Saturday, November 23, 2013
5:30 PM
Redo.
sat 23 nov 6pm
So I'm a granny and have this zoomed at 210% because I'm blind as fuck. Here's attempt number 2 at recapping Costa Rica and what's happened up until now in Chile and Argentina. I'm on a 15 hour bus ride from Barilohe to Perito Moreno for an overnight stop and heading on down again with a bus at 10am that goes for 11 hours to get to El Chalten. It hasn't been too bad, me and matty decided not to sleep last night so we could just sleep our way through the bus ride which worked fairly well to be honest. Woke up at 1pm for lunch, then kept sleeping and just woke up again for another pitstop. It's crazy how quickly the scenery/vegetation changed between cities here. It's looking real desert-y at the moment but with a fair bit of fluffy green/brown puffs of grases. Not what I was excpecting after coming out of an evergreen forest area, especially because we're heading further south.
I'm defs at a point where, hmm, I'm not over travelling, but I'm over trying to engage with people too much. Everythings very superficial because we're only ever sharing dorms for one or two nights, everyones doing their own thing and I genuinely don't give a fuck where you're coming from, what you do or where you're going and I'm tired of hearing travel stories. I don't care how good the cheese was or how huge the papayas were and 'amazing' doesn't cut it as a descriptor of a place you went. I spent 11 days with girls who said everythingggg was AH-mazing, it's lost all meaning. I sound jaded as fuck haha but eh, not here to make small talk, I'm here to see the scenery, I'm not even too bothered trying to experience the local culture anymore lol. I just want to sleep, site see and maybe do some adventure sport stuff. Ergh and everyons always so into drinking. Not my scene. Dancings my thing and sadly, after Cuba, I really don't think I'm going to find a place other than maybe Brazil that has dancing so imbedded into it's culture and people.
Me and Matty went to an Irish Pub last night, it was the plan but to be honest we were holed up in our room using the free wifi and we're pretty comfy. We probs would have stayed all night had it not been for that damn Isreale and his slutty conquest for the night. James the aussie was asleep in the bunk above me, I was facing mattys bunk and we were both sitting using our respective gadgets with the lights still on at 2am and in comes Isreale with some blond backpacker. It was awkwarddddd. He must have expected us all to be asleep, and if we had it wouldn't have been a problem. But we weren't. They kind of awkwardly chatted politely and climbed up onto his top bunk and I caved =.= I asked Matt to come dancing haha so we bailed. The music was pretty good but dayum, no one can dance. It's like white people dancing, all swayish and jumpy. I'm dissapointed in your Argentina. Maybe when we get to a bigger city. Costa Rica was similar though, in general, they couldn't really dance like how latinos are meant to dance to salsa/bachata/reggeaton. It made me sad. It was just such a hugeeee contrast with Cuba where the person who couldn't dance was the odd one out. Ehh, not that I'm a great dancer, but I like to see people put in a little more effort haha. I'm soooo keen to learn how to salsa properly, like with the spins. I've been saying that for years but maybe now that I fell in love with Cuba I will actually do it haha.
Lol what was that =S The bus driver stopped the bus and we all got out and took a group photo. I'm really confused, no ones even been talking.
Anyway, Costa Rica. I did that completely as a group tour. I had 2 free days at the start but I just wanted to chill out and ended up getting some wierd sickness, lethergy, dizzyness, headache thing that lasted until my first day of Contiki. Just chilled out ALONE in airconditioning <3 a="" and="" chanel="" disney="" got="" in="" lol.="" lot="" music="" nbsp="" of="" p="" room="" service="" spanish="" videos="" watched="">Everyone in our group blended really well, it was awesome. I kept my distance a little I guess, mostly because I couldn't be arsed drinking every night and I like my alone time but everyone was really caring and looked out for each other which was super nice. People were going nuts with fb and instagram because of all the free wifi but I'm glad I guess, the trips extremelly well documented haha. It was a massive change from my Cuba group with G-Adventure. I think it had a lot to do with the lack of internet, no one was ever on their phones infront of each other and we were just a different blend I guess. I mean, in Cuba we spent all our downtime together as a group too but it wasn't as intense or funny as with Contiki. We had a lot of characters and loud personalities in Costa Rica though which definatly made it what it was. Haha people even cried on the last two days, I think it also had to do with 4 of the girls having won the trip so everything was like a dream and magical for them. It's been good, everyones still uploading pics and tagging, uploading videos and sending group emails and we have our own fb group now haha. I've even kept talking to the bus driver. If it came down to it, I would totes go for a reunion, which they were all talking about, but it seems like a pipe dream getting together 17 people lol.
