Friday, 7 March, 2003
Pick a Passport, Any Passport
We got to the bus stop at 6:10 and the German-American from last night was there waiting for another bus. We waited for the café across the street to open and and then went and ordered coffee. We asked if they would be able to get it to us quick because we were expecting the bus any minute and they said sure, but then the bus showed and we had to skip out.
We reached the border in about thirty minutes and had to pay $4 to the Nicaraguans to let us out of the country. They wouldn't even accept Córdobas, only dollars. We got some instant coffee from a woman at the bus stop and then re-boarded. The bus drove through a sprayer in order to enter Costa Rica.
We got off the bus again and got in a line which was not moving. Then we realized the electricity was out and they weren't processing anybody. After about 2 hours, someone from the bus line came and collected our passports along with passports of other people who weren't on our bus. they took them away and when they returned it was a crazy scene of calling out names and passing passports to people. We waited for our names to be called, but they never were. Then we saw that people from our bus were heading towards the bus so we followed them and boarded. The driver then gave us all our passports.
We got to watch 2 movies on the little TVs in the bus: "The Scorpion King" starring The Rock and "All About the Benjamins" starring Ice-T. Oh boy.
We reached San José too late to catch the 3:30 bus home, so we went and checked into our usual hostel. After stowing our stuff we went to do a few errands and ended up finding a cheap Chinese import store. We stopped for a beer at a big dance hall kind of place and there was this crazy Tico there who is apparently obsessed with gringos. First he dedicated a song to Alaine and then he came over and started talking to us in bad English and showing us photo albums. Most of the pictures were of his cars, furniture, and kids; he even had a naked picture of his wife!
We escaped from him and went back to the hotel and then to a movie, "The Gangs of New York", one of the bloodiest things I've seen. Then Chinese food and then bed.
Posted by noble at 06:03 PM
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Thursday, 6 March, 2003
Pizza Ninja
We got up around 8 and got our bill including food and beer and it came out to $69. We didn't have enough cash to pay it. We thought there was a bank on the island but there was not so it was going to be a problem. Then we asked the owners, Duwal and Alicia, if we could pay part of it with colones and they said that would work.
While we were waiting to go to go to Moyogalpa, Alicia was telling the legend of "Chico Largo" to a Spanish photographer who was a guest. I'm not really sure but I think he was a ghost who scared off 50 Sandinistas. Here you can find a more detailed description. We got a ride back to town with Duwal and looked around town before boarding the ferry. It's a pretty town and the people are friendly. There were some nice little paintings for $20 and I considered buying one but decided to save my money.
We got on the ferry and were able to use the tickets that we bought on Tuesday. It was a much smoother ride than the smaller boat. When we reached San Jorge, a kid asked us if we wanted a taxi. We said we would take the bus and he said there were no buses that day. I looked up the road and saw a bus that said "San Jorge - Rivas" on it so I thought he might not be telling me the truth. Another taxi driver hit us up and we kept saying no until he finally got down to 10 córdobas. He picked up several other people along the way and we were kind of cramped in the back. He dropped us off at the TicaBus office and we went in to get tickets, but they were sold out for the morning bus. Luckily it seemed that all the international bus lines had their offices there and we ended up getting seats on a 6:30 Central Line bus. First, though, we had to get to a bank so we could pay for the tickets. Time was kind of tight to get the tickets before the place closed, so after we started walking we decided to get a ride in a bicycle taxi. Theses are 3-wheeled (2 in front, 1 in back) cycles with a teenaged boy pedaling in the back and a bench seat for 2 people in the front. We got our money and our tickets and then went looking for a hotel.
A guy that was hanging around the bus office said he had rooms across the street. We went to look and they were kind of gross and smelled like cleanser (Pine-Sol or something) so we took a walk around to look for something else. We found one place called The Nicarao for $45 a night. Way out of our range. We were getting hungry so we stopped at a chicken place and the waiter suggested a hotel down the street. They only had room for 1 person left, so we finally located Pension Lidia right near the bus stop, which several people had recommended. We had passed by it before without realizing because the sign can only be seen from a distance.
Lidia is a sweet old lady who watches religious programs on TV all day. She started watching before we got up the next day at 5:30. The people there were all friendly and not pushy and desperate like the guy who showed us the hotel across the street from the bus office.
One thing we noticed while walking around in Rivas is that the taxis, instead of waiting for you to hail them, will honk and ask you if you need a taxi, sometimes even suggesting a destination. One reason for this, I realized later, is that they try to get several people going to the same place, as our taxi from San Jorge to Rivas did.
