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So I don’t have a notebook handy and Common People by Pulp came on the internet radio station I’m listening to and I had to note it down so I remember to download the song when I get home… It’s one of the songs I always hear when out in the city… usually with Polly

I’m in Liberia… and I just realized that I forgot to add Pentel R.S.V.P.’s to the list of things I need sent down to me urgently… the pens down here SUCK…

Umm.. yeah.. that brings me to my next order of business… and that’s that everyone needs to make me mix CD’s and mail, or get them to Marzena some other way asap in order to bring entertainment to my life when she comes down in 10 days… e-mail me at me@dception.com and I’ll give you her address if you’re interested… If you wanna send me brand new CDs that’s ok too

I think I changed my mind as to the order I’m doing things in the next week or so… I bought a pricey ($10) bus ticket from where I am in Costa Rica into Nicaragua so as to avoid all the annoyance and chaos of dealing with the border stuff on my own… that and there’s a/c and movies I’m going to head to Granada first.. spend the weekend there… then backtrack an hour or so to San Juan del Sur for a couple days on the beach… then back to Granada again for more fun there…

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So I’ve been in Monteverde since leaving San Jose the other day… and yesterday I did this crazy zip-line tour of the upper canopy of the cloud forest… I had met up with a couple people on Sunday night at the bar and did the trip with them… It was more of a thrill than a natural experience, but the second part of the tour I booked consisted of a hiking trail inerspersed with really long and high foot suspension bridges through the trees… which was amazing… and I spotted a lonely male howler monkey along the way… which quenched my ¨monkey thirst¨ for a while… You can see pictures/video of what it’s like here

Internet’s really expensive up here so I haven’t used it since Sunday morning… and I’m heading down to the town of Liberia, closer to the Nicaragua border to set myself up to cross into Nica on Thursday morning… where I’ll head immediately to the beach town of San Juan del Sur to get some sun in…

Time’s up.. TTYL!

Tonight is my last night in San Jose… a city which I’ve quite enjoyed… Tomorrow night I’ll be arriving in Monteverde… a town far up in the mountains in cloud forest… I plan to do a day of hiking and a day of a crazy zip-line tour where you slide along wires suspended between trees at the top of the rainforest… Should be cool… if a bit cold… But it will be refreshing I suppose…

I’m beat… TTYL!

So there’s a crazy man in this hostel… He corners people and talks on and on about all his various conspiracy theories and spouts all this information (some truthful, some ridiculous)… And last night the three of us (me, Zelda, and I think his name is Max) were talking and he approached as we were talking about New York and London… and started telling us that soon everyone is going to leave the cities and the retreat into the countryside… comparing it to the collapse of the Maya… (which was probably due to an overuse of resources that couldn’t sustain their high population levels…) and so I thought I knew where he was coming from with the statement…

But then it got extremely weird… Because, according to him, at some point the ambient background radio frequency of the Earth changed, and it changed us from the more monkey-like form that we were originally in… And so his friend has figured this out and is gathering money to build a high-powered transmitter to send out the signal that will revert us all to this monkeyman form… we’ll all grow hair and revert to our ‘natural’ form…

So that’s just a very tiny sampling of what comes out of this man’s mouth… he’s talking at someone behind me right now… About mammoths in India… So, uh… yeah..

l8r

I’m still in San Jose… Just chillin’ really… not much doing today… other than my awesome meal (as always) at the local vegetarian restaurant Vishnu… I’m peeling like crazy from my sunburn… starting with my face… which hopefully will be done soon ‘cause skin peeling off your face is one of the least attractive things that can happen to you… But that’s it… Just hanging out here for a couple more days with the people I’ve met… All is fun…

TTYL,
Kevo

I’m in San Jose still.. and I’ve decided against heading out to the next beach town that I was planning on going to tomorrow after speaking with some people at the hostel… Instead I’m going to probably spend one more night here and an extra day in the mountain town of Monteverde before heading toward the Nicaraguan border.

Today I didn’t do much of anything… except my laundry… and I went and saw Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events by myself… in English with Spanish subtitles at the local cine… I got my ticket, a popcorn and a soda for under $5… That rocked…

I then had dinner at this cool vegetarian restaurant before heading back to the hostel… where while watching Asshole’s (read: Bush) state of the union address… I met up with a couple people, one guy from NYC and a girl from England and we basically just had good conversation over beers in the hostel bar the rest of the night…

And now it’s time for bed… ‘cause it’s like 2am here… and I need to be awake and active before 11am…

Love ya’ll.

I actually woke up and made my 6am bus this morning… and so I was in San Jose by 10ish… I got in some free internet time at the hostel and then headed out for a few hours of shopping along the pedestrian mall of Avenida Central…

I managed to find an english language bookstore where I picked up a new Spanish-English dictionary, a Spanish grammar quick reference guide, a copy of¨Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy… which I was reading an eBook of on my PDA before it got stolen… but now I can finish it still.. woohoo! I also picked up a cheap copy of Cold Mountain, the book that spawned the pretty bad movie of the same name… I also managed to find a decent belt (after looking in like 15 plus stores since I got into Panama)…

I checked numerous places for prices on digital cameras… and wasn’t able to find anything reasonable by US prices… So I’m just going to buy a couple disposable cameras for the meantime and have Marzena bring me down one in a couple weeks…

Tomorrow I’m going to find one of these mega-malls they have around here… to try to find a small day bag to replace the one that got stolen… If Ican’t find one, I’ll just have Marzena bring me another like the one I had before…

In other news , there’s a party going on in my intestines… and apparently it’s at my expense… It’s not too bad tho… hopefully it will pass quickly…

On that note… g’night all!

