It looks so white and fluffy, like friendly cotton balls, but I know it is a lie. It is more like a darksome and unsteady gateway to the harsh and ugly reality down there. A slap in my face again, too soon and too cruel. We leave the blue sky and shining sun above the clouds and descend to a less beautiful world. The world where I'm back in Sweden to grieve another family member. This time I have to stay for a while.
I still want to tell you about the time before I went back. About the small Costa Rican town OrosÃ, and how I changed my mind about San José. It wasn't even two weeks ago and still, another life. A life where my longboard finally arrived and I was about to start skating again, towards Nicaragua. Beautiful beaches and cone shaped volcanoes. I saw it in my mind but couldn't reach it.
Orosà was too cold for me but I ignored it and wished for the sun to shine the next morning every time I went to bed. I could handle it because I liked everything else so much and when the clouds rolled in at the same time every afternoon it was quite stunning. They talked about the weather, the locals. It was supposed to be warm and sunny in January.
I went there to escape the hassle of San José and to attend a Spanish school for a week while I was waiting for the post office to get in touch with me. Unfortunately the "school way" to learn a language didn't suite me. I learned more from Maria, the sweet student whom my friend Kari introduced me to. The three of us took walks in the small town, spoke English half time and Spanish half. She invited us to her family's house one evening and all of a sudden the dad in the family had organized a barbecue. We spent the evening with a lot of meat, sweet wine and many stories of each other's countries. We left the house with memories of laughter, full stomachs, hand-drawn world maps on plywood boards and a lot of new local words. The perfect way to learn Spanish.
Orosà isn't the place to visit if you want lively evenings at bars and I surprised myself with early nights every day and even more interesting was that I liked it. Me, known as a night owl since I was a child. I slept a lot and the cold mountain air made me sleep good to. Maybe I needed it for the future.
Kari and I spent the weekend together. We did some excellent hiking in the close by cloud forest in Tapani National Park. We had stunning views, saw a spider big enough to serve as a hairy pet, took pictures of the waterfall far away while we ate the food we had brought and then, she took a swim in the cold and clear river. She became an appreciated company and we took scenic bus rides and drank beers in the favorite bar, looked at old church ruins together and talked a lot.
I left Orosà and went back to San José again when I received a notification from the post office about my longboard. Several weeks delayed I could feel it getting closer, and so did my plans for Nicaragua. I decided to stay in a nice area called San Pedro this time. Strangely, the busy and in some way aggressive city, changed to something interesting and the, sometimes threatening, atmosphere was totally gone. I know the area was different but maybe I was too. I took walks and tried restaurants, lent a bench in a park for reading and spent hours and hours trying to get my board out from the custom and post office. Then, finally I walked out of there with a smile on my face. I saw future.
Unfortunately plans had to change. I still look forward to skate in Nicaragua but right now I need to be in Sweden. The snow prevents me from trying my new longboard too and I long for the spring when life is coming back to nature and the sun allows me to stay outdoors longer. I know it will come.
As I wrote the other day I escaped to the little town of Santo Domingo, to breathe and think without San José's heavy traffic, almost non existent outside areas and without noises around me all the time. It turned out Santo Domingo wasn't the right thing for me either and after spending a night in a really nice hostel but together with too many people in a tiny little area I sent an email to a language school in OrosÃ, an even smaller town among mountains, where I have been before. I left for the green hills this morning. Three smooth bus rides later I arrived to the well-known hostel I left a little bit more than a week ago. Tomorrow I will attend school and try to learn some Spanish while I'm waiting for my longboard to arrive in San José.
Now, finally, I have what I was looking for. I guess I was lost without travel company and without a proper plan. Now I have chilly but fresh air to breathe, a lot of space, hammocks and nice and friendly people around me... and a plan for at least a week. I love the fact that I can empty my backpack for a while and tomorrow I will hopefully learn some more words in Spanish and also be able to do my laundry, or actually pay a small amount for having it done. What more could I ask for?
¡Hasta luego amigos!
He left, they left! For many weeks I've had the luxury of traveling with Anders and when he left four friends of mine arrived from Sweden. We have seen Costa Rica's extraordinary nature, all kind of beaches and some cities as well. Excellent, beautiful and expensive, I am now a poor woman going from eating out twice a day to making my own meals as cheap as possible. They are now all back in the cold Sweden and at once I felt a sting of loneliness. Kind of unexpected and kind of too emotional. Stuck in San José, a city which I don´t exactly like and waiting for a new longboard to arrive which I'm pretty sure I can't use for a while anyway when/if it arrives (already more than 3 weeks delayed). The mountains here are to steep for me. Hopefully Nicaragua will be better, so I've heard.
