Montezuma's Revenge

Hello faithful readers!
Please excuse my absence over the past week and a half, I normally write these entries on monday afternoons since I don't have class then. Pero last week I got back real late from Montezuma and was completely bagged on monday, and this week on monday I was on a bus back from the carribean side. More on the carribean later.
Anywho, I suppose I oughta elaborate a bit on Montezuma. It had been the end of 4 weeks in Costa Rica, without even a slight glimpse of a beach. So a bunch of us decided that we should head out to one, and picked Montezuma as it is reputedly one of the nicest beaches in Costa Rica. It is located on the southern tip of the Nicoya Peninsula, for those who have an interest in the coastlines here.
Well it sure lives up to it's reputation! It's a bit of a hike to get out there, 3 hours on a bus followed by an hour on a ferry and another hour to close it off. But it was well worth it. We rolled into town at 9:30 or so Friday night, checked into our hotel, and wandered down to get some pizza. We went in a group of 13 of us, so whenever we went into a restaurant or anything we half-took over the place. Seems to be a recurring theme down here...
Well the next morning we headed to the beach. We had planned on sleeping in, but since our internal clocks all seem to be permanently programmed to get up early now, we were up and on the beach by 8:30 or so. Ridiculous, no? The beach was incredible tho, we wandered down a ways in order to get past some of the rocks and such (plenty of space to get around them, they by no means took over the beach). We found a nice spot that was kinda secluded, set up the towels and all, and spent most of the day laying on the beach and playin in the waves. It felt great, especially when one of us said "can you believe it's January?"
That afternoon, we walked up the highway a little ways and into the hills about 15 minutes to where we'd been told there was a waterfall (or catarata, en espanol). It was a beautiful spot, we did a little cliff jumping but nothing really higher than 15 feet or so. Still looking for a place where we can jump from higher (Mom, pretend you didn't read that).
In the evening, we spent some time collecting firewood while it was still light out and then had a bonfire on the beach. This was probably my favorite part of the Montezuma trip, because we just layed there staring at the stars (which are incredible here), drinkin, chattin, singing, and basically just chillin. No agenda, no worries in the world. It was a great feeling, I would recommend it to anyone who happens to be reading this :)
Sunday was a bit of a wreck. Not so bad, since I don't mind adventures and adapting... but it could've gone smoother, to be sure. So we were told by a friend that the last direct bus to San Jose leaves at 2:30. We decided to be smart and double-check, which ended up hurtin us in the end. We talked to 2 different people who showed us schedules and assured us that the direct bus leaves Montezuma at 4, not 2:30. So we went down to the bus stop at 3ish. And there, staring us in the face, was a revised schedule showing the 2:30 bus. So we called the info line and asked around, and it turned out there was one last bus leaving for the ferry at 4. So we waited, and hopped on when it came.
You know those stories about crowded buses full of people shoulder to shoulder, in the brutal heat, no a/c, with live chickens and such everywhere? This isn't one of those stories. There weren't any chickens.
The rest of it is true, I sweated from places that I didn't even know you could sweat from. We sat there for close to 20 minutes, arm to arm, in a bus that kept getting hotter and hotter, and no idea when it was going to leave. When it finally pulled out, people were cheering and whistling (those who hadn't passed out from the heat, that is).
We got on the 7pm ferry, which was all well and good, until we started asking around and realized that the last bus leaves downtown Puntarenas (the other ferry terminal) at 9. That's about what time the ferry was scheduled to arrive on the west side of town. Why the bus wouldn't wait for ferry traffic is not a question that I was destined to know the answer to. Oh well.
So we got off at 9, with very limited options. We all had class the next morning at 8, so one option was to try to find a hostel for the 13 of us and stay the night, and get on the first bus in the morning (the good 'ol 4am transit, don't ya know). Nobody was too thrilled about option number 1. Option number 2, the one we ended up choosing, was to get 3 cabs to drive the 13 of us the 2 hours back to town. Well after a little (very little) haggling, we got 3 cabs to agree to drive us back for 100 bucks per cab. Overall, this wasn't such a bad deal. 25 bucks per person for a 2 hour cab ain't bad, especially when it gets you home in time to get a decent night's sleep before class the next day. Just sucks since had we got on the direct bus at 2:30, it would've cost around 8 bucks per person. So that was a done deal, I sat up front in my cab and practiced up my spanish a bit, which was good. It was actually kinda funny, cuz I was speaking in broken spanish and he was talking in broken english. It appeared we both were in need of some practice!

Sorry to have to post like this, but I'm getting to have a bit of a busy schedule in this place now and it's getting harder to find the time to write for hours. I'll try to put up my trip to Puerto Viejo soon. But now, I gotta run. There are a couple futbol games on, and I'm meeting some people to watch them. True to my form, I'm runnin a little late. Nice to know some things don't change, eh?

Thanks for reading!