Alright, in my last post I talked about surfing which has happened two weekends now, but I feel that it is important for me to rewind a little bit; for it would be a crime to not talk about the sloths right?  Two weekends ago I went on a trek across Costa Rica twice in three days with five friends.  I have never felt comfortable with public transportation I have this constant fear of somehow ending up in the wrong place.  This is not a senseless fear for it very nearly happened twice in Boston, but it is an aggravating nonetheless.

So to start the story we made it to the bus station in Puntarenas just a bit before noon and got on the bus without too much waiting.The first bus ride flew by and before we knew it we were in San Jose hopping into a taxi hoping to make the 2:30 bus so we could avoid hanging around for a few extra hours in a terminal.  San Jose was refreshingly cool.  My skin loved it.  The bus station was full of Americans, Europeans, Costa Ricans, and more, a melting pot of people if you will.  We boarded our bus an found ourselves mostly sitting together.  In the back row with two of my friends was a most interesting man.  His name was Troy and he was from Washington DC.  He frequented Costa Rica to spend time with his Tica girlfriend.  She spoke almost no English and his Spanish was halting at best.  However, with time they had developed an ability to understand each other quite well.  Their love for each other hung in the air.  After several minutes of conversation everyone settled into their seats with their music and were lulled to sleep.  In and out of conciousness we passed through what I assume had to have been a cloud forest.  The fog was intensely cold and very white.  It felt magical as we hurtled through the lush vegetation through cramped tunnels with long branches scratching at the door asking to be let in.  The bus ride continued on.  People began to wake up just a few hours into the four-five hour bus ride.  I became engrossed in conversation with a good friend.  As we tore past supermercados and swerved around massive iguanas I learned a deal about religion.  When you learn that you have been accepted to study abroad in Costa Rica certain images pop into your head.  I find that smaller things such as a strong conversation, something that I never imagined happening on this adventure that have been the most fascinating.

Finally we neared the province of Puerto Viejo, our destination.  After some stand-still traffic we finally made it to Cahuita the stop before ours.  Here four of our six person group disembarked.  The strong emotions that I felt when I watched these people step off the bus into a dark and empty bus station shocked me.  These were people I had only met three weeks before, but the amount I cared for them here in this new, strange place was immense.  Finally, our bus station came and my friend Sydney and I stepped off into the night with the rest of the people on the bus.  We collected our bags and found this handsome German man named Luca who we had agreed to share a taxi with to the hostel.  I felt nervous butterflies as I stepped into an unmarked taxi with a strange man but luckily the hostel was close.  From down the street we could hear the deafening music from the hostel and see the thirty foot-long neon green dragon decorations that wound their way along the sides of the hostel.  We walked into a massive party full of laughter, drunk americans, and togas.  I felt more culture shock in that moment at 9 pm after crossing the entire country than I did moving in with my host family.  After the longest check in process with an incredibly drunk receptionist we found the long room of hammocks that we would be staying in, chucked our belongings into lockers and padded out into the night in search of food.  Eventually we came upon a place right on the Caribbean ocean.  We ordered pizza and pasta, happy for the comfort of the familiar food.  I even got to touch the Caribbean ocean for the first time in my life that night.  Then we returned to our loud home and fell asleep to music hoping to drown out the whoops and yells.  It felt wonderful to lulled to sleep by the swinging of the hammock.

The next morning we woke up, had utterly delicious pancakes, jumped in a taxi and were promptly brought to the wrong place.  Our taxi driver had been driving a little manically and had been yelling into his cell phone and when he pulled up to this nondescript place and announced that we were there, there was a little bit of panic.  We eventually managed to convey that we really just wanted to go see sloths and we made it to the right place.  We were reunited with our friends and I got to see my first sloth.  I cannot describe that feeling that I got when I got to see Buttercup sitting there so calmly in her wooden swing.  The beauty and grace of the slow moving creature is undescribable that I actually had to work hard to repress some tears.

The sloth tour was quite large, about thirty people most of them were from Germany, Norway, or England.  It started out so great learning about sloths that and the struggle they have living so close to people.  We learned about their anatomy, their habitats, and more.  Even with a little bout of dehydration I still got to see a great many sloths and experience the entire boat part of the tour.  It was incredible and then Sydney and I managed to catch a taxi back to Puerto Viejo just in time to run over to a chocolate farm to catch a three hour tour there.

The chocolate tour was more than I had ever expected.  I was not especially excited for it initially, but we got to see the entire process as well as hike up a beautiful hill.  I got to try raw cacao (wonderfully sticky until you bite into it), fermented cacao (pretty darn okay), roasted cacao (even better with a nice crunch), cacao nubs melted and blended with very very few additives (absolutely delectable), and finally at the owner of the farm’s home on top of a mountain with a sprawling view of sloth filled forests and the crashing waves of the Carribean we got to compare chocolate made from cacao at different farms, a “chocolate shot”, and chocolate bits mixed with a medley of spices and herbs that we could mix and match for that perfect taste sensation.  It was an experience I will never forget and it made me think about where the excessive amount of chocolate that I consume actually comes from.  This is a place I would like to bring my family one day.  After the tour we wound our way through the woods finding a beautiful little hidden beach with clean white sand and a small island on top of a tall rock.  As we walked back along the coast we saw people in hammocks, a volleyball contest, and pure contentment from people who were fortunate enough to reside in such a special area.

That night we went out and splurged a little on an incredible dinner at a special restaurant.  Everything from the trees the restaurant was built around to the nicely dressed servers to even the portraits on the walls that displayed raw humanity made the experience something special to finish off an incredible night.  We spent the rest of the night down at the beach listening the waves crash and watching a roaring bonfire set in a dolphin shaped fireplace.  At this hostel where no one sleeps it was hard to find peace and quiet.  Yet, somehow in the middle of the somewhat drunken uproar I was lucky enough to have another beautifully profound conversation.  There we were talking about life and resiliency and the things that people are forced to face and also how people deal with those things that they are forced to face.  As the conversation lengthened the atmosphere around us changed and when at last we turned to head to our swinging beds we saw that around us were drums and maracas, people rapping in spanish, people swaying and dancing to the strange music all while the waves crashed and the wind whistled. It was something else.

The next day we ate another great breakfast and made our way home.  We got to explore Puerto Viejo a little more in the light and then we had a fairly average trip back to San Jose.  Once in San Jose we had a little trouble with communicating with the taxi but in the end found our way.  One of the best feelings of the whole trip was arriving back in Puntarenas, an area that is feeling more like home.  The familiarity of the streets was comforting and the excitement to see my family after a few days apart was something I hadnt expected.  I anticipate that this trip will go down in the records as one of the best!

Pura Vida