Welcome to Costa Rica

Day 1 - we took a taxi from Alejuela (Airport) to Mt Poás for about 60 dollars and arrived at Lagunillas Lodge. The driveway into Lagunillas is really steep and is a dirt road, only accessible by 4x4, but, our intrepid taxi driver (who happens to be training to become a doctor and has 4 kids....ask us the story its funny....OOOPS) decided he would try to make it in the little toyta taxi and made it half way. He ran down to the lodge and got the owner to drive up in his 1975 toyota landcruiser and pick us up. We met our friend Richard in their kitchen, how wierd it was to see someone that we knew halfway around the world. Being really tired after not sleeping friday night, we picked out a cabana with a 10000 colones view! The water heater was this little coil of pipe overtop of a camp stove...ghetto....but...cool....even though it didn´t really work. the lady of the house served us a rather authentic casado dinner (think pollo-chicken, rice, beans and veggies...simple but perfect after a long day of travel). A few imperials later we retired for the night.... at 7pm. It gets dark here around 6pm.
p.s. first class airfaire was really freakin nice


day 2 - After a long debate between me, myself and I about whether it was worth it to get out into the cold to ahem, pee I got the luxury of seeing a beautiful sunrise through our windows that overlook the central valley. Alison lost the debate with herself and stayed in bed...later...think austin powers...evcuacion complete!

A quick breakfast and up mt poás we walked. paved the whole way i might add...except for the first 1km up the driveway. The parque nacional volcan poás it a tourist magnet, but, definately worth the walk.

After the walk we went fishing at Lagunillas Lodge for trout....the pond was very stocked and the anecdote of shooting fish in the barrel came to mind. The boys had to kill alison's fish for her.... wink wink. But, she did catch the first one. We noticed some rather sketchy wiring trailing over to what we first thought was a water well and took a closer look. As we walked in we saw powerlines running down the driveway that we assumed was what was powering the lodge, but, the well like device was actually a micro hydroelectric generator that the Owner and his brother had built. Not quite as fancy as what we´d have back home but...some brilliant local engineering. When we asked about the transformer up on the pole the owner said hey....I don´t know how it works...i just know that it does. The power lines actually hadn´t been hooked up yet, and all the power was generated by the water.


We took our fish to the lady of the house and she fried it up...whole for us. Gutted....but whole...skin on and everything. Muy delicioso


After the soccer game the owner gave us a ride down to poasito where we caught one of the local busses to Alejuela. In between Mr. Roboto and gwen stefani this little tica got on the bus and said gringa gringa gringa. Very cute.

When we arrived at Alejuela's bus stop we realized that central american cities don't have street signs....everything is 300 meters past the church turn left at the red store and then walk abother 200 meters until you see that deep pot hole...etc... Looking like a bunch of lost gringos the local policia (whom I think were either looking to get a commission for taking us to the hostel or were infatuated with alison´s ahem...........) gave us a ride in the back of their truck...very cool

We checked into the hostel and then went out for dinner at Alcielo´s bar...great dinner...bad guarro. After getting good and cut, we decided to go bar hopping....probably not the safest of decisions but ahh...you only live once. First to bar el bohemia, then to this little random bar where all the taxi drivers hang out. Back to the hostel for more money and we caught a cab to a karoke bar to plunder some songs...We met a local coffee plantation worker who showed us their plant across the street. later he took us to a very very very sketchy bar. Some crack head was hassling us until alison kindly translated to the staff (he is irritating us and making us feel uncomfortable) the bouncer came over and asked him to leave us alone. We got in a cab and headed back home only to realize in our slightly err...fairly inebriated state that he had been driving around in circles running up the fare. We didn´t have any change and ended up overpaying by 100 usd....ohh well...opps these things happen.

day 3 - very very very hung over....our room had no windows to the outside which really didn't help. After coming out of our hangover we realized there was some really amazing art created by the hostel owner all over the place...A little out of our price range but really cool none the less.

We set out looking for the supermercado which was supposed to be right beside the parque central. Needless to say, without street signs, Ali and I took the scenic route. We ate our booty in the park - Yop like beverage, apples, and orange juice - while being accosted by the millions of pigeons in the park.
I bought a fabulous Casio Alarm Chrono Water Resist Aluminator Watch for $9600 colones, went for lunch to La Mansarda Restaurante by the parque central for pasta, and "beef tenderloin" that was not so tender...but delicious nonetheless.

That brings us to here in the little internet cafe across from the hotel...From here we are going to catch a bus to San Ramon and then onto Montezuma for some beach action tomorrow.