"You're So Blue Crush Right Now."

I have entered a phase of my life where 7-hour bus rides no longer phase me. I caught my bus on Sunday morning for San Isidro and had to stand for about 2 of the 2 and a half hours. Then upon my arrival at the bus station I found Mikki Jean waiting. There was then an hour wait in the terminal, so we went to grab a little bit to eat. Riding buses here is strange because there is no such thing as full as far as I can tell. Despite the fact that every seat is generally taken and the aisles are usually packed, every person who waves a bus down gets picked up. Such is the Pura Vida. I wouldn’t recommend the bus ride from San Isidro to Quepos to anyone, but it was definitely interesting. It was dusty and hot. The seats were leather and I stuck to everything. It was overcrowded and uncomfortable, the bridges were less than safe and it took 3 and a half hours to go 80 kilometers. With that in mind, it’s hard to deny that the views were gorgeous. I saw a family of four on a motorcycle. I saw a four foot long Iguana crossing the road like a stray dog. I passed pineapple fields and giant groves of palm trees and while I was glad to get off of the bus, it was still pretty glorious.
Mikki got pickpocketed in Quepos. They took her camera. It was awful. We were barely even at the bus station. We were switching buses and when we got on the next bus a few minutes later, it was gone. They took it right out of the case. Petty theft is pretty gnarly in Manuel Antonio. We learned that the hard way. Anyway, we took the bus up the hill and into Manuel Antonio. It is undeniably beautiful. The ocean is bright the skies were clear and the surrounding vegetation came in colors of green I couldn’t even have imagined before my move to Costa Rica. The Hostel had a very neat set up. It was basically a guest house with a kitchen and a living room as you walk in the door and two bedrooms and a bathroom on the inside. We put a picture of Paul George on the refrigerator and it was almost like he was there. Except without the constant display of phenomenal dance moves.
So Kristi and Jack might be working hard this year but they are certainly not slumming it. It’s absolutely gorgeous but a little bit touristy. And by a little bit touristy I mean I spoke more English there than I spoke Spanish, and not by choice. I am starting to realize how lucky I am that my favorite people on this trip are placed together and that I can get to them without too much pain. I’m sure that they are going to be sick of people visiting every weekend, but I’m an exception and they’ll get over it. I went surfing with some of the world teach people on Monday. It could have gone better, but I’ve got time to learn. I’m not really concerned with nailing it immediately. After I got out of the water with the board one of my friends told me I had nailed the Blue Crush look. I’m not entirely sure what that means because I haven’t seen the movie, but I am trying to take it as a compliment. Manuel Antonio barely feels like Costa Rica. Everything is created for tourists and as such it loses a lot of its Costa Rican vibe. One good thing about this is that I had the best food I have had since my arrival here a month ago. I found Cheez-Its at the grocery store and I had an Ahi sandwich for lunch one day with avocado and giant potato wedges. I had a steak sandwich at the same restaurant the next day that was also exceptional. There was a sweet little breakfast café called Café Milagro in MA. I had French Toast there and it definitely hit the homesick spot. The giant chocolate and espresso Milkshake that I had wasn’t bad either.
We watched the Superbowl together on Sunday night, which was a lot of fun, but I naturally missed watching with the family. Lathan family commentary is really like nothing else in the world. Its basically the best there is. No joke. The Boston peeps were seriously disappointed with the outcome as I assumed they would be, but The Giants fans were ecstatic. It was a pretty great game too. I am going to really miss football come August and September. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Though if I come back a soccer fan, someone might need to slap some sense into me.
We went out on Monday night to a Casino where we heard there was ladies night. It was glorious. They played fantastic music that I actually knew the words to and a group of guys nicknamed me Scary Spice again. For some reason that still makes me feel good. Plus they played that Te Amo song that I heard a thousand times in El Salvador. When we left the Casino/Bar/Dance Party we went to the beach for a little while and looked up at the stars. En Route I saw my first wild sloth hanging from a telephone wire. It was pretty fantastic. As for the stars, things look different closer to the equator and everything seemed brighter. I have become something of an introvert since my arrival here. I will regularly choose to separate myself from the rest of the group, just to think. I’m just glad to know that I can be independent and that I don’t need the constant attention that I required in my youth.
Saying goodbye to everyone was hard today. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go back to my site. On the contrary, I was looking forward to it, but the time in MA felt like a vacation and somewhere in the back of my mind I was convinced that I was supposed to be heading back to Los Angeles after an exhausting though rewarding vacation. I missed my car. I missed my friends from home and I missed the conveniences of California. Not to mention the fact that I was desperate to hear about the elections and the results of Super Tuesday. I cried when I said goodbye to everyone at the bus station. It was hard to know that I probably wasn’t going to see a lot of them until May. We have all become fast friends because we were going through the same experiences, but now we are going through them alone. I think I was the only one to cry, but everybody felt the same way. That’s another thing. Costa Rica has made me a major crier. I do it all the time now. I think that I have cried more than I have worked out in the last week.
Long Story short: I am still enjoying life but I am pretty sure that I am going to hit one of the major down slopes of the culture curve in the next week or so. Hopefully I will be too busy with school to really dwell, but just in case, be waiting on my phone call. I may need a non-reality check about the goings on in the US to distract myself from the madness of the Pura Vida.