Once we checked in to Pension Lidia, Alaine took a nap while I showered and went to look for postcards. They don't have too many postcards in Rivas and even if a store has them, you have to ask because they keep them behind the counter. I did find a couple that were OK but never ended up getting stamps for them so I will have to mail them from Costa Rica. After Alaine was up we looked around some more for postcards and found some halfway decent ones for her.
We went and had a drink at a little bar a couple blocks from the hotel. They also didn't know what tonic water is and didn't know Cuba Libre either. I told her how to make a Cuba Libre but she put too much lime in. They had slot machines there that took 1 córdoba coins so we got ten coins from the bartender and played. After Alaine finished her 5 I was up to 20, which I then lost.
We decided on pizza for dinner so we went to "Pizza Hot". It was cheap and good. While we were eating a scary street guy with some kind of war paint on his face started talking to us. The waitress came over and told him to go away. He wouldn't so then one of the guys working there came and fought with him. It wasn't serious fighting but the pizza guy did kick the street guy once. While there we also talked to an American with a German accent and a Frenchman who were sitting at a nearby table drinking beer. The American was very negative and kept talking about crime in Costa Rica, where he also lives. The Frenchman was much more fun, but didn't speak English very well. Both of them were sixty-ish. It was getting late by that time, but I wanted to get a bottle of Flor de Caña to take home since I didn't expect the Duty Frees to be open early in the morning. We found a 1.75 liter bottle of 5 year old Black Label for 144 cordobas (less than $10) but then we realized that we had left most of our money in the hotel room. We debated going back for it because Alaine was a little scared walking at night, but Lidia had said it was safe on that street. We got our bottle and then went to bed. It was not a good night's sleep because the concrete building had been absorbing heat all day and our one little window opening into the courtyard didn't provide much fresh air.
Posted by noble at 02:05 PM
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Wednesday, 5 March, 2003
Cuba Libre
We got up around 8:30 and had scrambled eggs and stale bread. At least the coffee was great. There was a little thatch roof near the lake and we sat in the shade of that for a while reading. Alaine decided to walk into town and get something to mix with our rum. She couldn't find any tonic water nor even anyone who knew what it was. Also club soda was nowhere to be found, nor even limes. She bought a 1.5 liter coke and the hotel had limes and ice so we were able to make Cuba Libres. We took a short walk on the beach but most of the time we stayed in our little place and read. We did do a little homework: reading the Spanish translation of Harry Potter to each other.
We had fresh fish from the lake for dinner and it was great. We hung around after dinner and chatted with some Dutch people who had been doing some kind of environmental work in Nicaragua and were taking a couple days to relax before returning home.
Posted by noble at 09:19 PM
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Tuesday, 4 March, 2003
Binocular Island
Today we head for the island of Ometepe in lake Nicaragua.
We intended to catch a 6 o'clock bus that would take us all the way to the town of Rivas, Nicaragua, but we slept too late and ended up taking the 7 o'clock bus that just goes to the border. Alaine gave me a scare when she got off the bus at the terminal to get something to eat. 7 o'clock came and she wasn't back on the bus. Then she appeared at my window and I said, "What are you doing? Get on the bus!" She said they wouldn't let her on yet because they were collecting the tickets of the people who had already boarded.
We reached the border a little before noon. We wandered around aimlessly for a while and then asked some other touristy-looking people if they knew what to do. We bought our paper stamps for ¢200 (about 50¢ U.S.) and got in line to get our exit rubber stamps. When the guy saw that we had been in Costa Rica for more than 90 days, we showed him our other documents and he said we had do go and buy a visa because we are not considered tourists anymore. It took us a while to figure out that you get them at the same place we bought our other stamps, but you need two stamps and they cost $35. From there we headed for the actual border. We had our passports checked twice while walking over. A lot of trucks were going through and there is no place for pedestrians so we just had to walk alongside the trucks. We found the line to get our passports stamped on the Nicaragua side. I waited in line while Alaine went to the bank to change money; 14.7 córdobas equals 1 dollar. We went to the duty free shop (There isn't one on the Costa Rica side) and bought a bottle of Flor de Caña rum and also a bunch of little airplane size bottles of Flor de Caña in different flavors that were 60¢ each. We asked about buses to Rivas and they said "outside." This was the first I realized that we were inside of a walled compound. We found the exit and got our passports checked once more as we went out. It was getting really hot and not a tree in sight. We wanted to have a cold beer but decided to find out the bus schedule first. There was one leaving in five minutes, at 1:20. We asked the conductor where we could get a beer and he walked us over to a little store by the bus stop. We got two Toña beers for 12 córdobas each and I gave the guy 5 for walking us over there. The beer wasn't very cold but it was pretty good, a lot better than Panamanian beer!
