Awww, I Can’t Hold It In

Well, that didn’t take long.

Yesterday, a SUV full of Ticos set up camp. Cracking beers at 10 AM, car stereo going, and the incessant entry/exit bweep bweep of their useless car alarm (sitting no more than 10 ft away from them). Watching them set up their tent was amusing, at least. They weren’t too bad themselves, just annoying examples of Costa Rican youth.

What did it…was the three crack-heads on the beach at 2 AM. Two guys and a girl fighting and slapping each other around not 50 ft from my tent, but just on the other side of the fence. I tell you, I was out of my tent fast! The security dudes weren’t around, and be damned if I was going to step into the middle of that. This isn’t my country, and who knows what I might have had to do if I confronted them. Perhaps, I could have prompted them to move on, only then to spend the remainder of the night awaiting a vengeful return. Not my place.

So, in the morning, I packed up tent and headed a bit down the road towards Hotel Lucy, a place said to be a kilometer out of town at the base of the trail to the waterfalls. Sounded good for one night, then return to Puntarenas. It was not to be.

Hotel Lucy was full, and I don’t know where “out of town” was. The entire road was filled with hotels. I made my way up to the falls,

which were nice enough, but all the while wondering what the hell I was going to do. Not wanting to catch the ferry any later than 8 AM, I was stuck with options on the peninsula, so here are a few words about that.

While Montezuma and the surroundings are nice, the town itself has but two streets. It is not long in becoming familiar with everything. At night, there are a plethora of vagrants and pushers haunting and drinking in the streets, and without a place to just sit and chill to watch the world go by without having to pay for the seat, you are left with the option to sit beside them in the gutter. Half a dozen years ago, that would’ve suited me just fine. I have grown.

This whole area has become a tourist mecca. You will note that much effort has been expended by me to avoid this. Paying 6 buks for two eggs, pinto (beans and rice), a slice of toast and a coffee just pisses me off. It isn’t very good, there isn’t a God-damn toilet seat in the can, and I am paying that price where they still can’t pave a street. Costa Rican food, in general, is boring, uninspired, and bland unless it is an imitation of some other countrys. Mexico has the best food in Central America, hands down. Guatemala a close second.

The lack of basic amenities you would expect with this sort of price: hot water, toilet seats, toilet paper, telephone, paved roads, sewer system, water pressure, and a countless number of other indiscretions, in no way supports the price being asked. Think of it! You are paying Banff prices!!! I think Banff a little nicer. When staying in Banff at a schmantsy hotel, you don’t walk out into a street littered with garbage, riddled with pot-holes, spraining your ankle in the holes in the sidewalk. Do you? Same price…

I am now at Tambor, a nice little town in a protected bay, some 30 km away. Prices are noticably cheaper in both the restaurants and the grocery. Like night and day, this town sits on the southwestern shore of the bay, and is surrounded by high hills. This is worth mentioning because the sun is at your back as you face the beach, disappearing over the hills some two hours before sun-down, and cools everything off nicely before dark. A late afternoon stroll down the beach isn’t a blinding affair. It definitely lacks surf, has just a bit more of that “small town” feel to it, and…wait for it…just up the street is a large complex going in… It won’t be long before this place is ruined as well, and it is only a small taste of what will come if/when they ratify the free trade agreement with the Yanks (a daily 1st or 2nd page subject in the papers hereabouts).

All the locals seem to cry for the tourist dollar, but none seem to care of the ruination it brings. Greed, I would have to say, is the Costa Rican culture. Was their life so fruitless before they sold themselves to tourism? I hardly require Spanish around here.

In the morning I will try for the 8 a.m. ferry back to Puntarenas, hit the Pan-Am from there, and at the toss of a coin will turn north to Nicaragua, or south back to Panama. I am thinking Panama at the moment. The coin toss will help me decide how I feel.

Found on the ferry back, these Regulations for Garbage Disposal at Sea are just that. I am told that Costly Rica hauls much of their garbage out to sea in barges, and simply dumps it.  This is why the beaches here are so littered with plastics etc…  Nice.

======================================================================

A note. While making this post, I somehow pushed the wrong button and lost 45 min. of work. There is an auto-save feature on this blog, but I have no idea where the data went. I will try to reproduce it…

===================================================================

Well, the coin toss wasn’t needed. The mere thought of going through the border on the other side, only to return within a week, was enough to deter me. I am now at San Isidro de General, on the other side of San Jose. I spent yesterday in Alejuela, and went up to Volcan Baru.