Costa Rica turned out perfect really, we had amazing weather considering it was the rainy season. We had a lot of luck on our trip, we saw all the animals we were hoping to see within the first two days and we even managed to see the baby sea turtles hatching and going out to the ocean for the first time. IT WASN'T EVEN THEIR SEASON. We were late by like a month but I guess there was a late batch haha. It only started raining on our last 2 days but we were at a beach resort and all constantly wet anyway with all the water activities we were doing and it was refreshing. It did mean that 2 of the optional activities got cancelled (horse riding and sunset catamaran) but we were all actually hoping they would haha we were all buggered and chilling at the beach seemed like a better way to spend our down time than spending more money.
Our first day we were in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica and it's pretty much in the middle of the land mass so no beach. Like I mentioned earlier, fugly city, the cabbie warned me haha, he wasn't wrong but I'm glad I stayed and didn't take his offer of weed and coke on the beach at his friends hotel =P I was too run down =P Contiki took us on a quick city tour and to the nearest attraction of the city, Poas Volcano. My head was going to explode and suprisingly the altitidue actually got to me a little, I didn't even realise we were going up higher. Volcanoes are not my thing, I've been to a few and theyre always a fucking let down. Theyre not as pretty as mountains and they never explode so what's the point. We saw the crater for like 10 seconds before the fumes covered everything up again.
The next two days were spent in Tortugero and we stayed at this awesome island beach resort. There are no roads down there so the only way to get there was by a 2 hour boat ride. It was really humid there, probably the most humid of the whole trip but that's where we got to see all the animals XD Plus it was pretty kool, whenever we wanted to get to the town of tortugero, we had to take a 5min speed boat ride across the river. Lol dangerous idea for the night out =P One of our guys got hella wasted and getting him back on that speedboat was a task haha. Here we did a river boat ride to see all the animals which was really kool, the boat driver had an increadibly keen eye. We went and visited the beach for like 5mins. I got a massageeee. We woke up at 4am to see turtles D= We had buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner there. The food was never amazing in Costa Rica but defs decent. We also had a sunset river cruise ride here which was sweet, lots of boat rides these two days.
The 4th day we spent it nearly all day travelng to get to Sarapiqui Rainforest Lodge. We were told we would be camping in the jungle one night. HARDLY. There was 2 queen sized beds in each tent which also had a fan, telephone, and ensuit bathroom with hot water lol. We got there once it was already dark and we only spent the one night there but it was AWESOME. As soon as everyone was settled in we took a hike through the rainforest in complete darkness, but I was a smart cookie and came prepared with a dorky head torch haha. We walked to a river and went night swimming, so fucking refreshing and the current wasn't strong. We saw snakes along the way which freaked people the fuck out. Lol our group were whinny babys, they screamed and freaked out over every fucking insect and snake. Sure, the snake was poisonous but chill, jesus. Screamings not going to help. We met again for dinner that night and I conked out while they all played some kind of trivia game. Like I said, granny. =P
The next day we made our way to Arenal where we stayed in this really lovely resort style hotel with cabins. I got my own room those nights <3 a="" accomplished="" action="" activitie="" activities="" almost="" also="" american="" an="" and="" anything.="" are="" back="" be="" beautiful.="" between="" blurry="" but="" can="" commercial="" d="Not" day="" did="" didn="" do="" ever="" exactly="" fall="" far="" felt="" figured="" first="" for="" friends="" from="" fun="" girl.="" girl="" girls="" good="" got="" had="" haha.="" haha="" here="" hiding="" hike="" honest="" i="" in="" inside="" is="" it="" jump="" jumped="" just="" justice="" kind="" like="" little="" lot="" m="" me.="" me="" most="" motherfucker="" much="" my="" nbsp="" of="" off="" once="" others="" out="" p="" paddling="" pair="" peruvian="" pictures="" raft="" rafting="" really="" right="" rotate="" s="" scary="" so="" some="" soooo="" spring="" stuff.="" stupid="" swam="" t="" take="" tell="" that="" the="" then="" there="" thing="" things="" this="" time="" to="" toughie="" tried="" uneven="" up.="" was="" water="" waterfall="" we="" went="" were="" what="" where="" which="" white="" xd="" you="">
