23-02-16

Had shower-  'hallelujah!' - and packed up and went to other hotel for breakfast. 

Breakfast of eggs rice and beans all together.

Brook loves my t-shirt and takes a picture to send her mum. 

Brook is a beautiful person inside and out and I find myself wondering what I don't know. Tour guides can often have to portray a certain face. Is she doing this? A tour guide has to be nice to everyone don't they? It's a funny dynamic where I don't know if someone would like to spend time with me or not so I don't know whether to try. Us English do not like to impose ourselves on others. 

After breakfast we all load onto the bus again as we are off to swim in some rivers today and visit another Eco town. I find visiting these Eco communities on a huge bus a little odd. An Eco community in its own right is one thing but does it make money from our visit? Is this a new type of feel-good visitor site? 

Needing a wee and to change 

Brook asking the bus driver to give me some privacy. 

Beautiful spot

Found 5c treasure

Glad for John, Tara, Kat,  Mary and Chantelle today :) 

We got dressed again (ish) a sarong for me and we were told we were going for lunch so we walked up and along a route to the Eco blah blah where we met Tarzan and had some strange soup and drink and then a little buffet. It is impressive that people can grow and make all their own stuff for sure but I'm not sure things are to my taste really here. The fruit is excellent though :) 

Tarzan leads us to a second river point where a lot of people get naked. I'm not keen on this point as it's very easy to fall and hurt yourself and Bryce injures himself :( 

Bryce serenades us with his instument. I like Bryce... But about my impressions of Bryce 

We run behind so Tarzan takes us on a shortcut which turns out to be a bit of a scary nightmare of a route and Tara has half a toenail ripped off. Bleeding and sore she tries to clean the wound with water and winces. I carry antiseptic cream with me wherever I go :) 

On bus to Dominical beach. I'm sitting with John which is ace because he is hilarious. First stop is at Brooks mums house where someone blocks up the toilet :( 

Brooks mum is lovely and welcomingher fish looked a bit dead.

We head into Jaco and it's great; shops and cafes all around and delicious fruit smoothies and ice creams are available

We purchase some supplies, get money and head to the bus again. I would like to have spent more time in Jaco and skipped river number two. 

A bit about peer pressure. 

Mary adds some rum to my fruit smoothie and we happily chat and drink until our bus arrives at our dinner location! Arriving at dinner I am pretty drunk and very very cheerful. :) I have pre-ordered fish tacos and the filling overflows the corn tacos. I end up eating the fish out of the tacos mostly and chat away to people happily. I chat to crissie and Jen in the ladies toilets - the drunken cliche ;) - and tell them what I think is wonderful about them. 

Then we head off to hotel Dominicos which is really lovely! Our rooms are now all together and we decide to go out to the bar next door. 

Lauren skypes home

Music, drink from Richie, dancing, straw disappeared, music disappeared, good time Charlie, off to next place...

Next place, surf boards swings, table football... I wanted to play but never got an opportunity disappointingly. 

Crissie removes straw from my hair. 

Leave and head to the beach. I don't have a swimsuit on so I tuck my skirt into my pants and I do cartwheels in the lapping waves. It is magical and awesome and he stars are bright and I might have got bitten a bit. 

Tara, Mary were in the sea :) John was on the shore. 

Then we went back home and Lauren is still Skyping but stops soon after. We go to sleep :) 

Behind the blog

Blogging is fun, there is no doubt about it. It's great to take pictures and note down all the great and funny things that happen during the day. It does however get challenging when things get really busy. 

The end of my New Zealand trip and my trip to Costa Rica was go-go-go with barely any bathroom breaks let along blog time. It is during these times that a person needs to remember the point of the trip and the blog. The blog is to help remember and communicate thoughts and feelings about the trip, the trip isn't to support a blog! ;) So if anything has to give a little it's the blog... 

... Still saying that I have found that taking a bunch of pictures and a few notes before a fall asleep can make it tonnes easier to play catch up ;) and it is still my hope that I complete my blog so that I can remember and share this exciting trip around the globe, which I hope is the only the beginning of my brave travel adventures :) 

Hopefully there will be more posts coming out today!

Mwah! Big love to all my wonderful friends and to any other readers too! :)

Thursday - Hiking with geckos and sleeping with lizards

Today

22-02-16 Monday - Bouncing boats and zip-lining through the Costa Rican rainforest canopy.

