We did stop in Coco Beach just inside the Costa Rica border and picked up these 2 hippie street guy and girl. The band members had met them in Granada while playing on a street corner. I had met Jonny (a crazy high energy Brazilian guy who couldn’t speak a lick of English) and Naushi (a French girl who could speak some English) in San Pedro, Guatamela & again in Utila Island, Honduras selling their crafts on the street. I hung out with them and got to know them as real solid friends.
The 4 guys wanted to travel and play so they played gigs in different bars to finance their trip. So the bus was crowded with instruments, amps, drums, etc. So heck the 2 street people and myself slept on the roof of the motorhome for 4 or 5 nights.
It was wild to lay in the back of the motorhome cruising down the highway looking up thru the window listening to the awesome music they with them. The scenery in Costa Rica was beautiful but other than that not much there really excited me. We went cruising thru the night and in the morning found ourselves close to our destination Pravonis in south west Costa Rica. But then we got to this river with an old wooden ferry to cross it. Of course we knew nothing about this ferry as the 4 guys had some friends staying in Pravonis surfing for the winter. But they weren’t told that we had to cross a river on an old wooden ferry. So we just hung out by the ferry and finally some guy shows up and starts the ferry. Cuz apparently the river level had to rise when the tide came in, especially to transport the motorhome.
Well it still seemed that the tide wasn’t high enough cuz the old ferry had to be started up. It didn’t seem it could get across the river itself let alone carry and vehicles. It appeared to be put together with recycled lumber. It wasn’t what u called high tech as the loading platform had to be raised and lowered by pulling ropes on either side. The ferry also didn’t seem to line up too well with the road. Or maybe the loading ramp wasn’t set up to exactly match where the vehicles drove down to the water. It seemed that the road leading to the ferry was just dirt / mud as no one thought of maybe putting gravel so vehicles wouldn’t get stuck. But it seemed each vehicle took a run to the ferry and with a little human intervention made it on the ferry. The unloading seemed easier cuz it was we had traction. The ferry of course could only ferry 2 vehicles (1 in our case) at a time. So we had to put a bunch of rocks and tree branches so we wouldn’t get stuck. But after 3 hrs we managed to get across the 50 yard river. Then we were almost to Pavonis except we encountered a missing culvert in the road and had to make a small detour. But we made it to Pavonis around noon Christmas Eve.
Pavonis is a sleepy little village with no travellers but a few transplanted American and Canadian surfer types. Uusally these high spending types are not my favorite types but they seemed nice. But that’s not my style. So then we had to find the friends of the band members. Well we found that they rented this awesome house on the top of a hill with a swimming pool overlooking the ocean. I was told it cost $9000 a month to rent between 2 couples. What a waste of money as it cost $300/night! Definitely not my style!
The people were nice but again not my type. I guess the 4 band members and these people are all tree planters in BC. They told me they work for about 6 months a year and surf or travel for the other 6. Now that seems like the perfect job but I guess it’s hard work! Again not my style.
So anyway we got a bunch of rum, coke, food and proceeded to have Christmas Eve in these fancy digs.
It was fun but I got stung by a scorpion when I stepped on it. But no big deal as it wasn’t as dangerous as the Mexican scorpions or so I’m told. We then climbed on the roof of the motorhome to sleep.
On Christmas Day we headed to the beach and Jonny got 5 big fish and proceeded to bbq them. We got some more rum and hung around the beach all day. Then built a big bonfire and the guys started to play their drums and sing songs. It was an awesome way to spend Christmas day just chillin and swimming in the ocean. I just did my own thing most of the day and just reflected and thought about things and it was so cool!
Then the next couple nights we did the same thing as we hung by the beach, swam and chilled. I slept in a hammock one night in this Israelie woman & Costa Rican guy’s resturant. Mainly cuz I couldn’t make it back to the motorhome.
But all in all it was a totally different Christmas spending time with the 4 musicans and 2 hippie street people. I don’t know how I fit in with them cuz I have 0 talent but hey we all got along.
Then a couple days after Christmas the motorhome was going up north again to head to San Jose. I didn’t really want to head north especially to San Jose so we parted company. So I hopped 2 buses and a taxi to get to the Panama border about 1 hr away. I was hassled at the border cuz in Panama they want us to have a bus or plane ticket out of the country. So of course they have everyone go and buy a $11 bus ticket out. Just a money grab as no one uses them. Hell I ended up with 2 of them cuz I entered Panama twice.
Cuz I took a bus across Panama from the Pacific coast to the Carribean coast. Then I re-entered Costa Rica again to head for Puerto Viejo a beach village where I was meeting some friends for New Years. It was much less time to travel thru Panama this way then to go thru Costa Rica cuz there was no highway across Costa Rica near the Panama border.
So I made it to Puerto Viejo Costa Rica which I didn’t really want to go to but told my friends I’d meet them there. When I was coming to Central America one the first place I wanted to see was Costa Rica. But in reality it was probably the country I disliked the most. There were too many rich American and Canadian people there again not my type of people. So it was really expensive but tried to spend as little time there as possible so maybe missed seeing a lot but who cares!
Yeah I have pics but it takes a long time to post them on this blog but will post some but have put some on my Facebook if you want to check there.
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