I guess everything just caught up with me, grief over my mom who left me very recently, longing for Anders and worries about my family back home. I also think that all stories of tourists who get robbed effect me, make me insecure of traveling solo the way I do as a woman. Should I do it in a different way? I want my life to be long and strong and lucky.
Today I took the decision to get out of town while, waiting for the post office which I guess will recieve my longboard to get in touch. I will escape, at least during the weekend, to the small town of Santo Domingo just outside San José. I need space and some time to relax. Give some thoughts to all that has happened lately, and what to come. I will wait for the return of the great feeling of curiosity and the well-known desire for adventure again. Not that it is gone, it's just taking a pause and after weeks of fast and intense travels I do need to slow down anyway. When it's coming back I know it also helps me to be more self confident in my decisions.
So, my board is broken. I wait for a new one and it will be sent to me within a couple of weeks. Anders gave up his bike to. It had given him too many flats and broken spokes and he didn't seem to enjoy the Panamanian mountains anymore. We will have a couple of weeks going by bus instead. We were thinking both of us deserved a normal and relaxing time spent together.
We started at Lost & Found, a hostel were Anders had stayed for a while and had made friends. It was great to see him again, had longed for that moment for so long. Nothing else there, just the mountains and the nature. Well, hammocks and the chilly air too.
Lost & Found gave us time to drink some Gin & Tonic and watch animals in the jungle I had never heard of before and others I had been looking forward to see, as sloths. We also met some Swedes who we joined for a day and we went swimming in waterfalls, in a canyon and in some hot springs. Lovely days.
Christmas
Christmas was coming up and we decided to go to the well-known Bocas del Toro at the Caribbean coast. The turquoise water and the mangroves was a nice contrast to the mountains and a water taxi took us to the island called Bastimentos where we had time to do a hike along the coast, palm fringed beaches colored with white sand and clear water. The jungle was literally on the beach, green leaves framed pictures in my camera display. Two steps in from the beach you could find the trail covered with mud and cute but poisonous red frogs decorated the path.
We woke up in time for a family gathering on Skype on a bad internet connection moment. It was nice to see them, truly. We started a hike again, took off to Wizard beach. The trail was hard to follow and muddy, all the sounds of the nature was intense though the creatures of the jungle was hiding from us.
Finally a long and, what appeared to us as, empty beach was in front of us and when the waves were to high shoes were soaked and laughter was loud. We were aiming for next destination, a coffee farm up amongst the hills. A couple on the beach we hadn't noticed before told us where to and Anders went ahead.
All of a sudden I heard him scream from above, "run, run, run". I was looking up to were he stood, waiting for me, and saw the reason. A man with a machete was running towards him, his face all covered up and with hunter eyes. I felt fear and ran back from where I came. Anders took the lead, I was running downhill but sprained my ankle pretty bad and lost speed.
Every time I looked behind me he was still there, yelling "Para, para!". My guess was it meant "Stop" but I couldn't. Started to scream, me as well, hoping that someone in the jungle would hear us, at least the couple on the beach. Being chased by a man with a machete wasn't exactly something I had prepared myself to.
We reached the beach, made the other couple aware of the danger and ran into the water. The man didn't give up and pointing with his big knife at us, one at the time, we did what he told us to do. Gave him all our money having faith in his assurance that he wouldn't hurt us if we did. He left, disappeared into the jungle again and there we were, poorer but still alive and with our cameras and cell phones left. We gave up our plans to go to the farm and scared of every little sound of the jungle we went back through mud and rainforest. Late Christmas Eve became a night talking, drinking and feeling grateful for being safe together.
Going to Costa Rica
We spent a night in Bocas town, known for "all night parties" and all kind of life related to that. Still shaken up from the night before we went to bed pretty early to have some sleep before the next day of crossing the border to Costa Rica.
The land border procedure was as time consuming and ineffective as we were expecting it to be but once in a new country it wasn't too far to the lazy town of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. Here we recovered from stress, drank mojitos in sunsets with caribbean live band playing and watched surfers trying to master the huge waves, for several days.
Since one of us are running out of time we catched an early bus all the way across the country to reach a hard raining La Fortuna last afternoon. We will try to catch a glimpse of Volcan Arenal shaped as the perfect cone here but until now the rain and the clouds are teasing us.
It all started with me wanting to learn something new. I bought a longboard and travelled parts of the world. My next project will be around the world on a bike, but still as Longboard Lady.