Costa Rica Christmas

Uvidime
Why do we travel? Its not just because it's vacation and there are beaches to see and people to meet. Not even the monkey you see in a tree on the side of the road. It's the unexpected and this weeked has topped them all.

I spent the last week in Nicaragua studying Spanish. It's a great way to learn and it gives you a purpose to be there and a way to make friends, local and tourist alike. But as my visa is expiring on the 27, I knew i would have to hop down to Costa Rica for 48 hours. I was loving Nicaragua and really didn't even want to go. I should have listened to that gut feeling and just taken the fine in Honduras when I tried to return, in all honesty. I didn't, so now I have a story to tell.

Did you happen to know that there is a large number of Nica's (Nicaraguans) living and working in Costa Rica. It makes sence, Costa Rice is rich (comparetevely). Well, they all go back north for Christmas. To be exact, they all go back home on Saturday, exactly when I also tried to return, having come down Friday. I had waited 2 hours for a bus, gave up and got a driver who they said could take me through real quick. He knew all the secrets. He was a fantastic guy and he did know the secret, when you get near the border, TURN AROUND! That's what he did, only he left me there.

For several kilometers before the border you saw people walking with boxes on their heads, a random washing machine being dragged, anything. Then the line started. It took 15 minutes to walk to the front of it. I asked towards the front and they had been waiting for 6 hours and probably still had 2 to go. I asked people comming south to find there was another 5 hour wait on the Nicaraguan side. The border closed at midnight and all of these people were just going to sleep in line and start again in the morning.

Must be time for me to go back into Costa Rica.

I begged a ride off of a bus that was driving back to San Jose to get another group of people. He said the border would be this bad until Tuesday. tuesday it would only take me an hour. Tuesday. He dropped me at an intersection next to the Burger King and told me where to get a bus to the beach. My Spanish is getting pretty good. I go to the bus stop and ask two gringo's trying to make a phone call if they knew when a bus came for Playa de Coco. Nope, but they were driving there and would take me. My luck is getting better. They are a young couple from Pheonix whose parents have just bought a condo down here and the whole family was comming for Christmass. As we get into town they see their parents driving by so we turn to follow them and now I'm in this small property surrounded by jungle with beautiful new homes looking out on the hills and down to the pool. A Canadian couple from Niagra Falls had bought the land and are now selling off the houses and helping to organize everything for the residents from appliences to coctails. Only 90,000 and 6 left if you want to buy one.

They invite me to stay. So there here I am, Playa de Coco Costa Rica for Christmas. Surrounded by friends. That's why we travel.

PANIC!!!

Ok, I admit it. I panicked. I know on the exterior I come off as calm and relaxed. Things happen. Oh well. ha ha ha. But inside I panicked.

No, I wasn't held up at gunpoint like one of our teachers fiancé. Nothing bad actually happened. I just thought my computer was dead. Like my camera. I went to turn it on, not two hours after have using it last, opened the lid, nothing. Tried the on button. nada. Plug, cord, battery check. Nothing. Was that it? The end? after only 14 months?

My bosses Toshiba died after 13 months. One month after the warranty. Hmmmmm, Toshiba?

Pictures? Music? Homework, school work, resumes? All gone??? No DVD for yoga, no internet to listen to the radio back in the states or e-mail when ever I damn well felt like it. No pictures from Egypt, Sarajevo, Bulgaria? No Soduko or morning newspaper?

I panicked.

I felt, for the first time, totally cut off from the world. I felt that maybe I really did live two thousand miles from my nearest friend, in the middle of nowhere in a third world country. Only now I had no place to put my pictures or write my thoughts.

How quickly we depend on technology.

But after trying ten odd times over twenty hours, the little green light of the on button glowed, the fan started spinning, the hard drive starting thinking.

And my panic ended. Thankfully, I got out of it this time. Now I'm going to spend the rest of the night backing up the things that are important, all those things I thought "how sad!" when I realized they were gone, and clean up the other parts.

End of panic.

I got the truck back from the shop and it's running like a dream. She shifts great, runs smooth, and it's an all around good time to drive her around.

So, the first trip was today after school where my roomate Ted and I went to the Morocelli Cigar Factory so we could stock up for the Christmas party (that is really just a poker party. I like this kind of Christmas). It's about a 45 minute drive east up a side road. You go over a range of hills then up to the next valley. When you pass the skinny cows, then three asses in the road, just after the pavement ends, you know you're there. The factory is the biggest building in town and the front has about 40 bicycles parked. After asking permission, you go in to see stacks of dried tobacco and a dozen people loading it carefully into wooden crates. Eyes burn from the amounts. Upstairs are rows of women at tables handrollong the cigars. There isn't a machine in site. After asking to purchace some, we are taken down to the bodegas filled with thousands of cigars, all different colors and sizes. They lite up cigars and talk about Churchills and candalabas. These are all going to the states for $10 or $12 each. Here you buy direct for less than a dollar.

It's 4:30 closing time. The employees head out to their bikes. All up and down the streets are women riding home with brooms on their bikes. A man on a horse gallops by. Unlike a lot of Honduras, the employees of the factory have the entire weekend off. They have a job, too.

And now I have a car, to get to see.