The Travel Bug took me to Montezuma

After coming straight to Mal Pais without traveling anywhere else first, the travel bug finally caught up to me. On Wednesday, I got off work early and headed to Montezuma with Dave and Brady. Montezuma is a really small, hippie, artsy town (there is an organic coffee shop! and a book store!!!! Guess which one I went for first!?) Montezuma is on the tip of the Nicoya Peninsula and actually only about 15 miles by beach from here. However, the roads here are so bad that it takes much longer than seems rational to get there. We first took a bus east to Cóbano, a slightly larger town than ours. Well, actually, I shouldn´t say larger. Everything you need to find, you can get in Cóbano, so that is why I assume it is larger. However, I don´t think the town is actually that much larger, just more centrally located and more accessible, so that´s why every thing you need is there. Davey and I have this joke that you can get anything in Cóbano because everytime you ask someone where to find It, It´s in Cóbano. "I´m having trouble finding cheap clothing, do you know where I can get some?" "Cóbano," "Okay, how about the vet, for this homeless dog I seem to have adopted?" "Cóbano," "Hmm... okay. I really want to buy a jetpack, so when I go back to the states, I don´t have to take the bus all the way to San Jóse. Cóbano, right, that´s what I figured." I´m off on a tangent.

So we took the bus through Cóbano and then south to Montezuma. The reason people really go to Montezuma is because of the Montezuma watefalls. If you hike up about 30-45 minutes of steep trail, you´ll get to the top of a gorgeous watefall in the middle of the jungle. The first waterfall is a jump (I did it!) of about 15 feet. The second (no way), of about maybe... 40 feet, and the third, I don´t think anyone jumps from there, is about 70 feet, I would guess. So we hiked around on Thursday, then ended up at a little organic coffee shop, where we met a girl from Portland, and stumbled upon Montezuma´s film festival.

The town is very different than Mal Pais. When I told my boss that´s where I was going, he called me a "god damn hippie," with a smile on his face. The town is a little more condensed, and actually has more than one street! It´s also a little quieter, but there are still enough people wandering around that it doesn´t feel deserted. We stayed in a little hostel on the beach, and after making two trips to the book store, I spent all of Friday afternoon laying in a hammock on the beach, reading my new books. It was so nice, and of course now I´m back at work! Now I have a really strong yearning to do more traveling throughout the country, though. I´m saving up to go to the other side, the Caribbean side, for a week or so. I´ve heard it´s really pretty and actually has a lot of culture to it because of the Jamaican roots that have mixed in with the Spanish Costa Rican routes. Last night someone described to me perfectly how they would define the history and the culture on the west coast of Costa Rica, "Christopher Columbus´ships came, dropped people off in Costa Rica, some of them travelled here, and they´ve been surviving every since."

That´s all for now. Look for me trying to swim to Cuba from the Caribbean side!