We reached Rivas and from there took a taxi to San Jorge where boats leave for the island of Ometepe. We went to the counter and bought tickets for the 4 o'clock ferry and then went and got a late lunch in a nearby restaurant. This was our first experience with Nicaraguan food and I have to say that it is even blander than Tico food. Alaine had chicken and I had "meat", which normally means beef in Costa Rica but I think this was pork; both were chewy. They were served with coleslaw, beans, plain white rice, and fried green plantain that was rock hard. As we were getting ready to leave at 3 o'clock someone said the boat was leaving right then. We thought it was at 4, but it didn't say anything on our tickets so we went to check it out. Sure enough there was a boat with a lot of people on it and it was going to Ometepe. We got on and then waited until about 3:30 before it departed. Once we were underway they turned on a TV and we got to watch really bad soap operas for the next hour. As we neared the island someone was going around collecting money. When he came around to us I gave him our tickets and he said that they don't sell tickets for this boat. We had tickets for the ferry which actually was, he said, at 4:30. He said we could talk to the ferry company when we got to Ometepe and they would probably work something out. We paid him 15 córdobas.
When we got there we talked to a woman at the ticket office and she said she couldn't give us our money back but we could use our tickets for the return or we could get a refund back on the mainland. We went into a little office that said "Free Tourist Information" that was near the dock. no-one was there, just a table with brochures for hotels. Then a man came in and he talked to us about hotel and showed us some of the brochures. He left but there was a younger guy there too by then. I asked him where is the nicest beach and he got out a map and showed us. He recommended a hotel there called Finca Vanecia, about 40 minutes by bus and then a walk of 250 meters. It sounded good to us, and he said the bus would leave at 5:30 so we of course used the intervening time to have a beer, Victoria brand this time. While we were sipping our beer and looking out at the lake the young guy from the tourist information office, Johann, came up to us and started talking. He told us about how great Somoza was and how bad Daniel Ortega was. When Johann was a kid there were police everywhere and the people had to live on a ration of 1 1/2 pounds of rice per person per week, a little sugar and oil, all of them very poor quality. They would draft kids for the army when they were young enough that they should still be in school. I'm sure I missed a lot of the details because of my poor Spanish. I need to read up on the history of Nicaragua.
The bus was hot. We sat in front and my feet must have been right over the exhaust pipe. There seems to be a custom in Nicaragua that all buses have to back up at some point near the beginning of a journey. This happened to us on several buses. We made our way very slowly through the narrow streets of Moyogalpa, the port town. The map of the island is somewhat of an icon, and we saw it painted on the side of several buildings as we passed through. It is made up of two volcanoes with a land bridge in between. The shape is something like a pair of binoculars viewed from the front.
Once outside the town the roads changed from hexagonal bricks to grey volcanic sand that made a lot of dust, this being the dry season. We passed through several towns and were able to identify some of them on the little map that Johann had given us. We knew we were close and we reminded the conductor to let us know when we reached our stop. We saw the sign for our hotel as the bus passed by, but he didn't say anything, so we had to walk back a bit to the turnoff. The walk seemed more like 400 meters than 250, but we finally dragged in there around 7. The proprietress showed us a room for $10 and a little cabin for $15. We chose the cabin. We showered, ate another bland meal in then hit the sack.
Posted by noble at 09:47 PM
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Monday, 3 March, 2003
I was thinking I forgot something…
We are going to Nicaragua for 3 days! The reason for this is to get a stamp on our passports which will allow us to drive in Costa Rica for 90 days, during which time we will get our Costa Rican licenses. because we don't have our work permits yet we are in limbo and our allowed to stay in the country but not have the benefits that come with the 90 day tourist visa.
I took the 5 o'clock bus in to Port to get stuff ready at work so we could go on the trip. We didn't even decide until last night to go. Alaine stayed home and got stuff ready on that end, then came in on the 8:30 bus. We caught the 11 o'clock bus to San José. When we got to the checkpoint, I realized I didn't have my passport. Alaine stayed on the bus but I got off and started trying to hitch back to town (about 20 miles). Nobody picked me up, but eventually a bus came and I got back around 12:30. My passport was sitting on the desk in the office. I had been making a copy of the document that gives me permission to stay in the country, which I keep in the Ziplock with my passport, and I forgot to put it back in my bag. the next bus for Limón was at 1:45 so I got to the bus stop at 1:30 to be sure. The bus didn't show until 2:45; it had gotten a flat. By that time people were already waiting for the next bus to Limón and we ended up picking up everyone until we were crammed full. With all our stopping, the other bus overtook us.
