The Weekend Begins:
Spanish Level: The phrase for “oooughh the luggage” is “con mi monton´ de chunches” or “con mi monton´ de equipaje”, which literally means, with my mountain of things or my mountain of luggage.

Ok so I picked this boat, Calypso, I wanted to go on and it sales out of Puntarenas. Puntarenas is a city about 70 miles north of Quepos. In the busy season, there is a Calypso tour that will pick you up at 4:30am in Quepos, drive you to the boat, you sail and they drive you back to Quepos that night. Because I was the only one in Quepos going, I had to get to the boat and get home on my own.

Friday: After school, I took the public bus to Puntarenas, I thought this would be better than renting a car for some reason?? Bridges here are single lane and are most often made out of steel pipes. The roads have a lot of pot holes and are not marked or painted well which makes traveling at night dangerous. It gets dark here around 7pm every day. It cost $3 and took me 4 hours (3pm-7pm) to get there. No A/C on the bus so it was a bit “windy”. The bus was a lot of fun however because I got to talk to a lot of different people and practice my Spanish. Most folks didn’t want to take the seat next to me but when the bus would get full they did. A man sitting in front of me talked to me quite a bit too. He works near Quepos as a high school teacher and every weekend goes home to another area in Costa Rica called Guanacaste. His weekly commute consists of two busses one way for a total of 7 hours.

Now I booked the boat and a hotel room with the help of a travel agent in Quepos. When I got to the end of the bus line, we were just in the middle of some street in Puntarenas, no bus station with taxis like there are in Quepos. I had no idea where my hotel was or how I might get there from wherever I was. No map, I had no idea where I was. The bus driver was calling a cab for me when I told him the name of my hotel and he said “oh its just about 500 meters at the end of this street”. So I started walking. Puntarenas is a port town and in Quepos they don’t think too much of it. Most folks I told I was going to Puntarenas were like… why? …Be careful… watch your stuff… it’s a poor area… So I was a little nervous about walking 5 blocks with an overnight bag, beach towel and my school book. I had to go to the bathroom too after all that time in the bus. I stopped two times to ask directions and once to use the bathroom, what was 500 meters turned out to be more like 8 or 900, but I made it! The hotel is on a road that runs along the ocean/beach. The pier and surrounding parks were on the blocks I walked down so it was well lit with a lot of people about.

The town is actually not bad; it reminded me of Columbus, GA with the river walk. The city itself is not all that pretty or clean but it has its good points too. It is the capital of the Puntarenas province and it has a long public beach with showers and volley ball nets and a wide paved walkway about a mile long just this side of the beach, the street lies between the walkway and any hotels along the water front. My hotel lobby was pretty nice with a little open air plaza in the middle where the pool was, and had a restaurant and a casino. The rooms were older and simple but clean and fine. My bed was great and I had 3 big pillows.