We also went Canyoneering and Rapelling here which was absolutely amazing. I didn't really understand what it was, we were kind of just told that we would be climbing down a waterfall and get really wet. They put us in harnesses and helmets and off we went. It was a lot of walking down mini waterfall things which was so beautiful, these really narrow passages and sometimes getting to wade through water that was up to our waist. The cold water was so refreshing in the humid rainforest, and spectacular views, unfortunatly no one got any photos of the area itself because the canyons were so pretty, like from a commercial <3 2="" 4="" 75m="" a="" also="" and="" being="" came="" climbing="" day="" descents="" down.="" down="" flung="" from="" got="" had="" haha.="" i="" just="" kinda="" last="" like="" line.="" longer="" nbsp="" next="" of="" one="" p="" rapells="" rock="" scary="" so="" sore="" stretches="" tense="" that="" the="" too="" was="" waterfall="" we="" were="" when="" where="" which="">
We also did a 'cul-tour' there which was the closest we got to the locals the whole trip really, other than in bars and stuff. Costa Rica Unplugged was much less about the culture and people and more about the animals, scenery and adventure sports. They took us to a primary school and some kids performed some folk dances for us and then we had a Q&A haha, back and forth, simple stuff, what do you do, what do you want to be when you grow up, what's your favourite colour ect. Then we went by a bus thing, led by a tracktor to a farmers house. Except he wasn't really a farmer, he and his wife bought this old farmers home with the help of a tourism company and preserved all it's glory and made it into a tour so that people could see how people used to work the land. So they had 2 ox and an old sugar cane mill, I'm pretty sure they don't produce anything other than for tourist sales. They "taught" us how to make tortillas, but we basically just flattened out a ball of pre-made dough haha. They gave us shots of some alcohol they make there which was super sweet, guindao. Then they also gave us a shot of what tastes like tequila. They made us the traditional food, which we had been eating every day anyway. It's called Casado, translates to Married. It's rice and beans, salad, friend plantain which is like banana, and a meat of your choosing (chicken, fish or beef). That was really nice though, their home was super beautiful and the decorations were so cute and roustic/folk-ey. The guys wife had an increadible voice and we ended the night by hearing them play us some songs.
I think I'm getting confused and I can't remember if those activities happened in Monteverde. But we were there too =P
Next we stayed in MonteVerde, I can't really remember what we did there other than needing stitches and sharing my room with the Peruvian girl. We had an optional dinner here which was alright, was stuffed. I think this is where we went to the Selvature Park from. The cloud forest. We took a hike, we went ziplining, which was a breeze after canyoning, I even did the Tarzan swing, ergh that was unpleasant haha, I don't like that flippy stomach feeling. BUT I DID IT. We got to go to a butterfly reserve and we also went to a humming bird sanctuary. It poured here, but I'm a smart cookie and had a cheapo plastic poncho which kept me drier than anyone in their rainproof jackets haha.
The last 3 days were spent at the beach in Manuel Antonio which was great, we finally settled down a little and weren't doing like 10 things per day. There wasn't as many group dinners/lunches so everyone had a bit more freedom. There was just a lot of beach going from here, we walked to a national park and went to a beach there too but got stung by jellyfish, oh and we did kayaking too. That was pretty but meh, not for me, it's too slow and tiring haha. We kayaked to a really beautiful cove beach and had pinapple and snacks, we were meant to snorke but I don't think there was anything in the water other than more jellyfish who stung the fuck out of me. I got thai food here! Wasn't terrible. We also had our last group drink up together where I finally joined in and that was fun. I didn't even get tipsy =( but the shots we were having were delicious and we ended up following some shifty locals to this other deserted bar, but it had a dj and was just small enough to be filled by the 17 of us dancing. It was awesome xD
The last day we drove back to San Jose and got there by 5pm but most of the group was still together, minus 2 americans who stayed in quepos along the way. We all got together again for dinner and then a chit chat in one of the hotel rooms reminsicing about the last 11 days. The next morning we had another group breakfast with the people who were flying later in the day and me, Fi (peruvian) and Joe went for a walk in San Joses town centre. It was still just as fugly and we got taco bell coz the americans couldnt stop raving about it the whole trip. Festy =.=
Me and Fi shared a cab to the airport and off I went to Chile.
OHH we're in Perito Moreno. FUCK. finally haha I managed to recap costa!
Now I need to do chile and argentina haha.
byeee
xx
& Kitty goes MeOw.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
1:00 PM
Fading fast.
wed 20th nov
HOLA! I'm on the bus from Puerto Varas in Chile, to Bariloche n Argentina. The scenery changes so quickly from one border to the next. We're still in evergreen forest and lakes area but there's no snow covered peaks and the trees look fluffier and the weather is perfect and not as cold as the Chilean side was.
