Kopeks and Rubles

Buuuuenas!
It's that time again. Seems to me that less and less time is passing between these entries... time is really starting to move quickly now that I have less than a month left here. Que lastima. But I am, however, still learning every day and partaking in great adventures! This past week I became accustomed with another aspect of the culture down here - ladrones.
I know that people love stories of suspense and intrigue, but I'm not really gonna dwell too much on what happened since I don't want to robbery to be what I remember about this weekend. But it does indeed deserve a spot here, no?
So anyhow, I wasn't sure what to do for the weekend, and on Thursday my friend Trevor asked if I wanted to climb up and active volcano, and maybe camp on it too. It's hard to turn down an offer like that, I'll tell ya! So I was in, and on Friday we packed up our stuff and headed up there with a girl named Sadie and her friend Kayra (who ended up going home early cuz she wasn't feeling well). Well on the bus out there, a 5 hour venture, I was sitting there listening to my music and watchin the world go by outside. My backpack was above me on one of those racks, and I had a strap kinda hangin over the edge so I could look up and see whether it was still there or not. After about 3 hours, we were coming up to a gas station/bus stop in the middle of nowhere. I noticed a guy pushing his way towards the back of the bus, and he stopped near me for a bit, but the strap was still there so all was well. The bus started moving again after stopping for a minute, and I got a bad feeling. I looked up, no strap. Crap. So I stood up, bag was gone, and some guy tapped my shoulder and kinda pointed towards the back door of the bus. So I yelled at the driver to stop, and pushed to the front of the bus and jumped off. I saw the guy walking away from a car, and wandering down the highway. I ran up to him and he turned around saying "no tengo nada!" (I don't have anything). So it was pretty obvious he had it, but not anymore. Someone called the cops, and me and Trevor made sure he didn't go anywhere. He tried to flag a cab, but we told the driver that buddy just robbed us, not to take him anywhere. So he drove off.
When the cops got there, we were lucky enough to have a couple witnesses who stuck around to help us out. They told the cops that the guy had got off the bus, and thrown my bag into a car which promptly took off. These guys are slick, you gotta give them that. So buddy got cuffed and taken away, I had to fill out a report stating what happened and what I lost, all that. The nice thing is, normally they don't catch the people who do this stuff since they're pretty well organized. But this guy at least had a couple miserable nights thanks to me, I hope.
Well after that, we made our way up the road to the next town to have a couple beer and figure out what to do the next day. I still had some money on me, since I keep some in my shoe and some in my hat whenever I travel (they did get my wallet, but Fazha helped me cancel my credit card that was in there so they didn't get to use it. Thanks again, dad!). I had kinda figured on just going back to San Jose for the rest of the weekend... but then I just sorta realized that even though they took all my stuff, I still had clothes and shoes and there was a volcano close by just waiting to be climbed! Trevor and Sadie were really helpful throughout the rest of the weekend, while we adjusted to me not having any stuff.
Saturday we headed up to the national park, Volcan Rincon de la Vieja. Translated it means "the old lady's nook." Not that we saw an old lady or anything, just random information for ya. It was 8km to the summit, most of that distance through the jungle followed by a steep ascent up the rocky side near the end. We were warned earlier that there can be really thick fog and fast wind, and we were not disappointed. The view was spectacular before we got inside the clouds! But as we ascended the steep side, we could see the clouds billowing towards us, kinda like when the ghost army flies out of the ships in the 3rd Lord of the Rings (which was playing in one of the restaurants we ate at, maybe that's why it reminded me of that). It was pretty surreal! We got caught in the rain for a bit, and had to huddle near a bush under Sadie's poncho (which conveniently unfolds to make a small tarp! Brilliant!). At the top, it was a whole other world.
Visibility up there was somewhere around 10 or 15 feet, so you could see the trail falling away on both sides but you had no bearings of where you were in relation to the rest of the mountain. Every so often, the fog would clear for a few seconds and you'd see a huge valley off to your right, or a volcanic crater off to your left. It was a really weird feeling, knowing all that stuff was there but rarely being able to see it! But it made for some kinda neat pictures. At one point on the trail, there was a sign telling you not to stay for more than 15 minutes there because the fumes can make you sick. Nice, eh?
The wind was insane too, the kinda wind that puts Lethbridge to shame! At times, you could lean into it and have it support you. Most of the time, it just pushed you around and tried to knock you off your feet. It succeeded a couple times with Sadie, but she was awesome up there and just kept pushing through. It was tough to follow the trail at times through the fog, but along the path they had little piles of stones to guide you. Entonces, I had found inukshuks in Costa Rica! How cool is that? They worked just like the ones in the North, and appeared through the murk to show you the way home. I thought it was pretty cool.
We made it out of the fog around 4:30, and stopped to grab a snack of fresh kiwis and ramen noodles. Then we realized we had 6km to walk down, and the sun was on it's way to the ocean. So off we went, and damn if we didn't cover that distance quick! Well, 5km of it anyways. The last kilometer or so saw us walking slowly through the jungle by the light of a cell phone (I'd brought a headlamp, but it was in my backpack... haha damn eh!).
Well we walked out of the trees at around 7:30 or so, in the pitch black, and started down the road since we weren't allowed to camp in the park. After walking for about an hour, we found a lodge that let us sleep on their grounds for 5 bucks a night. So we sat in the yard and made some peanut butter sandwiches, then hit the bar for some victory brews. They were the coldest, tastiest beers I have had since I got here, and as we sit there recapping the day, I realized that I hadn't thought about my bag since we started hiking. Funny how it just really doesn't matter about your things when you're having an experience like that.
Sunday was a nice ride back, I still had my iPod since I was listening to it when my back got jacked which was a huge relief. All said and done, it was a fantastic weekend with a small glitch at the start.

Thanks for reading!

*This next week is Semana Santa (holy week) so I am going to Panama for a few days, and after that, I'm going to try to climb the tallest mountain in Costa Rica. So it might be a little while before the next entry... but I'll do my best to get it done as soon as possible!