More Jumblings

553 AM MST
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Banana Azul Apartment
Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica

This is the trouble with a blog – you must have an Internet Connection. The WiFi here is not awake just yet, so I’ll try typing this into a Word document and pasting it later. Blog – 0; Moleskine – 1. However, I think I can embed video into the blog and will attempt this later when I'm online again.

The sun comes up early here and sets at 6:30PM – strange for summer, but nice.

Yesterday, we drove into Puerto Viejo proper. It’s about 2kms from the Banana Azul.
** Benji the Yellow Dog here at BA just woke up and crawled off the couch. It’s just like home in that many four-legged critters hang around the apartment – we have two regular cat visitors and Benji. There are two or three more dogs on the property, plus a couple more cats. Several turtles live in the long pond near the bar downstairs, plus chiclids and BIG crabs.

So Puerto Viejo. It’s a tourist town, like Daytona Beach but not so many t-shirt shops. There are lots of little vendors all selling the same stuff at the same price. Many imported Indonesian-style carvings and Rastafarian gear and sarongs. In the first shop we visited, there were little wood frogs with a stick and you drag the stick across the ridges on the back of the frog to make a cool frog-like noise. Vance had seen the exact same thing in the markets in the Middle East. Ho-hum. Still a cool little item, though.

Check out the picture below.



This was the first thing we spotted when parking in PV. I’m guessing the Worm Bite took out the fellow on the sidewalk before the clinic opened. I’ll inquire today about these wicked worms.

In the Super, I discovered a terrific deal all strapped together in one handy package – buy two bottles of Coca-Cola and get a FREE tin of sardines! Yup. It was all held together with Saran Wrap. There were several of these exact deals available with your choice of Coca-Cola OR Fanta.
However, I passed up the deal. Instead, I purchased a lovely Gouda cheese with pesto embedded in it, a semi-hard goat cheese, a nice loaf of freshly baked whole wheat bread, cilantro, and many varieties of chips. I’ll review the chips later as we open and consume them. I also picked up four bottles of the Linzano Tabasco. The Gouda with pesto is EXCELLENT – A+ The semi-hard goat cheese okay – B. The bread was good.

As I was checking out of the Super, there was a display of Kinder Eggs – you know, the ones from Germany with the toy inside the chocolate? So I was thinking I would ask, “How much?” and point at the egg. Somehow, the cashier figured out what I was asking and then replies in Spanish the price. What the fuck was I thinking? I had no idea what she said the price was. This Spanish stuff is difficult. I’ll try and work on numbers today. Anyway, I bought the Kinder Eggs. I knew they weren’t that expensive in Germany so they shouldn’t break the bank here either. Total cost of adventure at Super: 12,615 CRC, or around 21USD.

Last night, we tried to get to the Sloth Sanctuary up past Cahuita. We left BA around 4:30 and drove up that way. There is a police checkpoint between Puerto Viejo and the Sanctuary. As we pulled up, we remembered neither of us had our passport, nor a copy. Hell, I didn’t have a speck of ID at all. Not even a business card. Vance had his Tennessee driver’s license and the fellows at the stop were gracious when we explained where we were trying to go and where we were staying. They waved us on. Today, we shall carry our passports.

Much to our chagrin, the Sanctuary was cerrado – hey! More Spanish – this means CLOSED. The gold-toothed fellow who was there said it would open at 7AM the next morning.

It was almost dark by now and time for dinner. We hooked a right down the road to Cahuita to find some food. The entrance road into Cahuita is bricked and landscaped. But the rest of the roads are gravel/dirt.

**I had read many places where it said the roads are terrible in Costa Rica. Highway 32 from San Jose was fine and most of 36 to Puerto Viejo was freshly paved. Sections were completely UNPAVED here and there on 36, but nothing worse than I’ve found in my Southern adventures. I guess it’s all them cityslicker gringos who have difficulty with the roads here… or maybe we’ve just been lucky thus far.

I think this will be my last post in my traditional journal format. From here, I’ll try the grouping by subject concept so singular posts aren’t so verbose.