Phew! I´m settled back here in Managua after a long fun weekend trip to Costa Rica. It was quite the adventure and I´m so glad I had the opportunity to go. I was also very glad to get back to Managua by the time we returned, though.
Friday morning Alvaro got to the house at 5, we left around 5:20 or so, and headed for the border. His dad´s driver took us to the border and stayed with us until we met up with our next mode of transportation. Crossing the border can be a huge hassle, very confusing, and incredibly time consuming. Apparently we had arranged for a helper, though, and this man basically just had us give him our passports, he filled out the paperwork, asked us for our $2 fee to cross, and somehow was able to get us to the front of the line. It took probably 10 or 15 minutes total. If we´d done it ourselves, it would have taken forever because it definitely was NOT clear what the process was and what order to do things in. On the Costa Rican side of the border, there was a microbus (kinda like a 15 passenger van, just a little smaller) waiting for us with a driver, Don Sergio. We went to Puntarenas, waited for a couple hours for the ferry there, crossed the Gulf of Nicoya on the ferry, which took about an hour, and then drove to Montezuma, which was another hour drive. It really wasn´t that far, but the roads were pretty potholed. All in all it took us about 12 hours of traveling to finally get to our destination. Tiring day.
On the ferry we met Brad and Tess, a couple from the East Coast who have been backpacking around Costa Rica for four months. They were going to Montezuma also but were just going to hitchhike, so we gave them a ride there--it was absolutely POURING down rain and it would have been horrible for them to hitchhike! We also met Pete, a retired guy from California who lives in Montezuma working for his friend who owns a hotel there. Pete was an interesting fellow and gave us some good tips about what to do in town, where to eat, and was a wealth of information about the drugs in Montezuma.
Montezuma itself is literally 3 streets that intersect. You could walk (slowly, I might add) from one end of town to the other in probably 4 minutes. It´s totally a hippie town, moreso than anywhere else I´ve ever seen. I felt a bit out of my comfort zone but that´s a good thing, right? :) We had pizza for dinner with Brad and Tess, and got settled into Hotel Montezuma, situated directly above the pizzeria and right next door to Chico´s, the (yes, the one and only) bar in town. Our hotel was really a hostel, cost us $10 per person per night, had no hot water--not really a big deal since we don´t have it here in Managua either--, and was directly next to the ocean, so we got to hear the waves all night. Perfect for drowning out the bar noise :)
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