Up at 440am to catch the 5am bus back to Rivas and then another to the border. Good thing I remembered to get off at La Virgen for the transfer. When we were waiting for the transfer a guy told me not to stand on the grass. OK, not sure why but I'll move. 10 seconds later my feet were burning. I thought I had thorns in my feet from crab grass but it was ants biting the shit out of me. Bastards! The other bus shortly came and we had to run to get it since it passed us. 'La frontera!' the guy who told me about the ants yelled. We ran and jumped on quickly. Before we knew it we were at the border AND we got to sit on the bus. Excellent.
We waited in line for a bit to get into Costa Rica. The sign said we needed our flight schedule (which I didn't have) but I figured it wouldn't be a big deal because these guys usually don't care. I was wrong. He said I needed a paper showing our itinerary. That's fine but I don't have it and I don't expect you to have internet and a printer I can use. Luckily a guy from Nicaragua who spoke English was on the same boat and needed his car reservation printed. We headed over to CR to find the car rental place wasn't open until 8 which was another half hour and the bus wasn't going to wait I figured. What the hell are we going to do? Everyone else had passed through immigration so the Nicaraguan guy talked to immigration and showed him his reservation on my phone. There's no wifi and I was searching for the reservation to no avail. I started to freak. Luckily gmail saves items that are starred to your phone so I was able to access it since I'm smart and stared the confirmation. Immigration let us through! We ran, scanned our bags, and ran to the bus. Success! Is our luck starting to run out?
Two hours and a nap later, we arrived at our stop for Las Juntas. The stop was actually 6km from Las Juntas- no problem, we'll take the next bus. The taxi driver was trying to tell me I needed to take a cab to the town because the next bus for Monteverde was leaving at 10 and it was 940. Well I didn't understand/believe him so we didn't take a taxi. We hitched a ride and got to Las Juntas at 1030. The bus for Monteverde did leave at 10 and the next one doesn't leave until 330. Shit we are in this small ass town for hours. So much for waking up early. We walked through town wondering the best way to handle this. Along the way Andy spotted something in the river that flows through town. It was the biggest iguana we've ever seen. The body was probably 4 ft long and the tail another 3 ft. We kinda freaked a bit. If these suckers are just walking around town, what the hell are out in the jungle? It swam across the river without any problem. Thus thing could eat a baby. I guess there aren't any cats in this town.
Locals stopped us along the way and gave us support in reaching our journey. Since we so easily hitched a ride to the town, Andy was all for hitching a ride to Monteverde. A taxi wanted $70 because it's an hour on shitty road and pretty high. No way we are paying that. We started walking through the town toward Monteverde. Andy stopped a chick who gave us a ride to the Y. Andy was on a mission. I guess we are doing this! Not long after she dropped us off, a van came by w/ a man, woman, and a little girl. Andy talked the guy into giving us a ride and moved all the stuff out of the way for our bags. OK then!
An hour later and we made it! Who know hitching a ride was so easy?! Costa Ricans are so freakin nice. Unfortunately Santa Elena is packed full of gringos. Oh well, you can't always be the only gringos around. We got dorms at Pension Santa Elena, in separate rooms once again. Next was lunch. It was 1230 and time to celebrate our arrival. Next to the hostel is a taco place that's packed. Just what we wanted! Two orders of fish tacos and two beers and we were good to go. While we were waiting gringos were annoyed that they had to wait for their food. Ugh. I'm not even home yet and they are already annoying me. You're on vacation right?! Chill the fuck out.
The tacos from Taco Taco were awesome (take that Swedes)! Ice cream topped it off nicely and we relaxed for a while before our night hike. We headed for the rain forest at 6pm w/ ~40 other people. There were 8 of us to a guide but when there's 5 other groups walking around in the same area it creates a bit of a shit show. The guides had walkie talkies so they could communicate when they found something and we'd all run over to see it. It was fun, it's just hard to compare the experience to the Rambo dude we had in Ecuador. We saw a three toed sloth in the trees- that was pretty cool. It looks like a huge teddy bear crawling around upside down. We also saw a green viper, crickets, stick bug, red striped tarantula, a cool spider, a coati, and a honey bear that's not a bear but looks like a cat. Well we didn't really see the coati and honey bear-cat. We heard coati's fighting and then the guide pointed to the tree where I saw a furry animal behind leaves. We 'saw' the honey bear-cat from 50 yards away. The whole time the guide was saying- can you see it, isn't it amazing? I can see something in the tree, it could be what you are saying or it could be a stuffed animal. We also got to walk w/ a chick who was new to using a headlamp and a dude who took forever to take a damp pic. The guide said we needed to be quiet. If we don't see any animals it's because we are talking. Right- as Andy said it has nothing to do w/ you loud walkie talkie. We enjoyed the show and headed back to the hostel at 8 and got two hot dogs and quesadillas (Velveta cheese and canned mushrooms- yum). It's been a long day. We passed out in Andy's bed ~9.
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