The point of this post is to attempt to recap ALL of Costa Rica and talk about Chile with Matty so far. I can't even remember what I did in Cuba anymore soooo errr yeah, I'm glad I blogged that really well but oh well, lo comido y gossado no te lo quita nadien =P
I would love to go day by day as tedious as that would be but that would take a lot of hard thinking, looking at paperwork and matching up photos and I don't feel like doing that plus Im fairly sure we're going to get to Bariloche soonish. Over-all Costa Rica was...exhausting lol. I had gone really hard in Cuba in terms of lack of sleep and not wasting any time but that was my choice, the g-adventure Cuba Libre tour was pretty chill, especiallllly compared to Costa Rica. The days in the contiki Costa Rica Unplugged were jam packed with action adventure sports and hiking and just constant movement and activities all day long, followed by extensive group drinking. I was the youngest by about 7 years I think and lol, acted like the granny of the group, especially compared to how I was in Cuba. I barely drank, didn't even get tipsy, several times I left the clubs/bars/kareoke nights we went to early because I would just get bored and tired. The people in Costa Rica didn't dance all that much compared to Cuba, i had to teach my tour guide how to salsa and bachata =S it was a lot more swayish and not as much as technique as everyone seemed to have in Cuba. We went to one club one night where the music was excellent but there was just too much music in English, im in a latin american country, I can hear that shit at home =.=
I had a really diffiuclt transition from Cuba to Costa Rica, C.R was just so americanzied, it was disheartening and I couldn't wait to get out of San Jose. Consesnus seemed to be that it was a fugly city, dirty, traffic, crouded, the buildings were icky. CR had free wifi everywhereeeee though
*andddd we arrived*
& Kitty goes MeOw.
12:16 AM
I wish I had more energy and time to blog. I'm already onto my 2nd city with Matt and I never even blogged about Costa Rica.
We're on a bus to Puerto Varas at the moment after having spent the last day and a bit in Pucon.
I just done care right now. The south is beautiful though.
And Costa Rica was kool, god damn so many activities. Contiki / group tours are defs the way to go.
I'll post eventually!
Xx
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& Kitty goes MeOw.
Friday, November 8, 2013
4:56 AM
I'm on the tourbus on our way to waterfall canyoneering and rappelling. Dafuq was I thinking o.o
There's 4 descents, first ones 8 meters. The last one is 75 o.o that can't be right. Oh god. I'm not afraid of heights or anything. I've just had terrible rock climbing experiences and that's been in controlled environments. Hmm.
I'm sure it will be fine. *sigh*
Blah he also said there's a lot of hiking. Lol yesterday's walk up the waterfall was enough. He's like, IT'S GOING TO BE A WORKOUT. booooo
Lol ehhh I knew it would have to be at some point. How else do you get back up.
He said something about free falling =S
And face forward like Spider-Man. DAFUQ
gah. Time to sign the waiver
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& Kitty goes MeOw.
4:56 AM
It's 5pm and I've already gone on a bush walk, white water rafted, jumped off a cliff, went grocery shopping, hiked up and down a cliff face and swam at the foot of a waterfall. O.o
Costa Rica unplugged is nuts lol. Yeah I went too hard in Cuba and tbh I'm still not 100% my stomachs not quite right but yay meds keep that incheck.
I've not had the energy to really care about proper documentation of this trip which i suppose is a shame. I can barely remember what I did yesterday, I need to look at the itinerary and photos to figure it out. I don't really wanna repeat myself so maybe ill do the recounting later when I figure out what I last posted.
In the meantime though: I'm so proud of myselfffff. Lol. I jumped off a hill thing into the river xD
I couldn't even jump off the starting blocks when I was in school lol. It was a little scary, coz it took a really long time to get back to the surface but ehh here I am. ANDDDD I have proof!
There was photographers throughout the river course so I have pics of us there.
Plus I finally tested out my camera. It said it was waterproof and so far had been too nervous to immerse it but it was all good. I used it in the waterfall too xD
There's wifi everywhere here lol even when we were in the jungle last night. So every pit stop we make has free wifi ^.^
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& Kitty goes MeOw.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
7:14 AM
Hola amigos!
It's 1am here, technically Monday now. Today was day 2 of our tour even though I met most of the group 3 days ago and have been in Costa Rica for 4 days now.