I was here last year, and was informed that I would not be able to make it up to any of the volcanoes in my car because of the roads. This turns out to be false, and there was a paved road all the way to the summit. It wasn’t the “muy biena carratera” that was claimed; more a long series of patches, but I made it nonetheless.

I left early enough in the morning to make it to the entrance to the park before it opened, getting there before the clouds start to form, and before the throngs of weekend tourist arrive. As it was, I was lucky on both counts. Entrance fee 7 buks, 2 buks for the car. :##

In the park, there are two craters. One extinct and now a lagoon, and one active. The trail to the lagoon cut through forest that could only be called impenetrable, and was a spooky “Ichabod Crane” setting. Cool:))

There wasn’t enough room for another little twig in there.

The lagoon wasn’t old enough to support life yet, with a pH of 3-5, but looked nice. Just don’t go swimming unless you need some serious exfoliation!

At the active crater, you could only stop and stare. I have never seen an active one in my life. Yellowstone Park just doesn’t compare, and may I add, Brrrrrrr… Jeans, three shirts, and a hat. I thought I was going to get a head cold, but what a nice break from the coast. The temp. was around 15C, with a brisk wind, and no humidity.

 

I went here first, took the trail up to the lagoon next, and then returned to just sit and stare for a while. By the time I got back, it was packed with yakking Yanks, and I was oh so glad I had got there before them.

At the entrance to the park was the usual tourist store. A coffee wasn’t too much (surprisingly cheap), and the dude that ran the little place with the cigars and liquor had some clutz drop a bottle on the glass enclosure over the rest of his goodies. What a racket!! I was glad to be standing a ways away at the time.

Around noon, I decided to begin my decent towards the Panamerican Highway, intent on getting past San Jose, San Pedro, Cartago, and anything else in the way.  Once again happy to be ahead of the crowd, as the parking lot was FULL. I could just imagine churning along that long ascent behind bus after bus clawing its way up the volcano in clouds of diesel smoke (I would have my turn at that later). There is a lot to be said for drinking a big glass of water before you go to bed.

I took a different, meandering way back down, through rich communities, and small towns. I am sure there is an easy way to get past San Jose et al, but I didn’t find it. I almost (soooo close) had an accident in Alejuela, got caught in gridlock in San Pedro, and finally punched my way through after about 3 hrs.

I was now at the bottom of the mountainous pass towards San Isidro. 3:30 PM, 3400 meters at the top, a one lane highway all the way, and about 140 km of “snake”. There is nowhere to stay in Cartago, so on I went, waning daylight and all.

When I say that 3400 meters is the summit, that means that when you are stuck behind yet another semi making the long ascent, and pull out to pass (FINALLY!!!), you drop the pedal to the floor and the engine only gets louder. No Faster. The air is pretty thin up there, so the gas pedal is more of a sponge for your amusement. There is some white knuckle driving for ya!8|

The decent is spent almost entirely in 2nd or 1st gear, because you don’t want your brakes over-heating, and all you want on the other side is a place to relieve yourself.

AND…that is where I am. A hotel just outside of San Isidro de General, with pool, TV, hot water, wireless internet, secure parking, and a restaurant. I slept well.

I am now two days away from the border back into Panama. Where life is cheap. It may have been better to blast my way through Costly Rica, passing on to the farthest point I wanted to be, but on the other hand, I guess it is just as well that I got to experience this place before it got much more expensive.

I read in the paper the other day that Costa Rica has had an inflation rate of around 9% for the past few years. This may have to do with their reticence at signing the Free Trade Agreement. It may just have to do with greed, but at this point, I don’t see another return to this country. Beautiful as it is, it is one insult after another. The people are not all that friendly with a certain arrogance and perceived superiority to surrounding countries (which is just ugly), and much as last year, I feel more like a walking wallet than anything else. It must be said that Costa Ricans are well educated, their health care superior, and have a better standard of living, but the level of corruption in government remains, funneling money away from projects that would justify this countries expense.

If you want to come and truly enjoy Costa Rica, you need a ton of cash and then it is all there for you, but my attraction to Central America is that you can live down here for roughly 1/3 the price of Canada and never pay a heating bill. In Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico, you can do it well, but here, not a chance.

You could do it in a 4×4 with a camper…buy why?

There is another place I would like to visit, just to see before I go. Buenas Aires is just up the road. I will go take a look.