Arrival

First of all, international travel - or travel in general - is not made for 6'5" people, namely me. I should note that American Airlines was very efficient and kind and, most importantly, on time. Kudos AA. Beyond that, the seats were incredibly small and I was seated next to sprawled sleepers.

On my overnight from LA to Miami a sweet old man who appeared to be on his first flight had to go to the bathroom, from the window seat, just as I, from the aisle seat, was falling asleep. From that point on, I knew I would not sleep for the rest of the flight. The inflight movie was The Invention of Lying. Not good. It had become impossible to sleep and I didn't want to turn my light on to read because I did not want to disturb the able sleepers. My mistake.

Between the two flights (LA-Miami and Miami-San Jose) I managed to hit my head 4 times on the aisle located televisions. I also managed to sit behind seat recliners whom I hate. But when all was said and done, I arrived in San Jose.

And there she was. Tara Ruttenberg my host, guide, and - most importantly - my friend.

Reason #238 I'm thankful for Tara: she dominated the overwhelming and intimidating San Jose airport exit.

From the airport we bussed to a cab, cabbed to a bus, and bussed 4.5 hours to Puerto Viejo. I passed out twice on the bus after not sleeping all of the previous night while flying in. Once in Puerto Viejo we found a place to stay and I quickly - or as quickly as the humid weather would allow - got out of my damp, heavy jeans. I immediately put the jeans into a compartment of my pack where I knew they would not be accessed again. We found dinner then went straight to bed.

The rooster blarred at 3:44 am and didn't stop until I don't know when but he sure as hell started at 3:44 am.

Day one in Puerto Viejo was for biking. We rented beach cruisers from a guy who smelled like pot and called me "Adan Mantequilla" because Butler was spelled a lot like butter. Tara's bike was bright pink, mine was white and too small.

We were riding out to Manzanillo which we later discovered was 13km away. Initially, Tara announced that it was 20km away. Retrospectively, 20km would've been awful, but I digress.

Our first stop was Punta Uva. It's difficult to describe Punta Uva because there are no words to describe such a place. Instead I have invented a new adjective: postcard. Punta Uva was incredibly postcard. It's unbelievably tranquil and as the Palm Trees stretch over the water, it's easy to lose yourself in the lapping of the waves and the softness of the sand. For this, I fell asleep.

When I awoke, Tara was gone for a walk so I decided to let my primal instincts take over: I was going to get us a coconut. With my eyes to the sky I searched for the most ripe one. I finally settled on the perfect one. I shimmied up the 50ft tall palm tree to retrieve my chosen fruit. Noticing that I had a good angle into the ocean, I jetisoned myself off the tree and swan dove into the bay. I was later told by a Scandinavian onlooker that the climb, pick, and subsequent dive was a thing of beauty.

That is completely untrue.

Realty: I used a dry, leafless palm frawn to bat down a green, very unripe coconut. But I was able to retrieve it, crack it open, and we enjoyed the refreshing and tasty milk.

We biked on to Manzanillo which was a less postcard view but unbelievably gorgeous nonetheless. I napped here as well.

We returned home, showered, then ate. Again we were exhausted and found ourselves in bed and asleep by 10:15pm.

Day 2 on the Carribean Coast was for hiking. We were off to Cahuita in a bus and it became quickly evident that it was a fantastic idea not to ride bikes out to the national park. Pot holes, dirt roads, and erratically controlled drivers made it an intimidating and threatening bike ride, but an easy bus unless you're the driver. Not my problem.

Walking into Cahuita was quite a site. It was like entering a Disney ride. We crossed a small bridge and as we crossed, the landscape changed. We moved from a town into a park and the vegetation became incredibly dense in a hurry. The park was much of the same.

To our right was green on top of green on top of green. To our left was the Carribean Sea. It's relatively mind blowing. While hiking Cahuita we saw three types of monos (howler, white face, and spider), some raccoons, and an iguana holding on for dear life as he fell from a branch. Also saw a spider the size of my fist eating a bug. That was gnarly.

When we returned to Puerto Viejo to prepare for dinner, we first picked up an ice cream afternoon snack. It was an early sunset, about 5:45pm, and as we ate our ice cream we watched what I suppose was a sunset. The ocean was there but the sun was not. You see, Puerto Viejo is on the eastern coast of Costa Rica and, as we all know, the sun sets in the WEST. So, we watched a sherbert sky with no sun. It was quite beautiful but something I'd never seen before. I've decided all sunsets of an eastern ocean will be called "sets".

We also discovered that it was St. Patrick's Day. As they say, every town has an Irish Pub and Puerto Viejo is no exception. We decided to give it a whirl. After dinner we found ourselves a quality box of $2200 colones ($5) wine and settled in on the beach in front of the bar. Tara and I enjoyed the boxed wine as the local cover band, Atomic Pants, played in the background.

When the boxed wine was gone we headed into the bar. Only problem is we were both over boozing so we "settled" on ice cream. Chocolate and then passionfruit. This was ten fold better than rum shots or whatever you take down in the Carribean.

We boogied down to a mash of "La Bamba" and "Twist 'n Shout" and declared ourselves the world's foremost wedding/bar mitzvah dancers. The dancing was interupted for us as Atomic Pants moved into a Radiohead cover. While we couldn't dance, the local prostitute got low to "High and Dry".

The hike and box-o-wine began to take its toll and we decided that it was time to turn in. After a brief discussion, it was determined that it was 2:00am. We were pooped and leaving the next day for San Jose. Convinced it was 2:00am and we had to get to bed.

We walked back through town, St. Paddy's Day'd out. We got back to the room and I checked my watch. It wasn't 2:00am. My clock read 11:26pm.

Oh to be young.