..last part of the trip!!!

So back to El Castillo.. Hol and I woke up to some nice rain outside. We ventured outside and found the 'breakfast' part of the stay upstairs. Then we had the honour of meeting Ellen, the owner of the B&B. Ellen, who as Lonely Planet described as, "full of charm & grace" actually turned out to be rather on the b****y side to Holly and I. Apparently she assumed that it was in our game plan to endure a 7 hour bus ride and arrive 4 hours late to her B&B the night before. I guess it was rather inconsiderate of us, having no cell phone, and no idea of what time we were going to arrive, to not inform her of our plans. Silly us!

Anyway, after that ordeal Hol and I went back into our room. We discovered that it would cost us $25 to get into the town of La Fortuna in a cab, and then after that all activities were ridiculously expensive. At this time of our trip, we were both kind of strapped for money, so it slowly began to sink in that we went all this way, and paid money for buses to be able to do absolutely nothing. We both decided that a nap was the best game-plan, and so we crawled back into bed for another 3 hours.

After the nap we both felt better, and decided that we needed to venture into town or else we'd go stir crazy. We got Victor, the man who helps run the B&B to get us a taxi, which turned out to be his random buddy who drove us into town. They informed us that there was a free shuttle that went from La Fortuna back to El Castillo, and would drop us off at the corner. It was suppose to leave from the town centre at 5:30, so this would be perfect timing for us. We got into La Fortuna and found an internet place (clearly we had our priorities straight). Afterwards we walked around a few shops, and after agreeing to buy absolutely nothing except essentials, we both bought cute little dresses. Trust me, it was a necessity. Then we found a super market and stocked up on snacks to eat later that night. We grabbed some dinner and found a bank, and then were patting ourselves on our backs at 5:15 while waiting for the bus. Except that the bus didn't come. Holly deeked into the Tourism centre and asked some guy about it, and then she came running out and said that the bus was coming to the other side of the square. By this time it was raining heavily. So Holly and I grabbed our bags and ran as fast as we could to the other side of the park, only to find no bus. We looked around in confusion for a few minutes, then saw the tell-tale green school bus pulling away from where we had been waiting a few minutes before. Since I'm not exactly a track-star, I grabbed the bags and Holly sprinted about 3 blocks in the rain to try and get the bus-driver's attention. I jogged after her. 15 minutes later we were soaked, pants dirty from the mud and rain, sweating, and without a free ride. We managed to track down a taxi, and paid the $25 to get back to the B&B and take the 'charming' 200 metre walk up to get back to our rooms.

We hung out in our rooms for a bit, and then decided to take advantage of the jacuzzi in the garden. It was fairly hilarious, as we couldn't even tell what direction the Volcano was at this point, although Lonely Planet had promised "gorgeous views of the lava flowing from Volcan Arenal while you soak in the garden jacuzzi". We cracked up for a good 20 mintues making comments on the spectacular views. It was fun, we managed to have some good conversation and the hot tub (jacuzzi? what's the difference?) was nice and clean. So we got back to our rooms, packed up and set our alarms for 4:30 the next morning. Yay.

4:30 came around pretty quickly. We got our stuff together, headed down the poorly lit lawsuit-in-waiting walkway and met Victor. He had to drive us 30 minutes to the Arenal Lodge, where our Interbus was supposed to arrive at 5:30. To our surprise, it arrived on time!! I was so shocked that I took a photo in case no one would believe us.

The trip back to Cahuita was not bad at all. We somehow managed to stay on all paved roads, so the 6 hours actually flew by. And it was odd to return, as it kind of felt like home-sweet-home! It was a great holiday, good and bad, and I was really glad that we were able to venture out and explore some other parts of the country.

Since then, I've pretty much just been hanging around Cahuita. I managed to burn myself nicely at the beach, which hopefully will turn into a flawless tan by the time I get home. A new volunteer came on Sunday night, so we've been getting to know her. She brought a straightener with her, which I was promised I could use tomorrow. School with the kids has been great, but since it was my last week I made the executive decision that math is far too boring, and that we would do art classes instead. And I've actually been getting Spanish lessons, believe it or not!

Today was my last day with the kids, so it was sort of sad to say goodbye, but they were really cute and so it was all worth it. Tomorrow I get to go see the sloths in the morning (finally!) and then I have a small lesson in the afternoon. After that I have to finish packing, and then will go out with the other volunteers for dinner and drinks to say goodbye. Then the next morning bright and early it's goodbye Cahuita! I'm taking trusty interbus out of Cahuita at 7:30 to San Jose, where I'll stay overnight and then head to the airport in the morning to catch my flight. Then back to nice and cold Canada, the land of warm water showers without cockroaches!!

This will probably be my last entry before I return home, so thanks everyone who kept reading it while I was gone, and for all of the emails and the messages!! When I get home I will definitely load photos up, and let you know how the rest of the journey went.

Hasta Luego!

Natalie xoxoxo