I reached Limón at 4:20 and got a ticket on the 4:30 direct to San José. I called ATEC to leave a message for Alaine and Ivette said she would try to call her at the hostel. I got to San José at 7:15 and called Ivette again to make sure Alaine was at the same hostel, then got a taxi there. We had dinner at the Turkish restaurant near the hotel and didn't get to bed until after 10.
Posted by noble at 06:53 PM
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Sunday, 2 March, 2003
Meeting Zenon and Agapito
I'm still working on getting this journal looking right with MovableType. The beauty of it is that since it is not a commercial site it doesn't have to be perfect, so if you don't like the way it looks, look again in a week or two and it will probably be different.
In other news, my camera is busted and they want $280 to fix it in San José, so I am thinking maybe it's better to just buy a new one. No pictures for a while unless I decide to start putting up old ones.
Yesterday Alaine and I took a trip to the indigenous community of Amubri. We had to meet the guide who does the transcontinental hike that is listed on the ATEC page. We have had a lot of people inquiring and the phone number we had to contact the guide wasn't working. Mel set up the meeting and he and Sarah also went to Amubri. They went on the moto, but Alaine and I had to go by bus. It was a long trip.
We had to get to Bribri by 8 to catch the bus to Suretka. In order to do that, we had to catch the 5 o'clock bus to Puerto Viejo. We got to town around 5:30 and went to the office to do a little work because the bus for Bribri isn't until 6:15. We got our stuff done and got to the bus stop at 6:05, but the bus was already gone. We had to go back to ATEC and try to call a taxi, which wasn't easy at that hour. Finally Alaine talked to someone and he said he would come for us. We waited for what seemed like forever and then she called again and the woman said the guy was cleaning the car. We didn't care if it was clean, we just wanted to go! Alaine told her we would be walking back to the bus station to try to find a taxi. We headed that way and saw a taxi there, but then the other guy showed up. We made it to Bribri at 7:20 and it cost us 3,000 colones instead of the 500 it would have cost for the bus. We got a couple chicken empanadas at the bus stop and got on board. This was an ancient school bus. The shocks were so bad that body of the bus was literally coming apart at the seams. I could see where it had been riveted back together and was separating again. It was a bone-jarring ride, but the countryside was beautiful: a lot of forested hills, thatch-roofed houses alongside modern cement and wooden buildings.
We arrived in Suretka at 8:05 and looked around the town. It was getting pretty hot so we decided to wait for Mel in the shade of a little gazebo-like thing near the school. We waited and read the Tico Times. We waited some more. 9:40. I decided to call ATEC and see if maybe Mel had left us a message. There is only one public phone in town and I had to wait to use that. I finally talked to Ivette and she said she had not heard from Mel. She gave me his cell phone number, but it wasn't turned on. We waited a little longer and then decided to go check by the river crossing and there were Mel and Sarah getting ready to board the boat! We caught up to them and got on the boat. They had had a flat tire and when they arrived in Suretka, had asked the boat guy if we had crossed. He said he had seen two gringos, so they figured that was us. After crossing the river and helping Mel and another guy get their motos out of the dugout canoe, we hitched a ride in the back of a delivery truck that was taking stuff up to Amubri. The guys in the back of the truck told us we could catch the bus back down to the river at 12:30. We arrived in Amubri and looked around.
I would have had no idea what to do next, but Mel suddenly came up on the moto and said he would ferry us one at a time to the meeting with the guide. He took Alaine first and then me. We sat in the shade of a big tree and talked with two guides, Zenon and Agapito. They said that sure they could still do the hike. They gave us a new phone number to leave a message when we have someone interested. They exchanged news with Mel about common friends, and told stories about people trying to hike in Talamanca without a guide, getting lost and dying. They said Mel should do the hike, but he said no. They said Alaine and I should and we said we would like to. Then they told about a guy who had crossed with them who had to go to the hospital when he finished and ended up losing all his toenails. Then Alaine wasn't so sure if she wanted to go! Around 12 o'clock, Mel mentioned that we had to catch the bus back to Suretka and they said that it just passed! It still had to make the circuit around town before going down to the river so we had a chance to catch it. Mel took us back to the center of town again, one at a time on the moto. We made the bus and got down to the river. One strange thing about this bus is you have to pay when you get off; I guess that saves time during the trip. Alaine said maybe they do that because they don't know if the bus will make it or not.