Up early at 5:40am, showered with crickets, breakfast of eggs and fruit, collected washing, packed luggage back up and took it down to the boat, burned back with rucksack... Ouch!... Get onto boat. Put lotion on and got bounced back into the footwell of the boat. Lifted up by burnt back. Ouch! 

"What makes you alive?" Conversation on the boat with Mark. Off the boat and load luggage onto the bus. Start off towards ziplining-ing. We arrive at the hotel from the first few nights and pick up the luggage from the other packed downs. This gives me time to nip to be shop and buy some water and chocolate. Omg real chocolate!!!! 

We set off again and fairly soon we are at the town where we sign in at the tour office and load onto a shuttle bus where we meet Roberto a smooth skinned Costa Rican charmer. He learns our names and then practices them. While we all chat he comments "English voices so sexy!" I obviously love this ;) He drives us up to near the top of the hill where we then swap to the back of a jeep-truck and get shuttle up to the top of the zip lines. Roberto and some others then donned in their yellow high via jackets kit us out with harnesses and give us instructions as to what we need to know. 

1. Don't touch anything!

2. Do everything we tell you! 

We did...well at least I did ;) 

We head to the first zip line and Jojo is the first up apart from the guides themselves. After watching the first couple of people I am not as nervous anymore but I am still a bit nervous and I chat with Jen about it briefly. "It's all very safe and you have multiple things holding you on so you'll be fine and I think you'll love it!". I give her a hug.

Jen is a super interesting character. She has the presence of Oprah and the sweetness of Ellen. Whenever she walks into a room with "Hey guys!" she carries such loving warmth that without knowing anything else she is still impressive. Curly brown hair and a tactile loving gregarious nature Jen exudes a simultaneous calm confidence. She makes you feel instantly relaxed and included. 

I get up to the edge of the platform. 

I look over the edge as I'm told "Don't break much on the first two lines as you'll want to maintain your speed."... Gulp!! The zip line is a carbon fibre rope. To get hooked on you are first hooked onto the guide, who is attached to the platform. You the place both hands on the rope line and do a small jump pull up as the guide attaches your harness to a pulley ok the line. A second line to your harness is then also connected and you position your gloved hands. For the right handed among us: Left hand towards the top of the vertical ropes connecting you to the pulley and your right hand up and back onto the zip wire.

The gloves they give you are designed to make your life very easy and protected. The hand that rests on the zip wire behind you keeps you orientated and also has a thick leather pad which allows you to break as you approach your destination. This is done by pulling down on the zip line. 

Once you are hooked onto the zip wire my legs were off the ground and, with my hands in place, I was released! 

Whoosh! I fly along the cable and over the forrest canopy. The cable hums at an increasingly higher pitch as I increase in speed. My nerves have disappeared and I see that this is going to be incredible fun. Even the harness rubbing on my poor burnt back doesn't detract from the beauty of the moment. I get close to the bottom of this line and I pull down to break. I can feel the leather warming from the friction. I slow to a graceful stop to the cheers and warm welcome of the people that have gone before me! 

"Hey Peta! How was it?" They ask and I reply "Awesome!" and they reciprocate with a response of "Awesome!" 

What follows is 10+ different zip lines that eventually bring us back to the beginning! It's truely special and I feel very greatful to experience it. 

Nearing the last of the zip lines there is a different section which has a rope swing. Each person is connected and has to simply swing across the deep valley section. This bit turns my stomach. It's one thing sitting suspended from a wire and then sliding along it, it's another thing to voluentarily step of a platform into thin air. "Move forward" my guide says as I stand near the edge. "Erm..." I say involuntarily as I take another step. I am now right on the edge. I look down. It's a long way down. The thing is... This is sort of why I am here. To face my fears, my demons, to break and recreate myself. To shed my past and return anew or at least a big leap along my healing path :) It's time to be brave again, I know this because I am feeling afraid and that's always a sign that it's time :) 

I bend my knees and I am released from the platform. The initial acceleration is dramatic. 9.8ms-2 suddenly feels like a lot

Arrive in San Jose at hotel opposite prison ;) tiny room but with shower. Me and Lauren are so excited to have a proper shower and Lauren rubs some magic stuff into my back with lavender oil... I don't seem to be allergic anymore

Sleeeeep! Still unable to get washing done. 

