Life in Ticoland

April 9, 2011
For the past few days we have been cooking and surfing and beach combing! Recipe for very relaxing good time: Wake up, make breakfast, read, go to the beach, come home, make lunch, read, draw, go to grocery store and buy more food, cook supper, sleep and repeat! The surfing here is so difficult. The rip currents are strong and the waves are massive. I like to go during low tide where you can wade in about waist deep and catch the baby waves and ride them right in to the beach. Chad is still determined to get out to the big waves and is getting closer every day.
Yesterday our friend Dave from Quebec showed up in Santa Teresa. So we put good use to the spare bedroom and now we have a house guest. He has to leave for home on monday morning so we have had a busy weekend. Tomorrow he needs to buy bus tickets, buy souveniers for his mom, get a tattoo and go to the beach. So ya very busy.
Today we rented quads and went to Montezuma. There are some waterfalls close to town that we wanted to check out. Quads are pretty pricey to rent for a day but we figured what the hell. We left town around 1:00pm. It was 17 km to the waterfalls and we ate a lot of dust on the way there. Chad found the snorkel mask to be quite useful for keeping the dirt out of his eyes while he drove us down the road like a maniac! I held on for dear life and pleaded for him to slow down but he has been deprived of four wheeled machines for months now and there was no way he was missing out on any fun. Once we got to Montezuma we headed straight for the waterfall entrance. It was a short hike to the first set of falls. There were a few places to jump into the water. Had a quick swim and then kept treking up the hill until we got to the second and third sets of falls. These were where we wanted to be! The second set of falls was a 40 foot plunge into the pool below and the third set had a rope swing and some places just to sit and hang out. There were fish in the pools and I snorkeled around looking at them but for some reason fresh water fish in murky water scare the crap out of me! There were these little purple and orange crabs everywhere! They were all over the road and in the woods and all around the falls. We made one mad and it shook its purple pincers at us. It took me a while to work up the nerve to jump the 40ft falls but after I climbed down to take video of the boys doing the jump I felt like a big weeny so up I went to give it a go. I only hesitated for about 5 seconds because any longer I would have realized how much it would hurt to hit the water from that height. When I hit the water my bum was given quite the wedgie but other than that I excaped with only a bright red welt from where I slapped the water. Chad took some video and you can here me squeal like a wee little girl as I usually do.
The next day Dave was anxious to get himself a tattoo. He got one done in Thailand on his last trip so he figured why not make a habit out of it! So we spent the day looking up designs for a forearm band. He found a maori sun that he liked and some bands of triangles and square. We had it drawn up for the tattoo artist, a guy named Ryan from Florida, and we went to the shop at 8pm. Dave's appointment was for 8 but there were still two more people ahead of him. The girl on the table was almost butt naked and was getting a radio with wings on her rib cage. It turned out great and all of the boys were very impressed....with her nakedness I think and not really the tattoo. The next girl wanted a spade sign on her finger. She took soooo long trying too decide where on her finger and how big and what colour that the artist was getting a little annoyed. She finally figured it out and the tattoo took about 2 minutes. He charged her $20 and sent her on her way. Now it was Dave's turn. The apprentice made the stencils and Ryan placed them on his forearm almost perfectly....even after a few beers! He had to free hand some of the straight lines to line up properly on the skin but it looked pretty good. The tattoo took about 2 1/2 hours until about 1am. We went through about 18 beers and the tattoo artist had his fair share....this made Dave slightly nervous. But when he was done the lines were crisp and clean and he had himself a nice tattoo! We went out for drinks after and he bought us a drink and invited us to go fishing.
I road my bike home and the boys had to walk, along the way the most annoying of all backpacker annoyances occured! A broken flip-flop!! Every backpacker goes through at least two pairs of flip-flops on a 3 to 6 month tour. Dave was not impressed as these Sanook flops were his favourite and "de bess der is in all de wurl!!" Being a gravel road all the way home we attempted to triple on the bike. This ended with us all in the ditch and a very bent basket on my bike. Along with gravel we also had to dodge the numerous crabs that come out of the woods when it rains. They are bright purple and orange and don't really have a clue where they are walking and frequently run right under the tires of a car or bike. Being barefoot dave had to dodge the live crabs and the dead ones. Safely home and now with ravenous hunger we cooked up some fried rice and the boys fell into deep conversation about beef jerkey for about an hour. This is where I took my leave and went to bed.
April 14, 2011
We have been here in Santa Teresa for 10 days and it is going by so fast. We still have so much we want to do but we keep getting stuck in the same pattern of eating and sleeping and surfing. Chad is getting better and I've spied him catching some pretty wicked waves. I however am not really trying very hard and its sad to say that I have been working harder on my tan than my surf skills.
I finally booked our plane tickets home last night. The price just seemed to be going up every day so I had to commit. We leave from Bogota on May 16th. 20 hours later we will be home. The cheapest way is always the longest way. But I truely don't mind air travel. I love waiting for the plane and I love airports! The only problem is that we only have 20 days to get from Santa Teresa to Bogota. In those 20 days we have to see Manuel Antonio National Park, take a bus from San Jose to Panama City and see the canal, take a bus to San Blas and get on a sailboat and sail to Cartagena and then catch the 20 hour bus ride to Bogota.