Puerto Viejo - Caribbean Baby!!

So I could fill this thing with descriptions of my finals (Both of which I am done with!! WHOOOO) But I won't. Because that is boring. It's enough to say that I took them and I did fine. However, I would like to describe my last weekend here in Costa Rica. It was our free weekend which means we didn't have a planned excursion with ISA. We could go anywhere we wanted. My roommate actually ended up flying all the way back to the States in order to take a plane to Antigua to see her boyfriend. Wow.

I wasn't up to leaving Costa Rica yet and I knew exactly where I wanted to go. Long before I was even signed up for this program I knew that I wanted to go to the Caribbean Coast and check out the Jamaican vibe at Puerto Viejo. I started trying to get a group together that was willing to travel together before we got here and finally found a group of girls.

Friday I took my Spanish final and then took a cab to the bus station. Back home, a 5 hour bus ride will cost you around fifty bucks I think. Here it cost me 9 bucks! Whooo!

We got to Puerto Viejo around six and started looking around for a place to stay. Our travel director at ISA had advised us against making reservations and we were a little worried about it but it turned out fine. We found a hostel that had a room with six beds for us for ten bucks per person. Not bad!

Then we hit the town! We went to a dance club across from the beach named Mango where they had free daiquiris. They sucked but the music was awesome. We ended up going to the beach and dancing for hours under a palm tree. It was one of the highlights of my entire trip here. Seriously, if you ever have the opportunity to go dancing on the beach . . .  Do it!

Dancing under the palm trees

The next day we rented bikes and rode around for hours checking everything out. It was great. We rode to this beautiful beach we were told about and swam for hours. (Yes, I got sunburned. I had a ton of sunblock but it could only do so much.) After a few hours of swimming we were finally exhausted enough to wonder what all the red flags stuck along the sand were for. Finally we found on an itty bitty little sign a half mile down the beach tan explanation that red flags meant it was too dangerous to swim that day. Oops.

Later on my friends and I decided we needed to spend at least one night at the notorious hammock hotel, Rocking J's so we packed up all our crap and checked out a hammock.  We paid 7 bucks for a hammock, a sheet and a locker. This place was seriously cool but seriously crazy. The entire place is crammed full of mosaics and murals from traveler before us. I meant to make a mosaic but with everything else, I forgot until after I left. Oh well.

My cocoon! So comfy! 

So after the long day of riding and swimming this old lady took a nap. Fortunately, this meant I slept through most of the craziness. Unfortunately, this meant that I woke up just as everyone was running around drunk (chasing armadillos, yelling "This is a chance of a lifetime!!!"). Most of the people there were under twenty one so by 11 O'clock most people were passed out. This left the entire place for the ones that managed to stay awake. It was pretty cool. The owner came down and gave us all free beer and we sat around the bonfire for hours. I even made friends with a tico couple. We went down to the beach and sat around talking in some really bad Spanglish until it got light. BTW, My spanish still sucks.  :(

Oh, because of this couple, I no longer freeze up when someone tries to do that cheek bump kissing thing. I used to stiffen up and be like Why is this person moving in on my cheek? Are they going to bite me? But the tica broke me of this. Every single time she saw me the next day she would run up and do the kiss greeting thing and then again when she left. And . . . I never once forgot and leaned in the other way. Which has always been a fear of mine because you would end up with more of a kiss than you were intending on. :D

The next day we went back to the beach (one that was safe to swim in) and lazed around until four when our bus left. Oh, right. Okay, so we had all bought our tickets back to San Jose the day before, knowing that they sometimes sell out. Well apparently we needn't have worried because they over sold the tickets anyway! By like 30. We were waiting in line to load when the bus abruptly left, leaving our group of five split into two groups. Of course I was in the group that was left behind. We were like . . . Um . . . that was the last bus of the day and WTF? We have tickets. And of course it's not like we were at a bus station to ask someone. It was only a random spot on the road. So we wait around. And wait. Then wait some more. Finally we heard a rumor that someone had talked to someone who had talked to someone who said that they were sending another bus. Which finally arrived almost an hour later.
Pura Vida
The bus ride back was more fun than any bus ride should ever be. My friend Katie and I decided that I had contacted Dengue (from the 24 bug bites I got in Tamarindo) Tuberculosis (One of my classmates that sat next to me found out she had it right before she came here.) and Malaria from Puerto Viejo (It is the only area in Costa Rica that occasionally has Malaria). Because of my collective diseases, I was going to immediately die and did not have to worry about the fact that I was leaving Costa Rica. Therefore I was the lucky one.

No, we were not drinking. I can't even blame it on sugar.

It was a wonderful weekend.