Friends from the States

Well...I´ve been meaning to put up some posts about my second week of Christmas vacation, but classes have started and I´ve been busy getting things organized and ready. Anyway, I had been planning a week of vacation with some of my college friends for the last several months. Let me tell you what a headache that was trying to get it organized. Costa Rica is definitely not as efficient when it comes to organizing these kinds of things. Since my friends were coming during peak season, reservations and plans all had to be done in advance because there are a million tourists here during this time of year. "Makinga resevation" does not mean calling up a hotel and leaving your credit card number. No....that would be too easy. It means, calling up the hotel, making the reservations for the exact days, going to the bank to deposit hard cash into some kind of account, taking the receipt and faxing it to the hotel so they have everything and are sure that you are actually coming to stay. This might not be so bad if I had a car and could get to places quickly, but no...this means taking one of the many buses to go to the bank, then walking to another place to find a fax machine and paying to fax a receipt to the hotel!!! Now imagine this scenario for each hotel that you want to stay at for each leg of the trip. What a pain in the a**!!
Anyway, after coming back from Nicaragua, I only had a few days to get things organized and double check on some small details..which turned out to be not so small..go figure. One, I must have eaten something in Nicaragua because I got insanely sick when I returned. Fever, fatigue, the works...lovely time to get sick. Also, I had called a rental car place here trying to get a good deal on a rental car for my friends. Normally, rentals are around $400-$500 plus insurance (because CR roads are crap) plus a $1500-$2000 deposit. Pretty hefty investment. Anyway, I found a place that rented cars relatively cheaply and with a much smaller deposit. I had reserved the car about 2 weeks before and was calling to verify the reservation. When I called, the company told me that they didn´t have any reservation on file and that they didn´t have any cars available for 6 people. Good....especially since my friends were coming in 2 days and all the hotels, etc. had been reserved. I love a crisis. Apparently, there had been some kind of mixup with what was on the computer and what was on paper. Not too sure how that happened, but they told me they would try and find me something. You get what you pay for.....more to come on the "adventure vacation."

The next day

The next morning Danny and I went to the boat dock to await the arrival of our friend. He was supposed to be on the first boat coming from Los Chiles. After about an hour of watching people come in from the dock we realized that our "friend" wasn't on the boat. Well...we felt pretty helpless at that moment and decided to head back to Costa Rica on the next boat which was leaving at 1 PM. We walked back in and sat down to wait for our boat. While we were sitting there pondering what had happened and what a crappy vacation this was turning out to be we started talking and convinced ourselves that "hey, we're in f***ing Nicaragua! Why don't we take advantage of it?!" We knew that the original plan was to take another riverboat ride down the Rio San Juan to El Castillo, so we asked the local guy working at the dock where the boat was. He pointed us to the next dock over and told us when the boat left. We picked up our stuff and headed over and bought tickets to El Castillo.
El Castillo is a small river town with a Spanish fort, which was used in the past to watch for pirates coming down the river. Danny and I had a small tour of the place with a Spanish couple from Barcelona. The fort itself was still being renovated, but the view was incredible from the top. I'll try to put some pics up soon. We stayed the night in El Castillo and then went back to San Carlos. Originally we were going to the Solentiname Islands which are reknowned for their balsa wood crafts, but because of our delayed schedule we changed our minds and decided to go to Granada. We got back to San Carlos in time to buy our tickets for the 3 PM boat leaving for Granda. Now this boat was enormous compared to the little motorboats we were taking on the river. The line for the boat was just as long. I guess everyone else had the same idea. Anyway, the boat had two levels. Economy class on the bottom with uncomfortable wooden seats for a fourteen hour trip, or first class with hammocks, faux leather seating, A/C, and movies. Naturally we chose first class. I managed to find some spare seating so Danny and I didn't have to sit outside and we passed the night watching The Longest Yard in English with no subtitles and a bunch of non-Englishg speaking passengers. Yup..makes a lot of sense. The ride was pretty long, but interesting - although next time I think I'll take the bus. We arrived in Granada with the sunrise, no place to stay, and pretty worn out from the trip. The sunrise was incredible and it was nice to be on dry land again. Danny and walked for about 20 minutes and found ourselves a nice, cheap hostel and checked in. After a short nap, we headed out into town to explore.
Granada was incredible! It has lovely colonial architecture, clean streets, and friendly people. The houses and churches are painted bright colors and have indoor gardens that you can catch a glimpse of while walking by. Like all Spanish towns, it had a central plaza with hotels, restaurants, artesans, people selling food, and people just enjoying the sun and the weather. They even had a really large Christmas tree put up in the center. It also had a central market selling all kinds of things from vegetables, fruits, meats, clothes, etc. It was very similar to the market I saw in Mexico. San Jose also has one, but the area is not too safe so I don't go there too often.
That night I hung out with Danny in front of the hostel and met some other travellers. One guy Pete had just gotten laid off so was travelling around Central America and hanging out in Nicaragua for a while. I also started talking with one of the artesans that worked in the plaza, Carlos. Later that evening Danny and I went to a campfire with Pete and some of the other people at one of the other hostels. We sat around, drank beer, played music, and just relaxed. It was a very nice evening. After that we headed to another bar, danced and chatted, while Carlos flirted me up. Pics to come soon.
The next day I had to leave, so I took one last tour of Granada with Carlos. We went into one of the churches, and for $.30 you could climb to the top of the bell tower and see the entire city. You could even walk out onto the roof! It was absolutely amazing. After that we headed to the lakeshore and hung out at the park until I had to take the bus home.