My final day with Adam and Keke - spent in Puerto Viejo - was full of excitement, danger, beauty, laughter, retrospection, flavor, relaxation, activity, pain, exhaustion, contentment, hurry, serenity, wonder, curiosity, exhiliration, disappointment, appreciation, badinage (humor), serendipity, and unpredictability.
(Patience, please, while I practice my new GRE vocabulary in my blogs.)
Waking up in the hostel's second-most luxurious suite (thanks, Adam and Keke!) does have its benefits. We may have woken up to rain, discouraging us from watching the sunrise, but walking out onto our own personal deck (away from the 564 mirrors in our ecclectic room) to lie in a hammock under the steady sound of rain was just as gratifying. I didn't even care about the sand fleas were biting up my feet and ankles. As A & K woke up, I was nervous they'd decide to favor indolence, relaxing at the hostel (Rockin' J's) over biking around; but these super-adaptive travel compañeros know how to live up their trip regardless of weather.
So we got in our suits, put our valuables in plastic bags, and were on our way to Bread & Chocolate (pictured right) in the steady drizzle. We enjoyed another two-hour meal with ridiculously-satisfied taste buds. (I have to take a moment to reflect on the homemade bread in the homemade French toast topped with homemade cream and homemade strawberry jam; sharing a plate of homemade cinnamon pancakes in the shape of a sun, and a side of fresh fruit underneath homemade granola. Did I mention their French press for their fresh cafe con leche?) As we tried to take our minds off the gluttony that had just taken place, we made a game out of guessing the homeland of our hot waiter. Our guesses? Belgium, Germany, France, Croatia, Italy, and Spain. The answer? Maryland.
Yeah. Way off.
About ten pounds heavier and feeling more content than ever, we got back on our wet bikes to be the only ones fully embracing the Caribbean warm rain. I got my bus ticket, we replaced Adam's pedal-resistent bike, and we were on our way to a remote beach, Punta Uva - about 10km south. Along the way we delt with a ruthless idiota behind the wheel who almost ran Adam over. Then there was my implacable chain on my bike. Between the frustration of that stupid thing and my anger with the caballo driver, I felt the intrepid urge to show him how I felt with a simple, assumably universal, hand motion. (He either didn't understand it or he was ebullient being a prick, because every time he passed us that day on the bumpy, detritus-filled road, he smiled and honked.) But my growing frustration was palliated when one of the chain malfunctions happened in front of a "Chocolart" sign.
"Se vende chocolate." (We sell chocolate.)
It's obvious what happened next. Five minutes later we had ridden down a narrow dirt road through the jungle and were parking our bikes around a palm tree. The fire ants that attacked my already-sand-flea-bitten feet couldn't enervate me - I was entering a chocolate farm in the middle of the rainforest where homemade chocolate was made weekly. Once parked and fighting away the ants, we approached my paradise.
Okay, okay, the mud path was NOT fudge, the thatched roof was NOT liquorice, the hut was NOT lined in shnosberry wallpaper, there were NO Umpa-Lumpas, the tours were of a farm and NOT an enigmatic factory, and the man making the chocolate was NOT Willy Wonka. In fact, he only had a few old bowls of dried chocolate and only sold about nine sticks of the chocolate he had left. On the bright side, we learned how it was made (not by magic chickens and Umpa-Lumpas), how many cacao seeds were in cacao fruit (80), and I ingested the freshest, best chocolate I ever had as we looked at a secluded view over the tropical rainforest listening to the sonorous noises of frogs and birds. Needless to say, he had to make more chocolate after Adam's, Keke's and my sweet teeth attacked his little chocolate bungalow.
Ten minutes later we parked our bikes on the empty, picturesque beaches of Punta Uva where we floated between waves discussing our Bucket List. (Mine, of course, consistently includes winning a radio contest, being fluent in Spanish - maybe Chinese - getting good at drumming and piano playing, receiving my SCUBA certification, biking across America, having a family, going to Switzerland, getting my masters degree, doing the splitz, doing the Camino de Santiago pilgrimmage in northern Spain, going on an African safari, suring at least 5 meters down a wave, volunteering in a poor country, and going to the Olympics. That last one would've been accomplished if China hadn't been so supercilious and illogical. Thanks, China.) Aside from the specs of people we saw on a distant cliff in front of an unbelievable scene of fog and mountains, we were the only ones out there, reflecting on life and enjoying the water as the sun made its way through the parting clouds.
But my time was in the hands of my 4pm bus to San Jose, and we had to get going. I didn't seem too concerned when I recommended we stop at the adorable Miss Milly's Deli nestled perfectly among the luscious, overgrown tropical plants to enjoy sandwiches, hummus, and wine on the quaint little porch. And my urgency was curtailed even more when we stopped to hear the loudest, most obscure, and most interesting animal sounds coming from high in the canopy.
How do I explain this sound in a blog...?
Think of a growl, a ribbet, an irascible bark, then combine them to increase the decibel level about five times. That's the sound of a howler monkey (pictured right) - scary if you don't know what it is, and awesome if you do.
But I had a bus to catch and a bike chain that broke every five minutes. (Thanks Adam, Mr. Fix-It.) When I got back to the hostel and changed out of my sticky suit and sandy clothes, I had a receptionist and a taxi driver helping me chase a bus for which I was already 10 minutes late. Thank God for Tico time. I arrived literally 3 seconds before my bus to San Jose did. "¡Qué suerte tienes!" (How lucky you are!) exclaimed Pedro, my new taxi driver amigo.
My thoughts exactly.
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