Costa Rica Journal Entry 4
Wednesday July 23: Humidity
My head leans back on my seat on the bus to Quepos. I fight sleep. There is a nice breeze that moves through the bus, making the blue curtains shake. It is cool in these moments that I forget about the sweat clinging to my skin. But then the bus slows and I am awake once again.
On the 3 hour trip down to the coast from San Jose, I watch the temperature rise almost 10 degrees celsius.
I spend a duration of the trip trying to figure out story of the beautiful racially/ethnically ambiguous family group in front of us. They speak English with a perfect American accent but also speak something that sounds similar to German and something else that sounds like it could be related to Spanish. The child in front of me cannot be more than 9 or 10. He eats imported Cheetos and switches casually between three languages.
The red line of taxi cars line the street in front of the bus terminal in Quepos, waiting for weary tourist like us. Our driver switches the station to a station with American music so we can listen to Rihanna on our drive to the hotel.
I will not remember the name of the hotel we stay in. All I will remember is how seclude it is from everything. Our taxi driver turns off the main road on to a dirt path. We never think to ask what the tree farm on the side of the road grows though I will think about it every time we pass it during out stay.
For ten more dollars we can go back to the city center, which we do almost immediately, driven by our hunger for lunch (as it is way past noon) and our need to find groceries for our temporary kitchen. It is here where we finally understand what our friend was telling us when she said eating at "Sodas is cheap." Walking up and down the street, we finially pick a random Soda (or small, open restaurant) just so we can sit down and drink something cold. It is really hot now. The humidity is thick. The place is small. But the waitress brings me a cold mango juice. It is thick and bright and sweet. It picks my sweaty self up out of the travel fog of grumpiness that surrounds me, if only for a little while. In this moment, this juice feels like the best part about Costa Rica. I try not to stick to the plastic table cloth as I eat my cheeseburger.
With several rounds of bad directions, we later end up at a small grocery store that we will later refer to as "soggy." And indeed it was. Humidity clung to the packages sitting on the shelves. We buy something we think is salt for our spaghetti dinner but ended up with some other chemical altogether. It is the place with the process turkey we will eat on our sandwiches the next day, leaving me sick in my stomach for a few hours. (Even now, I can remember exactly how soggy that place was.)
Attitude redemption comes later back at the hotel pool, where we jumped in for a few minutes before the lightening started. The storm quickly passes leaving a pink and yellow sky at dusk. My camera lens will cheer me up the most.
To be continued…
My head leans back on my seat on the bus to Quepos. I fight sleep. There is a nice breeze that moves through the bus, making the blue curtains shake. It is cool in these moments that I forget about the sweat clinging to my skin. But then the bus slows and I am awake once again.
On the 3 hour trip down to the coast from San Jose, I watch the temperature rise almost 10 degrees celsius.
I spend a duration of the trip trying to figure out story of the beautiful racially/ethnically ambiguous family group in front of us. They speak English with a perfect American accent but also speak something that sounds similar to German and something else that sounds like it could be related to Spanish. The child in front of me cannot be more than 9 or 10. He eats imported Cheetos and switches casually between three languages.
The red line of taxi cars line the street in front of the bus terminal in Quepos, waiting for weary tourist like us. Our driver switches the station to a station with American music so we can listen to Rihanna on our drive to the hotel.
I will not remember the name of the hotel we stay in. All I will remember is how seclude it is from everything. Our taxi driver turns off the main road on to a dirt path. We never think to ask what the tree farm on the side of the road grows though I will think about it every time we pass it during out stay.
For ten more dollars we can go back to the city center, which we do almost immediately, driven by our hunger for lunch (as it is way past noon) and our need to find groceries for our temporary kitchen. It is here where we finally understand what our friend was telling us when she said eating at "Sodas is cheap." Walking up and down the street, we finially pick a random Soda (or small, open restaurant) just so we can sit down and drink something cold. It is really hot now. The humidity is thick. The place is small. But the waitress brings me a cold mango juice. It is thick and bright and sweet. It picks my sweaty self up out of the travel fog of grumpiness that surrounds me, if only for a little while. In this moment, this juice feels like the best part about Costa Rica. I try not to stick to the plastic table cloth as I eat my cheeseburger.
With several rounds of bad directions, we later end up at a small grocery store that we will later refer to as "soggy." And indeed it was. Humidity clung to the packages sitting on the shelves. We buy something we think is salt for our spaghetti dinner but ended up with some other chemical altogether. It is the place with the process turkey we will eat on our sandwiches the next day, leaving me sick in my stomach for a few hours. (Even now, I can remember exactly how soggy that place was.)
Attitude redemption comes later back at the hotel pool, where we jumped in for a few minutes before the lightening started. The storm quickly passes leaving a pink and yellow sky at dusk. My camera lens will cheer me up the most.
To be continued…
Comments
Post a Comment