The ferry docked in San Carlos as the sun came up. We got off and walked through the crowded market streets to an immigration office so we could get the documentation to go to Costa Rica after getting some breakfast. Matt hit it off with the Nicaraguan receptionist (unintentionally- he was just being his natural friendly self and making conversation) and ended up getting a free coke, all her contact information, and an invitation to her house for dinner that night. We offered to meet up with him later, all of us grinning to ourselves as we observed but Matt very nicely told her he needed to go with the group. We exchanged our Nicaraguan cordobas for Costa Rican collones and boarded a boat that would take us down the San Juan River and into Costa Rica. We had some ice cream and saw some monkeys in the trees on the shore. After an hour or two we arrived and went through another office to get our passports stamped. We realized we didn’t really have a plan for Costa Rica which was more problematic than it was in Nicaragua because things are much more spread out in Costa Rica. We spent most of the day debating what to do and waiting for the bus. At one point we were trying to find the bus station and accidentally followed a little girl back to her school. We ate lunch and I had a hamburger, already resigning myself to my American habits since I wasn’t very impressed by the local food. Everyone had a taste and declared it the best hamburger they’d ever had.
Mike and Rachel and Carolanne were in favor of hitchhiking to the next city, Los Chiles, but when we asked about it, people said no one did it and it would be difficult. Jeff wanted to wait for the bus and after a tense argument, Mike and Rachel decided to go their own way hitch hiking. We waited for the bus and watched an adorable little boy kick a Coca Cola bottle around and a pack of stray dogs defending “their land” from another pack. We also spent half an hour in an internet café and shot off quick emails to our parents letting them know that we were okay. The bus that we eventually boarded was filled with school children in uniforms. We were on the bus for quite a while and I was shocked at how far they had to travel to go to school.
Eventually we got there and actually met up with with Rachel and Mike, who I honestly thought we wouldn’t see again until the airport. Looking very smug, they told us how they had been there for hours and had already showered and gotten a beer to share. They snuck us into their hotel room and while Destiny and I were taking our first real shower, the others except for Jeff went out to get some food. When we got out of the shower, Jeff hightailed it to the bathroom and all of a sudden I understood what everyone meant when Jeff disappeared and everyone said he was “going volcano.” Destiny and I could hardly stifle our laughter and choked out that we were getting something to eat and would be back soon. I did not feel comfortable walking around a city at night at all so I quickly pulled Destiny into the restaurant right next to the hotel where we got French fries and beef empanadas. Outside we could see a man with a baseball bat on the next corner which scared the living daylights out of me. When we left I was all for running as fast as we could the 100 yards to the hotel but Destiny hissed at me that we would look suspicious so we walked quickly back and I don’t know if he saw us or not. Still resentful towards Mike and Rachel for their unnecessary spiteful attitudes, I refused to ask for a spot on the bed and they certainly didn’t offer to share it with anyone else so even though we could have easily fit one or two more people on the bed, or could have at least distributed the sheets and pillows, they took it all and the five of us slept on the tile floor with our packs as pillows. I was able to sleep by throwing my few articles of smelly clothing on the floor and lying on them.
The best thing about the trip was that the previous situation was generally so bad that I was always happy to move on to the next thing. I didn’t have a bed to be reluctant to leave so as soon as the sun was up, I was happy to get going. And generally at the end of every day, I was so tired from hiking that I didn’t care about my sleeping conditions.
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