Sunday:
Spanish Level: I don’t know if this counts as Spanish or knowledge of the systems here but some man at the bus station told me I needed to walk 6 more blocks to purchase a ticket. I definitely didn’t want to walk 6 blocks in high heat with my stuff. So I said “no I know I can pay the driver here”. He kept telling me I needed to buy a ticket and that he was going that way he’s show me. He was right, the first stop the bus makes is at the ticket office, but to Quepos you can pay the driver you don’t have to have a ticket to get on the bus.
The bus for Quepos leaves at 11am. So I slept in, took a long luke warm shower and after my My Cousin Vinny BREAKFAST, took a walk down the beach to the pier. Puntarenas is definitely NOT a tourist town. I think I was the only North American on the streets. There were a lot of people in the parks and on the beach, the clerk at the hotel said every Sunday all the locals come to the beach. There were a lot of vendor carts all over the walkway. They were all looking at me like I might have had 3 heads. They don’t get many tourists here. Even at my hotel the other guests were Costa Ricans and they sort of looked at me like I might say “I’m lost” at any moment. There were people fishing off the pier and playing volley ball on the beach, your typical beach stuff. By noon it is low tide so the sandy part of the beach was very big at 10am. I saw a sting ray leaping full body out of the water two or three times it was pretty amazing.
The bus ride was a long 4 hours home. It was miserably HOT on the bus and one boring man sat next to me most of the way. As soon as the bus emptied out a bit (3 hours into the trip) I moved. Then I talked to these 3 girls from Germany who were traveling together, they must have been about 20 years old. But the amazing thing about these girls was that they each had only one book bag size back pack and they were traveling for 3 months.
About 20 minutes from Quepos we passed a wreck on the road. A car with 4 people had run off the road. They don’t wear their seatbelts much here, 3 of the 4 people were thrown from the car and were dead. I think the bus drive must have seen them run off the road, or maybe he just saw the car and people lying in the grass but for whatever reason, he stopped the bus and got off to help… so did most of the passengers. They helped the 4th person out of the car. Everyone got back on the bus and we left just before the ambulance arrived. I made it home to Quepos!
We have new neighbors as of tonight for a few days, Marybell and her 19 year old daughter Maria Fernanda. Their family used to live in Quepos and they have a daughter Stephanie’s age so they know each other. For some reason (I didn’t quite get it) Maria Fernanda has been in school in San Jose for the last 7 months (school is year round here) but she had to come back here to Quepos to take her high school final exams? I don’t know enough about schools here to understand why, but what I do know is Marybell talks A LOT!!! More than my tico dad Wilbert who talks a lot. We all had dinner together but there was no way I could keep up with either of them. It was good practice for me though because she just keeps on talking… and believe it or not, when she was talking to me I actually understood about 1/3 of what she was saying.
Spanish Level: I don’t know if this counts as Spanish or knowledge of the systems here but some man at the bus station told me I needed to walk 6 more blocks to purchase a ticket. I definitely didn’t want to walk 6 blocks in high heat with my stuff. So I said “no I know I can pay the driver here”. He kept telling me I needed to buy a ticket and that he was going that way he’s show me. He was right, the first stop the bus makes is at the ticket office, but to Quepos you can pay the driver you don’t have to have a ticket to get on the bus.
The bus for Quepos leaves at 11am. So I slept in, took a long luke warm shower and after my My Cousin Vinny BREAKFAST, took a walk down the beach to the pier. Puntarenas is definitely NOT a tourist town. I think I was the only North American on the streets. There were a lot of people in the parks and on the beach, the clerk at the hotel said every Sunday all the locals come to the beach. There were a lot of vendor carts all over the walkway. They were all looking at me like I might have had 3 heads. They don’t get many tourists here. Even at my hotel the other guests were Costa Ricans and they sort of looked at me like I might say “I’m lost” at any moment. There were people fishing off the pier and playing volley ball on the beach, your typical beach stuff. By noon it is low tide so the sandy part of the beach was very big at 10am. I saw a sting ray leaping full body out of the water two or three times it was pretty amazing.
The bus ride was a long 4 hours home. It was miserably HOT on the bus and one boring man sat next to me most of the way. As soon as the bus emptied out a bit (3 hours into the trip) I moved. Then I talked to these 3 girls from Germany who were traveling together, they must have been about 20 years old. But the amazing thing about these girls was that they each had only one book bag size back pack and they were traveling for 3 months.
About 20 minutes from Quepos we passed a wreck on the road. A car with 4 people had run off the road. They don’t wear their seatbelts much here, 3 of the 4 people were thrown from the car and were dead. I think the bus drive must have seen them run off the road, or maybe he just saw the car and people lying in the grass but for whatever reason, he stopped the bus and got off to help… so did most of the passengers. They helped the 4th person out of the car. Everyone got back on the bus and we left just before the ambulance arrived. I made it home to Quepos!
We have new neighbors as of tonight for a few days, Marybell and her 19 year old daughter Maria Fernanda. Their family used to live in Quepos and they have a daughter Stephanie’s age so they know each other. For some reason (I didn’t quite get it) Maria Fernanda has been in school in San Jose for the last 7 months (school is year round here) but she had to come back here to Quepos to take her high school final exams? I don’t know enough about schools here to understand why, but what I do know is Marybell talks A LOT!!! More than my tico dad Wilbert who talks a lot. We all had dinner together but there was no way I could keep up with either of them. It was good practice for me though because she just keeps on talking… and believe it or not, when she was talking to me I actually understood about 1/3 of what she was saying.
posted by GA_Peach | 7:13 PM
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