vday danceathon, surfisde to granada

greetings from the bearded monkey!

i will begin this entry where i left off last time - -

from la penca, pa and i headed over to my host family's house, but had little luck - only cristian was home an erika wouldn't be getting back for another hour. we needed to meet jeffrey in town by 1, so we sent our hellos and started for the beach. we walked down playa potrero to flamingo, and spent a bit of time out on surfari - the sailboat that jeffrey captains. .

from there i took pa to flamingo beach, where we just chilled and swam for a couple hours.

we missed the 4pm bus, so shared a cab with an adorable couple from san jose.

after showering and resting a bit, we went out to el castillo for din din. . . we packed up, and jeffrey and i schemed a motorcycle mission to brasilito. that fell through when news of the traffic cop reached us - he doesn't have a moto license so that plan was foiled. . disappointing because we even had helmets - extremely ncommon for the area. .

so instead we headed out to see if there was a bus to the fiestas. . found heather and hannah at castillo - there was a valentine's event going on, with a mediocre cover band and lots of gingoes over 50. so, we decided to exchange heather's little scooter for the car, and drive to brasilito.

an excellent send-off night ensued; lots of Imperial ('the beer of costa rica'), strobe lights and dancing. .
we had a bit of a merengue marathon, where all four of us danced together - lots of improvisaton on jeffrey's part and more than a few bumbs and mixups. good fun. did our fair share of danehall/electro boogies, ridiculous and enjoyable..


yesterday, mark and jeffrey gave us a ride out to juacas, where we caught the 9:30 bus to liberia. .

and this is where the event of the day begins - a miracle if ever there was one.

my passport lives in my left, zippered pocket. while on the bus, said pocket was mysteriously unzipped (yeah, this is slightly embarassing, as i should have known to keep it on the side where dad was sitting, zipper or no)
so we get off this bus an i pat my pocket out of passport-security habit and FUCK, empty empty empty. .
after a few deep breathes to minimize my shakes of fury, i hunted down the bus we had just gotten off of.
unfortunately, it had already left.
fortunately, it was not headed to another town, but to the bus yard.
a taxi driver who was trying to convince us to take his cab to the border became extremely helpful, and got us the info on the busyard and ook us there. dad was sceptical but we figured it was worth a try, just in case the passport hadn't been stolen, and was waiting for me in the back of the bus. .
the whole 4 minute drive there my brain was on repeat - it is in between the seats, it is sitting there, blue and patient, just waiting for us to come find it - thisis ater the thoughts of -fuck, if i don't have a passport we might need to go 6 hours in the opposite direction to talk with the embassy, etc etc... -


practically ran to the abk of the bus once they opened it, and lo and behold, my little frayed passprt, sideways between the plastic seats. .
almost cried and definitely i some happydancing.
absolutely imredible.
now there's no way i unzipped that damn pocket. my guess is one of my neighbors took a looksee and, upon finding that there was no money there, just dropped the booklet.
i feel stupid and impossibly lucky. . and interesting mix.


so, ater those shenanegans, we heaed for the border. got through with good time, and continued on to granada. . the bearded monkey is a hostel i remember hearing about from a guy we met on the ferry to ometepe when i was here 4 years ago. on the trip, i promised myelf that i would go back to granada, and now here i am at last..
the monkey had sopace, so we got a double private room. it was up some steep stairs, the top of which seems to be a favorite nap spot of the hostel's adorably fat kitty. huge ponch, squashy face, and a few dreadlocks. . an excellent cat and my new best friend here.
we switched to a downstairs room today to minimize the heat - it's sweaty here almost 24/7. .

yesterday evening before the sun went down, we walked around the city a bit. there was music and dancing in the park, and we found a woman making tortillas flled with cabbage on the street - they were delicious. i had told pa that one of my missions for out time together was to find him some damn good homemade tortillas. . . checked that of this list.

we went to a little bar for adrink and i had a delicious, perfectly mixed flor de caña mojito. .
we stopped in a t a liquor store to get a couple bottles of the rum to bring home, and ended up chatting with the storeowver about scotches and nicaragua. .
we dined at the bearded monkey and set the fan to high power before going to sleep, and now it's 11am the next morning and we are planning our day.

going to check out some precolombian sclptures and a convent, then some other small parks and the market, plus whatever else we find. thinking of heading to lake apoyo tomorrow and spending one night there before going to the cdca. . we can kayak and swim, etc. . we will see.

more tomorrow, as i'm sure i've forgotten something,
love
mak.