Pura vida en la lluvia

We spent a couple days hanging out lazily on the beach in San Juan del Sur. We decided to delay our departure from Nicaragua in order to take part in the many Halloween (Noche de las Brujas) festivities. San Juan del sur is a big gringo town so even though the holiday is not generally celebrated among latinos (and is considered a great sacrilege by many), there were countless parties and costumed fools advertising in the streets.

On the day of Halloween, we saw John and Kim from Chicago in the streets and they invited us on a deep sea fishing trip with them. Tori had never been fishing before, so we snapped at the hook. It was advertised as a booze cruise, but today was half price and no booze. Probably a good deal over all given that alcohol is cheaper than water in Nicaragua. We did bring our own bottle of rum, however, which proved useful given the slow fishing day. We only had one bite the entire afternoon, but John managed to reel in a great big black tuna. If that is the name of the tuna, great. Otherwise, it is merely descriptive.

Our madre at the house where we were staying had been cooking us meals every day and we thought she would be willing to show us how to cook a fish Nica style. Also, John and Kim did not have a kitchen, so it was kind of necessary that they share with us. Sweet. Our madre jumped at the fish and slashed it into dark red slabs of delicious in just moments, while ordering us to chop vegetables. The fish turned out amazing and even Stew liked it, which is remarkable because Stew hates all fish. It was such dark meat that it didn´t have any of the stinky fishiness he objects to. Madre sauteed it in garlic and made an onion, tomato, and green pepper sauce to go on top.

Afterwards, all four of us went out for drinks to celebrate Halloween. We meant to dress as zombies because one bar was giving away free drinks for zombies, but we had no makeup. Thus, we went as gringos. We spent most of the evening at a bar having a surf competition of sorts. It started raining so hard that we couldn´t leave and spent a couple hours watching people try to balance a mini surfboard on a log.

The next morning, we decided it was time to hit the road and made our way down to the border at Peñas Blancas. While waiting for the second bus, we made friends with a super nice Costa Rican kid about our age who was studying tourism at university while working at a bar. We think he must have been excited to try out his tour operator skills because he helped us tremendously in navigating across the border and on the other side in Costa Rica. He even went through a map of Costa Rica with us, circling the coolest places to see and discussing the cheapest ways to get there.

Liberia was our first stop in Costa Rica. We had hoped to make it a little further, but by the time we hit this big, dirty city we were exhausted. The last night`s partying was catching up to us, and it was time to crash. Our buddy walked all over the city with us looking for the cheapest hotel. It still proved a little pricier than we had hoped, but apparently that is just how it goes in Costa Rica. The next morning we were back on a bus on the way to the Parque Nacional Rincon de La Vieja (Corner of the Old Lady) via Curubande (spelled Corobunda in our wretched guidebook).

When we got to Curubande, we set out on the 10 km hike to the park. This is where the skies opened up. It rained, and poured, and rained, and poured...and promptly stopped raining as soon as a car slowed down to give us ride. By this point, we had been walking for about 45 minutes in a torrential downpour. Our clothes and packs are still wet. When we finally got up to the park, we found out that it is closed on Mondays. It would have been useful if our guidebook had mentioned this. Weve decided to burn it when we finish with Panama.

The upshot of all this is that we ended up staying at ritzy hotel instead of camping in the park. Our first plan was to camp right outside the entrance, but we (Tori) was frightened by tales of roaming jaguars in the night. This ended up being a fantastic move. The hotel was running a promotion for the month of November: 29 dollars per person per night, including breakfast, sauna, volcanic mud baths, and hot springs. Plus, there was a waterfall on the hotel property. So, we got to stay in an awesome hotel with real Amuurrican style hot showers and a buffet breakfast, plus do everything we had wanted to do in the park (hot springs and waterfall), and sleep in by far the best bed we have slept in thus far. The mud bath was especially sweet. We painted ourselves in volcanic mud bubbling out of a pit below us and then laid in the sun as it dried. We looked like monsters from the deep! Stew looked especially bizarre in a creature from the blue lagoon sort of way.

After Rincon de la Vieja, we headed South for Monteverde, a small town in the midst of Costa Ricas last remaining Cloud Forest. We found a sweet hostel with free, delicious coffee and breakfast, as well as free internet. Score.

This morning we went on a canopy tour, which entails ziplining from platform to platform through the cloud forest. It also included a tarzan swing and superman free fall. Pura Vida, as they say in Costa Rica. We had a great time despite perma-wedgies from the super tight harnesses. Stew strongly resembled a grizzly bear in bondage gear. Now, it's pouring rain yet again. I guess we really have solidly entered the rainy season in the rainforest.