with your 3 litters of water recomended by your guide that is looking at you dispondently. Lonley planet said our guide would have ropes to help us..... not so much..... Megan and i have decided no more hiking for the rest of the trip possibly the rest of our lives. The view was nice at the top though. the next day we of course went to the mayan petroglyphs that were farthest away... and got another tour from a old man who i thought was adorable until he started toughing my arm and calling me mi amour. all in all i did love ometepe... it was sort of like boruca... and after the petroglyphs i got some great shooting done on the island with the atm. In the morning megan and i got on the ferry and at a hearty breakfast on the ferry of coffee and bimbo pinguinos... aka black hostess cupcakes with the white squiggle, while watching spanish music videos made from american movies and barry white videos where the lips dont match up with the spanish... all in all my best breakfast yet. We arived in granada at noon...

grañada has usb ports!!!!!!

this means later tonight when im dorking out and telling you all about the island of ometepe and the border crossing in to nicuragua... i might be able to UPLOAD SOME PHOTOS!.... or at least the ones that are jpgs.... maybe.... so sit tight... or actually don´t because you have things to do... but be happy for me that after waking up this morning to cockroach reincarnation and the early morning ferry... i get an awesome hostel with free internet, a pol, a cortyard free international calls and USB ports! fuck yes! i love you granada.... more on nicuragua later

tamacrapo

yes i have made it out of the cloudforest.... and i dont want back in.... but i think i want out of this country. I am in tamarindo beach...this is aparently where all of the california stoners and rich people go for their exotic vacations and exspensive condos. My theory is graduate the california state school or not... get sick of mommy... come to costa rica.. learn nothing about its culture... and bye your 10 dollar fast food pizza and 3 dollar juice... and go lay out on the stinkier beach that smells of piss and seaweed... then go get stoned like you do in cali. Maybe I am being a new england elitist... but stay in california... you can surf there. we are leaving here a day early... hopefully we can get on the bus to managua... even though it says to buy the ticket a day early... or we will be staying in a cheaper 5 dollar hotel in lackluster liberia. on a side not we did pass through filadelfia.... a but smaller that philadelphia... but still quite amusing. All i can say is i cant wait to see the petroglyphs on the island in the middle of the lake in the middle of nicuragua made of two volcanos. that will be awesome. are we there yet.... still cant make question marks. silly spanish computers and their lack of uniformity.

stuck in the cloud forest

well i'm on the internet again... because it is the only thing i can aford to do here. our friendly hostel staff at sleepers budget hostel neglected to tell us that they lock the common areas from 10 pm to 6 am. it would have been good of them to tell us this.... i dunno when we checked out a locker in the common area... or when we told them we would be leaving at 5am.... so yes... we did not leave our pasports and camera gear... in fact we did not leave at all. we are here for another day... hopefully staying for free... with nothing we can do. monteverde is gorgous... however the cheapest non tour thing you can do is take a ten dollar cab to the park and then pay a 13 dollar entry fee. so thats a no go... today activities may include... buying a bus ticket, siting in a coffee shop, wishing i had my jeans so i could walk along the road in the 65 degree mountain weather with high winds. owell whats a day right. still havnt figured out question marks on here. yesterday was fun though... after our slow tram to coffee we went to the frog museum as i mentioned and then returned at night to see the frogs more active. my favorite was the glass belly frog that you could see through and the iredecent one. then after that we splurged a bit and went to one of the first resturants i have seen on this trip with my favorite desert ever... tres leches cake. the resturant was bult in a tree and the ceiling was burlap covering the leaves with chinese lanterns, there was also a live three person salsa band with bongo drums, and i got a coffee liqour coffee with cinamon and chocolate... i figured i could almost aford this treat seeing as there was no cover charge and i had eaten rice for dinner. oh! and before that we went to a store in t own... without buying a thing, that sold kitchen apliances, clothes, stationary, music, toiletrees, and costa rican manuals about sexual health with cutionalry tales about stds, a childrens coloring book about where babys come from and a sex position manual with a hiku in spanish next to each one.... it was all i could do not to piss myself laughing and buy the 20 dollar book.... but i restrained myself

