The End!

After Montezuma, we make our way to the ferryboat to take us from the
peninsula back to the main part of the country. We pass back across
the section of road from a few days earlier and laugh at our
experiences here. The road is still there, and we pass over the zone
with no problems.
There are two towns with ferries to Puntarenas. We head to the
closest town and discover that the next ferry isn't leaving for two
hours, but that the other town is an hour away. We find gas, get
turned around and then straighten out and we're off to the other town.
We get to this town and discover that not only do we have to wait
three hours for this ferry, but we also don't have time to catch the
other ferry from the other town. Bullocks. The time drags by, we take
naps and play cards until the boat arrives finally. I had tried to buy
the ticket earlier but the guy said it was too soon. Suddenly the dock
is a rush of people buying their tickets as the same time the cars are
being lined up to go on the boat. Somehow I am supposed to be in two
places at once, since I am the driver of the SUV as well as the
Spanish speaker. I end up driving the car and Adam ends up getting the
ticket with the help of a sweet cowboy I was chatting with while
waiting in the line to nowhere. Finally we're all on the boat and it
creeps across the water. It is dark, and the rain finds us soon
enough. We go down to the enclosed area of the boat and focus on
trying not to puke as the boats rolls around in the water. When we
reach Puntarenas, we're tired, grumpy and super hungry. We all are
sitting in our cars waiting for the bridge to be lowered when we feel
another car bump into the back of our car. Ashley and I, with smoke
coming out of our ears, whip around in our seats to see who we need to
kill. We realize that it was actually the boat hitting the dock that
caused the bump, and tried to laugh it off. It was probably good we
didn't make eye contact with Adam in the back seat or his head would
have exploded.
We had originally planned to drive to another beach, but since it
took so stinking long to go on our little journey thus far it was now
dark and not really safe to be wandering about. We drive in search of
a Hostel and quickly realize that Puntarenas is the armpit of Costa
Rica. It feels really sketchy. The budget hostel we find first has no
hot water, a grumpy desk worker and nowhere to put our car off the
street. We make the decision to splurge on a nicer hotel for the sake
of safety and are happy to be taken in my a nicer hotel. They have a
locked, guarded lot for our car, big beds, and free breakfast. We're
in! We unload the car, clean up and go down the block to the nearest
restaurant to eat our weight in food. We stare at each other in
silence as we wait for the food and begin to be friendly with one
anther after a nice bowl of asparagus soup. We are actually chatting
and laughing again once we get our dinners and are relaxing. Probably
the highlight of mywhole day is when the waiter asks me where we're
from and after we tell him we're from the US, he looks at me surprised
and says that from my Spanish, he thought I was a local. Sweet! It
starts to pour and we're lamenting having to walk back to the hotel in
the rain. We look in the direction of our hotel and see a guy carrying
a HUGE umbrella towards the restaurant. It is a hotel employee,
carrying a table umbrella that is big enough for all four of us to fit
under. Is that service or what? We crowd under the umbrella giggling
and scurry back to the hotel. Needless to say, we sleep well that
night.
Feeling much more refreshed, we enjoyed our continental breakfast
(rice and beans, coffee, juice and some eggs), gathered. We were happy
to put puntarenas behind us and packed the car quickly. On the road,
we were talking smack about the town. Not more than five minutes out
of the town a kamakazee bird flew directly into my wind shield and
experienced, I can only hope, a quick death. Puntarenas was trying to
keep us in, but we were determined to get out! We had to skip the
beach we had picked out and headed straight to Manuel Antonio. Along
the way, driving challenges included areas where the road was totally
flooded (and looked like there could be alligators lurking
everywhere), areas where the road literally fell off (maybe marked by
a branch or an orange cone...remember this is a highway, we're going
fast), and bridges that looked so sketchy that we put down the windows
and took off our seatbelts in case we needed to bale out. There were a
lot of snickers eaten to sooth our nerves, especially mine, the
driver.
We arrived in Manuel Antonio and found the coolest hotel room
yet; it had an upper level with three beds and a hammock and a lower
table with a simple kitchen and a table for us to play cards on. One
whole wall was a screen (no windows needed in the jungle). Monkeys
were playing in the trees and we could hear them scampering across the
roof. The coolest restaurant here is called "the plane", which is a
restaurant made using a plane shot down during WWII. There is a giant
roof over the whole restaurant area and two floors of tables. The bar
is inside the plane. No walls needed. We had some good food and fruit
smoothies while looking out over the ocean. This was the end of our
trip and we had fun poking around in the shops, playing in the ocean
and laying low. The drive back to San Jose was really long and
stressful because it was super rainy, the roads were windy and full of
kamakazee buses and we almost ran out of gas. Luckily we made it
through, although it took several snickers each. Maybe I should buy
stock in snickers.

Next stop Argentina...and I have been here for a week so it is time to
catch up on that too!

Much love.