On the phone the Madre de Mateo

We had arranged with Laura to meet her in Costa Rica if we could while she was there visiting her mom. We met up with her, her sister and Inara. Ate some cheap and tasty lunch and then went and toured around the university. I brought my bracket making string with me, I wanted Laura to teach me a more complex knot with 12 strands instead of 6. I have been making a lot of bracelets, with the long hours on the bus and my incapability to sleep, bracelets have been my addiction. I also like the challenge of figuring out new knotting techniques and color combinations. I have started making bracelets for people back home, they are compact and what an awesome souvenir to bring someone than something that I made myself.

Swing time with Inara

University of Costa Rica

San Jose became our time to just hang out in the city. We don’t spend much time getting to know an area. With our hostel being so cheap, clean and safe we may stay longer than expected. Tomorrow we plan to go up to the Volcano Poás, we can take the city bus all the way to the entrance of the park. No tour guide, hooray!

Mateos obsession with gatos goes to far

We were up early to navigate our selves to the right buses. We arrived in the town of Alajuela where we would catch our next bus up to the volcano, the bus driver informed us that the volcano may be closed for emergency situation drills. We could take our chances and go anyway, a guy on the bus told us it was a beautiful drive up and there maybe a chance that it was open. We got on the bus. Not many of our plans have gone awry so we would just stick to it and go anyway. This is when I realized that my thought process has been faulty, that if I continue to think this is what is going to happen and not have any flexibility in my “plans” I’m likely to be disappointed when things change. Much of life is this way, I think end goals are good but flexibility above all is best. I don’t normally think myself through thoughts like this. For some reason today it is really striking me. We get to a small town, we have the option to hike up the road to the entrance of park, the police are not letting vehicles go to the park. So everyone from the bus starts hiking up, it’s a 10 kilometers hike up, about 6 miles. We all have nothing better to do until our bus leaves at 2:30 to got back to Alajuala. Mateo and I stop for lunch about 4 kilometers away from the park. Local cars were driving around, hitch hiking was unsuccessful. After eating lunch at cute little dinner I was walking out of the bath room just in time to catch a glimpse of our bus going up the road. We missed it, the bus surely would have picked us up if it would of seen us walking. So we continue out hike up. We could hear thunder and lighting for the majority of the walk up the road to the park but no rain. I wanted to just start walking down the hill. My calves were still sore from the extra long hike at the other volcano, Arenal. We didn’t even know if the park was open for people or if our bus was just allowed to go get the riders that had hiked up. This was not a motivating factor for me. What was motivating for me was Mateo, the views, and the coolness in the air. I was so happy it was not hot and sunny out. Finally I was convinced that my goal should be just to get to the bus, we made it to the park, the road was gracious in the park and even went down hill a little. The park rangers would not let us go to the bus that was
parked inside of the park. It was a $10 entry fee, we waited outside under the cover of the pay booth. It had just begun raining right as we were arriving to the park, what a relief for the rain to hold off until we were close to cover. We would not be seeing the volcano or the crater with the lake. That was okay with me, we did make it to the top and almost in though.

Views on the hike up

“Happy camper”

Tica bus race…
Once we were back in San Jose, it was 4:30 and the TicaBus agency was going to close at 5pm. We went darting off the bus, the GPS said we were 19 minutes away walking. So if we run/walk as fast as we can we may get there to buy our tickets for the Monday bus that goes to Panama. I didn’t have much hope in the agency being open on Sunday either. The last time we showed up to buy our tickets we were 6 minutes late, and the online site is down, not sure it ever worked.  We finished our day with Papa Johns in the park, that was fun.

Costa Rican Bob Ross painting happy fruit

Our time in San Jose has been full of walking and touring the city. We went and saw the Pre-Columbian Gold/Currency Museum. We learned about currency and the processing of gold, it was a great place to learn about the history of Costa Rica. On Saturdays and Sunday the city comes alive with farmers markets and carnivals in the main parks. We have met some really awesome people at our hostels as well and can fully say after so long of traveling that party hostels aren’t our style and having somewhere safe and quite to come back to is important after a long day of adventuring/bussing around. Once in a while they are fun, but don’t compare to a better kept hostel and quietness.

An awesome game of chess,
yes Mateo won

Musume

Miniature Indians

Gold Musume