I'm lying in bed...oh what a shocker another roomy who won't turn on the fan =.=
No aircons in this hotel. Luckily I'm feeling much better. I had a headache for a solid 3 days and mild fever, dizzyness and intense lethargy. It was all odd but it finally settled today. Thankfully coz I don't think I would have done too well on today's bumpy 2 hour bus ride with a splitting headache.
To be honest I haven't been loving Costa Rica. It's hard to get excited when you feel sick and when everything kind of annoys me. It's so fucking americanised...plus more than half my group are Americans. Yeah. They're hard to love. I am both repulsed and don't give a fuck that your dog is on a paleo diet. HE'S A FUCKING DOG.
God. Chicks from Cali have the most annoying accents =.=
The Canadian, Brit, Peruvian and 2 Germans are pretty Kool though haha.
So Friday night I met the group briefly for a meeting. Then we met early Sat to go to a volcano. Boring. And massive headache. Then we went and got lunch and had to endure the guys talking about pension plans for ages. Then they took us in a tour of the capitals centre and walked us around. It's ugly. For no other reason than that it has every fucking American chain restaurant you can think of over and over again, everywhere. There's multipleeeee maccas and pizzahuts on the same small stretch of road. I still don't fully understand Americas involvement in Costa Rica..like, clearly they must be exploiting something, I don't think their coffee industry is something to be that interested in so it's got to be something else. I asked the guide but I don't think he understood at all. Then told me they started using the US$ in the early 90's
I bought some stuff I needed and got a cab back by myself and tried to rest coz then we had to meet in the hotel restaurant for dinner. My head was still tearing me apart and I stupidly sat with the American fitness chicks who just talked about their diets the entire time we were eating.
So today, Sunday, we spent most of the early morning travelling to this resort. Saw some wildlife along the way and when we got to the resort we met up again to go visit the town, which is across the river from the cabins/resort. The town was cute, we went to the beach there. Not that nice either, dark brown sands and choppy waves but still, it was alright. Then we headed back and had some free time so I ended up getting a massage before dinner. Food here is all included in a buffet, it's not amazing but it does the job. It feels like I haven't really tried anything typical yet other than gallo pinto which is rice and beans with maybe some onions which they have for breakfast. We had a meal called 'casado' for lunch which is a salad, rice and beans, fried root of some kind and a meat.
Later we got back in those little water taxis and head across the river back to town to spend the night out. We went to this god awful karaoke bar, NO one could sing and the oneeeee song I wanted never came on =.= BUT then we went to the dancey place xD la culebra jaja. It reeeeeeked of weed but every time I would bring it up with the locals they would change the subject haha =(
Bahhaha speaking of, less than 2min into my cab ride from the airport to my hotel my cabbie takes out a bag of weed and offers me some and then coke =.= not a great first impression haha.
Dancing was fun, I haven't even drinking in Costa Rica because I don't want to aggravate my headache and tbh I'm not a huge fan of drinking anyway. Especially when I dance, I'm already sweating here as it is, if I add alcohol I'm going to feel even hotter. It always bugs me though, because everyone assumes I've been drinking because I dance =.= THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND. you don't fucking need to be drunk to dance, damn white people. Dancing there didn't leave a very good impression of this countries dancing prowess to be honest. The locals couldn't dance for shit, even the guide =.= I HAD TO TEACH HIM HOW TO BACHATA. Fail. And salsa..Jesus. You're fucking Latino =.= haha no rhythm.
Argh some canopy tourist guide was dancing with us and then I got the shits because he said he liked how I danced and then a few mins later he kept repeating you have to feel the music. FUCKYOU Ima dance how I want and he couldn't even keep in time, dumbass.
Lol I kinda just danced on the outskirts of the group, they were all drinking a bit too much and white people dancing. Ergh what's with white people and pole dancing. It's awkward to watch, girls trying to be sexy but they don't even get off the ground. And then everyone cheers o.O
Lol one dude was sooo wasted, I had to walk him to the bathroom and god. Getting him back on that dingy haha
But I'm glad I got a chance to dance. Lol I hate that I'm in a shittyer mood for this part of my trip. I was having such an amazing time in Cuba, it couldn't have been more perfect, even the group. Like I wasn't super tight with any of them but they were really easy going and didn't bore me to death talking sports diets or money.
But oh well, it's not all bad. Seen a lot. Just in 'dont care' mode ATM.
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& Kitty goes MeOw.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
11:46 PM
Hey lovelies!
I'm posting real quick. We're in the tour bus ready to go to our first stop out of town, Tortugero.
I've been here since late wed night and its currently Sunday morning.
Oh we're leaving!
Been so sick =(
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& Kitty goes MeOw.