We crossed the river and went up into the town. We had been told that the bus back to Bribri would be between 2 and 3, so we had plenty of time. It was hot, so we thought about having an ice cream and then we thought of having a beer. We walked around looking for a bar or something and asked a couple people. Then we thought to ask when the bus would come and the woman in the store said 1 o'clock. So we settled for a frozen treats and walked down to the bus stop. Talking to the folks at the bus stop, we found out that the bus would pass on it's way to Shiroles and then come back and pick us up on the way back to Bribri. The bus came about 1:10 and we asked a woman at the bus stop how long it takes it to go and come back. She said about 15 minutes. An hour later the bus came back. We boarded and got the last 2 seats. From that point on it was full all the way to Bribri. A lot of the windows wouldn't open so it was hot and stuffy. At least it had pretty good shocks.
We arrived in Bribri just in time to catch the bus to Puerto Viejo, and in Puerto viejo just in time to catch the bus home.
Posted by noble at 10:13 PM
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Sunday, 9 February, 2003
Holey Coke Bottle
I went with Mel yesterday to check the water source. All of our water comes from a spring a hundred or so feet above us. That's vertical distance, of course; to actually get there is not so easy. We walked up the road that runs behind the property and came to a smaller side road. From that road we went down into a ravine that was fairly steep and blocked with fallen trees in a couple places, but not too hard to get through. We reached the water source, which is a little basin that Mel made out of cement. In it there is a one-inch pipe with the mouth of a plastic Coke bottle stuck in the end of it. The bottle has quarter inch holes drilled all over it, and acts as a filter to keep out things large enough to clog up the system. Water seeps into the basin from the sides, and is already filtered through rocks and clay, but when it rains a lot of stuff can get in there. Normally the basin stays full with excess water spilling over the lip, but when we arrived the level was several inches below that.
We had brought some sand and cement and I mixed up a batch to use for patching the leak in the basin. First, Mel removed the Coke bottle and plugged the hole with an Alpina water bottle, then he bailed out the water so we could apply the cement. I mixed it a little wet, not taking into account that the sand I was using was already quite wet from the rain the previous night. Mel put it on with his hands and molded it around and then we sat there watching it harden and periodically bailing the water out. It was taking a long time to set up, so Mel took some dry cement and sprinkled it over the wet stuff, trying to get it absorb some of the water. This cause it to harden some, and we decided that it would be okay to let the water level rise, as cement is not dependent on air to harden. Once the water level got above the pipe, Mel pulled out the stopper bottle and a lot of bubbles came out; probably the stopper was not a perfect seal and the water in the pipe caused a suction that brought pulled some air in. Mel was worried that there might be so much air that it would stop the water flow, but it seemed to be sucking in water in between the bubbling. Because the pipe goes up and down some on its path to our house, sometimes air can accumulate at a high point and cause the whole system to stop flowing.
Since we were already up there, Mel wanted to do some preventive maintenance as well. He had brought along a short piece of PVC pipe with which he intended to replace a joint of steel pipe. The steel pipe seems to be conducive to the growth of root balls inside the pipe that actually can get big enough to clog it up. These roots are not coming from outside, but actually grow in the complete darkness of the pipe. We headed for the spot where the piece needed to be replaced. The going there was much rougher, and each of us slipped and fell several times. We walked along the upper edge of the ravine, next to a fairly steep slope, but there was always plenty of vegetation to grab onto if I slipped; sometimes the vegetation seemed to be trying to grab me! We reached the place and Mel took off the rubber straps that were wrapped around to contain the water, plugged one of the pipe ends with the plastic bottle, and put his hand over the other to keep from getting air in the line. He stuck in the new piece of pipe, wrapped it back up and we went back to the water collection point.
The water level still had not risen above the level it was when we first arrived, but water was flowing into the pipe, so we hoped that the level was only low because a lot of water was being used. Mel used his hands to clear a channel from a pool of water a few feet above the basin which was getting a lot more water flowing into it. Most of that water had been flowing underground and around the basin, and now it started flowing straight into the basin. We hoped that the problem was fixed, and so far it seems to be. Alaine did a load of laundry today and it didn't seem to affect the water pressure.