My Blood Type is Salt

I have stumbled upon yet another gigantic subculture unbeknownst to me until now ... the world´s backpacking travelers. It is day five of our Central American unplanned extravaganza and the amount of random travelers that we have met doing the exact same thing as us is overwhelming.



We meet them at the bus, at hostels, in sodas (Central American diner equivalents), in the bathroom, on the street, on the beach ... they are everywhere. And I thought we were crazy. Out of everyone, we by far have the shortest trip here. Backpacking for months on end, these people take funemployment to a whole new level! It has become evident that I am clearly a rookie at the fine art of living out of a standard size bag. That being said, I am having the time of my life.



For the sake of my parents that I know are reading this, I will not detail the hostels in which we have stayed thus far. However, I will say we just got back from a weekend at one of Costa Rica´s most incredible beaches ... in my limited opinion ... called Santa Teresa. Located right off the Nicoya Peninisula, it is virtually untouched except by the locals and true to life surfer bums that came and never left. And truth be told, I had thoughts about never leaving. Seriously. That good. Getting there is a nightmare ... Costa Rican public travel you might as well take a camel ... but once there, it was surreal. I felt like Brad Pitt on some spy mission amongst locals on bikes in lush jungle like conditions. All we need is a rugged vehicle. This whole bus thing is really killing our look.



After Abby mistakenly thanked our cab driver in Italian, we found ourselves a hostel, made friends with a cute couple from British Columbia, found some coffee, and footed the long dirt road that spanned the whole coastline. Lined with crazy hostels, restaurants, surf shops, obnoxious roosters, and stray dogs, this place has gold written all over it. Someone really needs to notify John Milton because Paradise has definitely been found.



We rented boards for a day from uber hard core surfer gal from Norway and I gave everyone a quick makeshift lesson on surfing. Super scary considering my limited surfer skills. But despite the horrendous instructor, everyone did awesome. I took a head dive into the ocean floor but am alive to tell about it, Abby got a board to the face, also alive to tell about. Mikki almost drowned but is still alive to tell about it ... flu shot invoked swollen ankles and all ... and Amy is still alive! However, despite our injuries and our horrid sunburns, we can now say we surfed the world renowned waves of Costa Rica. Check off one of the things to do before I die! Meanwhile, Abby and I determined one of two things, we were either supposed to be birthed into the Pacific Ocean or our blood type is salt. We became one with the ocean.



I have to mention the hostel we stayed in called the Funky Monkey there in Santa Teresa. Imagine coastline bungalow with hammocks positioned above the beach hidden in the forest and that is where we stayed. Absolutley amazing. The people staying there were some of the most fascinating people we have ever met. From the hottie mom that owned the place to crazy brothers from the O.C. to old Steven from Canada to Nicolai from Norway who once hitchhiked across the U.S. with his mom... God´s dynamic creation just kept coming out of the woodwork.



However, meeting the worlds weirdest and best and falling asleep everynight to crazy animal noises and the best of American classic rock and Bob Marley ... literally heaven in a bungalow ... had to come to an end. We are now currently en route to try to kill ourselves again by taking a zipline over the canopies of some rainforest. We had to take a slight detour back to San Jose because someone decided it would be fun to steal Amy´s passport. Definitely a buzzkill. However, an epic story has been generated from the tragedy. I will save this story for later as this is getting far too long and some random keeps interurrpting me to chat about life.

However, as a teaser, let´s just say we had to traverse the streets of some random town looking for a police station to report the crime. And then let´s just say I ended up being quasi struggling translator between Amy and the chief of police of Puntarrenas. Then imagine us being transported by the police ... with the whole police force laughing at us ... to the court house to make our official complaint for the U.S. Embassy. Oh the sweet taste of adventure in a third world country!