Sunday - farm tour and strange coincidences

Another incomplete post here folks. This one I took notes from a pretty nice day. I do not think I can recreate the day with words this long since... an interesting thing to note and possibly the reason why people write travel diaries :) 

Breakfast

Farm tour after breakfast

Walk, mud, beach, burn, 

Back to place, shower, lunch, go down to hammock with passion fruit juice, 

Henna on arms

At lunch - chocolate cake I couldn't eat and I smelt Tara's cake. 

Came in when it got windy and sat upstairs in the main building chatting with Mary, John and Tara. 

Storm that never came.

again Dinner and chatted with John about being a nurse and life while everyone else watched a video of the trio photos. John and me moved to the sofa area and kept talking... Weird coincidence where his future dog has the same name as a man who broke my heart. Went to bed :) 

Saturday - A problem shared...

Today woke up, got up before breakfast and readied myself and got down to the beach 5mins before breakfast after telling Lauren that breakfast was happening soon. After arriving at the beach it turns out that my clock was fast and it was 7am so I'd woken Lauren an hour early....oops! Still I sat with Chad, Brook and Grant with coffee and chatted while the sun came up over the ocean. 

It was going to be a chill morning so after this we had breakfast which was a delicious mix of beans and eggs with fruit. Then they suggested yoga so in my demon shorts and green shirt off I went to yoga! It was beautiful as I followed along yoga with Grant on a big stage with fricking giant ants. 

Grant was amazing! His yoga was gentle, strong, powerful and insightful. He encouraged and inspired us all to think while we moved which moved us to do better yoga! 

After yoga I was dirty and sweaty and chilled and all I wanted to do was to get clean and to mentally relax. 

I went for a shower and it was glorious. Even the pipe filled with mozzies didn't make the shower less glorious in this hot and humid weather. 

I eyed up a particularly persistent mozzie and stared it down! 

Clean and fresh feeling I headed over for some chill time and ended up chatting to people for a good while.

Lunch was served which, as always, was deliciously healthy but possibly insufficient in calories. After dinner I grabbed a coffee and me and Mary went to the beach and sat on a tree trunk chatting about life, experience and our plans, hopes and fears. Mary is a bright, sweet, kind and funny young woman who is bravely travelling alone like me. Like me she is healing wounds from her past and like me she gets funnier and more confident the more relaxed she feels around you. She is a joy to be around and makes me feel very at ease. 

We chat until it's time to start making chocolate! 

Chocolate - Bean to bar

The chocolate making process is right from the bean and starts with us peeling a whole bunch of cocoa beans. The size of an almost I find a twisting motion removes the outer skin fairly effectively and we break the beans in half to check they are good beans (no green mold). The beans then need to be ground three times. The grinder is not ideally clamped to the kitchen surface and so it rocks about as we try and crank the handle back and forth.

The second run through the grinder is difficult but we manage it eventually with a lot of coaxing and poking. 

And this is where my post ends... I must have become busy and/or distracted. Blogging takes dedication Peta! What are you doing?! 😂

Friday - Hiking through hell (with other good bits ;)

The hike! - this post is just in note form. It’s all I did at the time and 3 years later it is all I will get to keep now but it does bring back memories all the same. Anyway to my brief notes from that day: 

Rain in night Packing up, cold shower and breakfast after bad dream ... Bit of a cry in shower and want to leave... Worries that people don't like me - snooty breakfast people not giving us food - clothes from white water rafting not drying - mud - spider web in face - shoes filled with mud 3.5hrs of up and down and through deep mud with spider webs and mozzies and sun and yuck! Slipping and the smell of monkey shit. 

Bought new sunglasses when I couldn't find mine and more mozzie spray and thought I'd lost wallet. Man serving had lost his arm. 

Good things: magnetic sand and Mary saying "I'm trying to think positive thoughts to take my mind off the fact that I'm so miserable"

Got back from hike and then ate  the most delicious tasting meal ever and went into the sea to wash off and chill.

The we checked into our rooms and had a shower and chilled out playing games, 

Inc rhino hero! :) 

Then I went to bed and talked to Lauren about her life and esp etc.