gringo pete and the crazy monkey

well it has been a bit since i have blogged. and the people at this hostel must think all i do is g o on the internet.... but lets see whats happened... well we left san jose in the wee hours of the morning and got to la fortuna around noon after surviving .... somthing i will tell you about then i get back... and a creepy guy staring at us on the bus for a few hours. after a landslide of no gracias tengo un habatacion no gracias! we went to gringo petes... a bright purple hostel with two top bunks for us with ladders meant for tall people. after levatating up to my bed rather ungracfully and unpacking, we went on a tour of the volcano. The tour started with our guide telling us about his friend who died in the first eruption and then showing us a old photo album, and stoping on the side of the rode to show us leaves, and ant eaters, and toucans. We got the the begining of the hike and soon realized that we were to be govered in mud, the whole hike was large steps into mud and up steep inclines.. where we were not suposed to touch trees. after all of us loosened up about the mud... in cluding megan, we came to a vine hat our guide let us swing on like tarzan. It was a ton of un... and i would like to say that i have a great picture but megan forgot to take off the lens cap. After that we hiked up more and then it got dark and then the rain started. the night hike in the dark with the missionaries spreading jehovas witness doctrine in madagascar was interesting to say the least. I bit my tounge and did not ask about what the indigenous religion was in madagascar, i instead focus on avoiding but and the fer de lance snake our guide casual pointed out and noted was the most poisonous snake in all of central america. after the hike and after our free guaro drink and some lava viewing... meagn and i headed to the baldi hot springs, mad made but heated by the volcano. the baldi had many themes for our eyes to take in ... including but not limied to , italian, jewish, roman, and a fake myan pyramid leading up to hot waterslides, that reminded me of that early 90's show legends of the hidden temple. after speeding through a few pools in order to get the full exsperience in the two hours we payed for, we headed to the long awaited pool in the bar. after seting down our muddy hiking gear so that we could see it... because we were too cheap to rent a locker.... we headed to he bar...with are wallets raised above the water. We ordered a rediculous tropical drink made of coconut milk, a banana, choclate, and rum,called the crazy monkey ,we only got one drink to save money. little did we know it wouldnt really matter because we were so relaxed in the pool bar that we unintentionally floated away without paying... and everyone was so relaxed that no one caught us. i noticed in the next pool and qickly took the coctail unbrella out of my hair. I didnt pay for it because i figured the karma evened out for when i had ten bux stolen at rocking j's. after the springswe returned to gringo petes and was greeted by the incesant cleaning ladys ... who were somehow miraculously STILL cleaning. we left in the morning and took a van, a boat and a van to monteverde. Making a breif stop at a soda so the drivers could eat some rice and beans and all of us ..from many contries stoped to watch the obama inaguration ... dubed in spanish. after a breif freak out in monteverde about money.. my amazing mother agreed to give me a loan, interest free, and told me dont come home early live your life. and so i went to the orchid garden... learned all about my favorite flower. later meagan and i cooked some scary chicken went to bed ... feasted on included breakfast and then rode on the longest cheapest most uneventful gondola canopy tour ever... but had a great time frezing our buts off and talking, and laughed so hard it hurt when the gondola stoped infront of a restyrant on a platform made just to hand us free coffee and cookies. after that we went to the frog museum...where a andorably guy... with a hilarious acent ... who almost resembles a tree frog gave us a great tour... we will go back tonight for free whne the frogs are more active... after we eat our gross chicken, and then we plan to eat tres leches cake in the tree house resturant... then its off to tamarindo o stay in the argentinian run cow themed hostel call ed the milk bottle... then to nicuragia to the corn islands... the glamourous corn islands.

if you cant go south why not go north to the glamorous corn islands?

um we decided since columbia is mean, and the 3 day bus would save us a few nights in a hostel and is 40 bux and takes us to guatemala... why not go to costa rica , panama, belize, honduras, el salvador, AND costa rica? we are going to see a ton of myan ruins... the corn islands.... which are caribean and good for hiking, an island made of two volcanos in the middle of a lake in the middle of nicuragua, and more indigenous people... and then you know back track to panama and say hi to the darien gap that f-ed us over, and the indigenous tribe that invented poison darts and lives in stilt houses on the river.... oh and by the way meagn bungee jumped today... i took pictures and did not regret my hells no im not paying 65 dollars to jump of a bridge at 9am choice... tomorow we are of to arenal to stay at gringo petes and see some lava... then we will travel by boat jeep boat to monteverde to the cloud forest and orchid garden! i love life.

