Our last full day in Costa Rica.
What to do?
I woke up Friday morning about 4:30 surrounded by a pack of howler monkeys, closing in to meet back up after a night out. One must have been right above us because we could hear it grunting in between calls. Thinking again, it sounds maybe more like the grunts of the elephant seals along the California coast? But long and drawn out.
As the sun rose and the jungle lightened up, I could see a tree shaking, out the window just behind our hut. Sure enough the howler “king” was right there, and as I watched and my eyes got more used to looking, I could see th band of monkeys moving into the trees around him.
What to do today?
Our last day here in “Paradise?”
Let’s go beach!
And it is right out the door and down the dirt road from us.
Playa Punta Uva, where the black sand shifts into gold sand. An amazing and weird thing. South of us, the sand is gold; to the north it is black. here where it meets, it is black on top, but your footsteps break through to the heavier gold sand underneath.
We put our towels out, laid back and napped and read. I went body surfing in the five foot breakers, and had a great time.
After, I could simply jump into the cold, freshwater estuary to rinse off in the rushing current.
Laying on my back, watching the white clouds swirl in an impossible blue sky, a V flock of pelicans soar overhead.
A rustle: a tree shakes, and there is a monkey in a tree.
Later, after a shower, I am in the hammock on our porch, drinking a beer. I just can’t get the "George George George of the jungle…” song out of my mind.
We head into Puerto Viejo one last time. I have exactly ₡24,500 Colones left; no more, no less. We head to the E-Z BAr and Grill and order two pizzas and (after checking) four margaritas, for a total of ₡24,000 Colones.
Nice.
Now I have toll money for the trip to San Jose tomorrow, and we have a good meal (wood fire pizzas) and drinks, beachside, tonight.
So, we sit and read and pass a few hours.
We find out the water system is out in town, since yesterday. No toilets, showers, fresh water anything. They are washing dishes with sea water. This seems to be a small matter.
In fact, we have noticed that the electricity is out every day, for minutes to hours. Another small concern.
Speaking of the water, on this side of Costa Rica, you can’t drink the water. Our guest house provides us with filtered water and we have bottles. On the Pacific side, in Samara, we could use the tap water freely.
I read and watch. I am struck at how this side of Costa is really “in” with the backpack crowd. Literally. Dual packs, front and back, wandering down the street. They need some help packing and dumping inessential things, I think to myself. Hell, my pack for two months in Europe is only as big as their front packs. And these are the “light and free” new hippies?
As we drive tonight, I am thinking about how I would NEVER ever bring our little Mazda Miata here. Too many deep potholes. And that is when it hits me: we have not seen a single convertible since we have arrived in Costa Rica, over two weeks ago.
Well, as usual it gets really dark, really fast.
We head home to read and finish our half-bottle of wine.
I print out our boarding passes. Tomorrow is a transit day; in 48 hours we will be back at work to pay for this all.