…ok so it was more like lazy in the sun… but I slathered on the sunscreen and went down to the beach to spend my last day here in the Quepos/Manuel Antonio area… Apparently I did a pretty good job with the sunscreen ‘cause I was at the beach from like 12:30 until a little after 4 and my skin only feels better than it did this morning… woohoo! It kinda sucks that I don´t have any pictures from here… but I could have bought a disposable camera if I really wanted to… ah well… It’ll always be in my memory.. and besides… there’s a pretty good chance that I’ll be able to find a reasonably priced digital camera once I get to San Jose tomorrow… but we’ll see… If not, then I’ll definitely get a couple disposables so I at least have some pictures…

i’m worn out from being in the sun and I have to catch a bus at 6am so I’m gonna go rest up.. lata!

I woke up this morning with swollen, painful skin so I opted to spend my day indoors… on the internet and recontemplating the routing of my trip.. making some changes and clarifying some things that I hadn´t thought to think of in my initial planning phase…

I´ve added an aerial photograph of the beach I´ve been hanging out at… it´s on the far side of the point in the photo… Aren´t you all jealous? I´m hoping to have let my skin rest long enough to go down on the beach tomorrow for my last day in the area… Before heading up into the cosmopolitan hurriedness of San Jose…

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So I was looking around a little souvenir shop tonight and what did I find but a brand new shrink-wrapped copy of the guidebook that got stolen… I´m ecstatic… even though I paid $45 for a $24 book… but it´s imported I guess… and I was happy to pay it… that book is indispensible…

Went to the beach to day… and forgot the suntan lotion.. (I promise I was going to put it on, Lane) and got burnt a little crispy… but it´s not terribly bad so I hope it feels ok to go in the sun again tomorrow… ´cause I don´t want to miss one day of this beach while I´m here…

Anyway… I gotsta run…

¡Lata!

Today I finally made it onto the beach and into the water…

After a rough start involving some loneliness/homesickness in addition to a bit of a stomach ache of unknown origins (though it was right after I ate breakfast…), I made my way over to Manuel Antonio to the gorgeous beach… The beach is really long and curving with rocky, mountainous points at either end… The water has got to be like 90 degrees… which makes it not that refreshing but also kinda nice at the same time… And being at that beach I just had to think about what the weather is like back in New York to remind me how much better it is down here

Oh yeah.. Everyone should send me their email address at me@dception.com so I have it.. ‘cause I don’t really have anybody’s since my PDA left me…

Anyway… I love you all.. Talk to you soon!

After a long day of bus travel I am now in Quepos, a smallish town with a rather developed tourism industry… I was originally planning on staying in Manuel Antonio, but when I got into town there was not one room under $35 in the whole town (it’s not very big) despite the very helpful Isaac who brought me to almost every hotel… So I had to make my way the 6km back to Quepos and after much searching finally found a room for about $9-ish which is nice and clean and whatnot but with shared bathroom/shower facilities… which is fine considering they are also nice and clean.

Manuel Antonio is kind of like a more upscale tumor growing from Quepos which was more opportune for tourism development because it wasn’t such a large town to begin with… leaving more room for big expensive hotels and the like… and the town is also right at the gates to a national park of the same name… So yeah… it’s hella touristy… lotsa dreadlocks blowing in the wind.. that sorta thing mixing with older people and families who are more adventurous than most (ie. not opting for a cruise or package vacation)…

Anyway.. there are frequent buses between Quepos and Manuel Antonio (because its only 6km…) so tomorrow I’ll probably just bus over there early to try to get into the park before it gets too crowded and perhaps try the cheap hotel there again to see if they have any rooms then (doubtful considering the weekend starts tomorrow).. if not I can just stay here in Quepos and bus back and forth to go to the beach ‘cause supposedly the beach here is not nice though I haven’t seen it yet…

Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well… I’ll make some phone calls as soon as I find a place that’s got decent rates… But for now…

Buenas Noches!

I knew I should have started that pool about how many times I’d be robbed… Today, on my 8th day of my estimated 4 month trip, I fell victim to a distract and grab team while sitting inside a quiet restaurant. My brand new digital camera, my PDA, my discman, my new sunglasses, and my travel guide which is my only source of information were taken…

I was sitting there eating, a guy walked up and asked me a question and when I turned back I noticed my small bag was gone… by the time I looked up again there was noone around… I ran out to the street but saw nothing…

I had the restaurant owner call the police and had a report written up so as to maybe get some money back from insurance, as I’m sure I’ll never see any of my stuff again… It sucks but it happened and there’s nothing I can do now… I still have all my money and my passport and clothes and everything so I really didn’t lose anything that was necessary… but not having any pictures from this trip is not something I’m looking forward to…

Umm.. other than that I had a long day of very scenic bus rides… Tomorrow I’m headed out to the coast to a town called Manuel Antonio which is right at the entrance to a national park… I’ll write more then.