What is Going On?

Day 11
7-7-12
Saturday

Quote of the Day: What is going on? - Said by Judy and Jason at various times throughout the day

Sometimes there is so much that we experience, that there is no way to adequately put into words what happened to save for all of posterity.  Today, for example, was supposed to be a simple day of travel and ended up...well...an adventure. We were to load our shuttle at 7:30 to head for Tortuguerro.  After last night, we were both plenty tired this morning.  Natural Consequences!  I figured I'd just sleep on the 3.5 hour shuttle ride to Pavona, the launch point for our boat ride into Tortuguerro.  Oh, but we were the last to be picked up so I was sitting in a makeshift seat with no head rest.  This has not happened the entire time in Costa Rica, in all the shuttles, buses, vans and boats we have traversed!  What is happening?  Okay, so sleep is out of the question.  At least until we dropped some people off...somewhere.  Then I had the whole backseat to myself and all was well again.  Then, we got to Pavona and our driver unloaded ll of our stuff and left us standing there, which, naturally begged the question...What is happening?  He (our driver, Nano) soon introduces us to Antonio, whom we presume to be our bus driver.  We sat for some snacks since apparently the boat wouldn't be leaving until one.  It was now about 11.  We had some honey crackers with Nutella and some bread with Nutella.  This has been our main source of snack items since deciding to eat out only once per day.  Around 12:30 there seemed to be a lot of commotion when a one-armed man approached our table saying, "Boat, boat."  Antonio, who'd been sitting with us for an hour trying to converse with us in Spanish, jumped up and headed off for the boat.  We followed him.  Though, it turns out, he was not the boat driver, just another random passenger.  You should have seen this boat, packed to the gills.  I felt like we were going to either sink, or tip, at any second.  It made for interesting times going around corners, that's for sure.  The people here aren't so concerned about weight distribution, although they did ask one girl to switch to the other side.  That was sort of awkward because the girl was kind of a bigger girl and they singled her out across the whole boat.  Not nice.

While on the ride, some insect landed on my foot, and the man sitting across from me took off his hat and killed it.  When I tried to ask him what it was, I believe he said some sort of skin biting insect.  I couldn't really follow what he was saying very well, but it was a big insect and he was pretty concerned about it.  You don't see Costa Ricans really get concerned, so that made me definitely concerned.  What is going on?

It was all fun and games, rocking out to Bob Marley on the boat until we got detained by the Guardacostas right before our docking point.  The Coast Guard boat pulled right up to ours and and held the boat to their boat.  The Coast Guard officials all looked very serious, and had intimidating machine gun weaponry strapped to their backs.  They wanted to review our boat paperwork and were counting things like people and life jackets on the boat.  It couldn't have helped that our boat driver was a 13 year old boy.  We couldn't really understand what was going on.  The people on the boat were shouting things at the Coast Guard officials, and laughing.  No one seemed too interested in giving us any information.  So, I asked if this was normal, and was assured it was.  I do not think this was true.  Many people looked ill at ease and/or inconvenienced by all of this.  What is going on!?

During this boat-stop, we did see a howler monkey in the trees!  Oh, silver linings...

Finally, we are free to go and we arrive in Tortuguerro village.  Village is right!  This place is very small and there's a real feel of sketchiness about it.  When we got off the boat, there were people trying to sell stuff, tours, rooms, etc, right away.  Everyone shouting at us, and we're just trying to figure out where to go.  We get ushered over to "Tourist Info Center"  which was more like a Tour Vendor, and they tried to sell us more tours.  Finally, we got a woman who spoke English and she had Ricardo, take us to Hotel La Casona.  Ricardo is a friend of Antonio's evidently and seemed very nice.  What I like about La Casona, is that it's cheap.  $25.00 per night per room!  We have 2 twin beds, a private bath, towels, and hot water, allegedly.  I haven't tried that out quite yet.  The beach is really nice and from where I sit I can hear the waves.  I anticipate sleeping well, though we have already made the decision to get up at 5 am to catch the first boat out of here back to Pavona.  I'd like to get out of here as soon as possible.

Hoping for more friendliness and good cheer in Puerto Viejo manana.  Tonight, we will go try to see turtles but from what I hear it's possible to see only one on this night.  Mostly, I think our tour guide is a little shifty.  I wish I were more trusting of these people.  There's just a weird vibe here.  And, there's an excess of children and dogs.

p.s. Jason's sleep sack ran away with my eyeliner...to get some beauty sleep.  Seriously, of all things to lose on this trip...what a random pair!

Sleep can't come soon enough,
Judy