mis adventures in tramsit with ticos

well i am back in sanjose, i had a absolutly wonderful day yesterday. Berny mi novio, and maris and hers went to san jose, I got a leasurly breakfast while i waited for bernie to get back from shoping in panama... its close and cheap and tax free. we spent the whole bus ride cuddling and listening to buena vista social club. It just so happens that my favorite song by them is about wanting your companero to come home and dance, and berny kept singing it to me, it was really sweet. when we got to sanjose he insisted on carying my bag and having megan walk in front for her saftey. we got to the hostel and they treated us like shit because we had costa ricans staying with us. maris's guy lost his id and they told him he couldnt stay i said i had to get money becuase they dont take cards but that berny and i were staying and they gave away my room too, but we ended up staying in a much nicer hotel for 20 bux more, which is alot but at ten at night i didnt care. berny tried to pay for it all but i wouldnt let him because its like a weeks pay for him. we all had a great time... maris so much that she missed her flight, i hope we can get money wired to her because she also lost her card and i cant keep fronting... but we will work all of thar out im sure. I cant be stressed here its inpossible. tomorow megan and i are going to the butterfly garden and then im going to watch her bungee jump... and maybe if i go crazy jump or repel down a waterfall. and then we are off to arenal to swim in volcanic hot springs...then maybe nicuragua..

eyore egor.

well I can't say that I have anything that tops my adventures with moses, but I will say that I have had a great time in puerto viejo. the town itself is a bit touristy ( a bit too much for my liking so I did not really shoot here, well except for taking pictures of my hostel.. rocking j's... look it up its awesome. I have been renting a tent for 6 bux a night and the whole hostel is covered in mosaics, it is sooo awesome, i feel like i have been living in a hippy commune for the past week. I knew it was going to be good when i saw the sign reading prohibitar fumar marijuana in el hotel va a la playa.... don't smoke pot in the hotel go to the beach. I also enjoyed the 'emergency sex chair' that was holding tour brochures... I have mostly been going to the beach with Maris here. I'm generally not a huge beach person.. but I have adapted. I have been going to the beach so much that my black skirt that i wear with my bathing suit was so salty and faded beyond repair or washing so bought my first thing for myself here.. a new coverup and i just threw out my skirt. other than going to the beach Maris and i have been trying to get to the indigenous reserve in bribri.... however we keep getting distracted by the beach and sleeping in late with our 'novio's'.... Novio's are by far my favorite part of staying in one town for a bit and going salsa dancing... Pretty much i have it made... a beach all the time, a guaranteed dancing partner ( even if they are on tico time) and someone to take long walks on the beach with. I leave for San Jose tomorrow with Maris, our novios cant keep their eyes dry and have decided to accompany us on our journey to San Jose.... for just one more day...oh! and i almost forgot... berny mi novio has been trying to learn english from me... we established that burro- spanish for donkey... is not exactly the same as the word jackass... we have learned that eyore is a donkey... the one in 'winne poo' and egore is not in dracula but in frankenstein and is a monstre.... however i was unable to exsplain the meaning of hommie when asked the best sentance ever ' que significa hommie?'

Puerto viejo de limon

yep thats where we are now... um internet is expensive... beaches are great... i´ll write more another day. I´m gonna go sit on the beach now and sip piña coladas....

moses of the jungle

well it has been an interesting week, and that is such an uncontrollable understatement it´s not even funny. The festival de diabilitos was just as amazing and crazy as last year, I would try to describe it but it is really undescribable and i´d need to use my voice and hands to even attemp it. but after the festival we headed to corcovado, martin the guy from maine who is always there told us to walk down the amazing road ( a road in boruca that is mostly unihabited andutiful and running along a mountain ridge) because it leads top the pan american highway. He said we should just ask a borucan to give us a ride to the higway and from there we could could hail the bus. However during the diabilitos fighting before the fie with the drunk machete man, we3 started talking to moses, a local borucan, who was about 40, he told us he had a huge house with a waterfall and lake, an fruit trees, and he had a car and he could take us there... while this was against every rule of safe travel... we ecided it was also not the smartest idea to hith hike, so we figuered whats the diffeence. We asked around, and my host family didnt think he was creepy or bat a eyelash, so we told him we would meet him at 7 am full well knowing that we woul be hit on ruthlessly. he showed up in his dirty led zépplin shirt in a rusty pikup truck, with two other people sidney ( or el sid, the body guard, or micheal jackson, as all of the locals have been calling him), megga ( megans name when prounced ) maris (mari), an myself ( edder) piled into the bak of the pickup truck, an roe on the dirt ridge road for about an hour and a half with all of our bags. The rie was so beautiful I couldnt beleive it, I felt drunk on happyness. My hair was flying in the win while I ate my de abuela muffin and my melecotin juice. when we arrived at moses{s house that i didnt think would exist.... it was exactly as he had described it, in a beautiful mountain range, next to where the river meets the sea, with ten rooms, an outdooor kithen, and suoune by fruit tees. When we got there we introduced ourselves to the kind of sketchy looking guys and moses knocked down three geen cocnuts an cut them open with his machete.We stood around drinking coconut water, and then one of the kittens ame over and started licking megan, he liked her so much he pretty much nursed her han an followe us when mosses took us to see the crocodiles in the river. He informed us that we had missed the 9am bus and the next one was at 5 so we would have to stay for the day.We were all kind of bummed about this but ha we know what was in store for us i ont think anyone would have had any problems. Moses asked us if we wanted to go on a hike, we said yes and nervously took our money and passports with us. He told us we could hike to see the borucan grave yard with the large spheres of stone. We starte on the hike, one not meant for wimps around 10am, the first stretch was so steep that is was almost hand over foot hiking in hot sun, but we were well fed an hidrated because moses kept piking us fruit, we tied cacao seeds ( what chocolate is mae from) we has at least three types of citrus, an some cas, an star fruit, as the hike got going it got increasingly mote rediculous, soon we were in the middle of the jungle avoiing bullet ants an using fines to brae ourselves as we traversed the terain, I felt like an il equipe jane of the jungle, but it was so amazing. When we reached the borucan graveyard they told us to wait for them, and isapeared for about 5 minutes in the jungle, an this point we all joke that we had broken every rule the travel medicine lay ha talked about, hiling in open toe shoes, drinking the water, eating fruit without thick peels, not wearing 50 percent eet bugspray, and the whole following strangers thing, they ame back though ( we figured out that they had to pray to their gos and i remembere that non borucans are not allowed to see it) they brought us bak small round spheres of stone, and then we kept walking and were told to slide down the slope an then go uner the barbed wire, afte another hour or so we reahed a natural waterfall surouned by cedars, an blue morpho butterflies, the walk was absolutely amazing, when we got back we were greated with homemae plantain chips, beans an pork, coffee an ecuadorian tea. we sat with moses fo a bit an then he took us to go swimming ( with the crocodiles) and kyacking, at which point he asked maris if he was to old for her to marry him, and she said yes he was to old... we got changed and then went with him to a shack where we would hail the bus, we caught the bus and rode it at sunset to ´puerto jimenez. We tried to get the bus thismorning to corocvado but missed the only bus which leaves at 6am, so i spent the day on the beach with maris looking at wild parrots and toucans. tomoow we will go to corcovao, which national geographic says has one of the highest biodiversity rates in the world, then its off to puerto viejo e limon, to stay on the black sand beach in hammoks, tents or tree houses, and then to limon, and possibly la fortuna to see the volcano an swim in hot springs, an then back to sanjose... to send sidney and maris off after they fling them selves into the air bungee jumping... more on this later. ok I have probobly used all my money on internet.. so im gonna go... oh! and this keyboard is awful so excuse the spelling and have some fun spanish charachters¿¿¿¿`ñññññ