FRIDAY - Puerto Viejo with Rory & Wes

The infamous Rory McMoil was in country with his familia and was able to manipulate his plane ticket home to spend the weekend with wally. Joining the intrepid duo at the last minute was the illustrious International Volunteer Coordinator for Habitat – Wes Weston. I met Rory for lunch after multiple communication mixups – first he called Maximos house on Thursday night and left a message with a number, but the number he left was for a medical clinic and not for the hotel where he was staying. So we never got in touch on Thursday; then on Friday he tried calling my work around 11:30 when he arrived at the meeting place – but for some reason Habitat’s phone system blocked the number of the payphone from getting through…so I had no idea where he was, or what he was doing…Finally around 12:15 he hopped on a computer at the internet café and sent me a quick email (right after I sent him an email telling him I would wait at the meeting place for 30 min then meet him at the bus station). SO after finally getting a response from him, I busted out of work and hustled down to the meeting spot and we grabbed a quick lunch and caught up with some stories from the past few months. After trying to negotiate for some Cuban cigars (pricing is atrocious around here) unsuccessfully we attempted to catch a taxi…which is never a problem (especially for 2 gringos)…but today it was. So when we finally got in the taxi we told him to step on it for we had a bus to catch in 20 minutes. The cabbie earned his tip and got us to the bus station in 10 minutes…where we met up with a patiently waiting Wes. We hopped on the bus and settled in for the 4 hour journey to the Caribbean coast and the region of Limon, specifically the town of Puerto Viejo (the reggae capitol of Costa Rica). Unfortunately for the 6 foot tall wally, I was seated in the seat with the least amount of legroom (right on top of the front wheel house) in a seat that was already cramped enough. Fortunately I had the always entertaining Rory McMoil to regale me with ridiculous stories from his adventures in Brazil – with one of the foremost environmental scientists in the world who he sat next to on the plane and who invited him to attend an International Environmental Law conference being held in his honor in Sao Paulo …to the hot Italian chicky who picked him up at a Brazilian bar…to trying to learn Portugese side by side with the ridiculous linguistic genius that it Patrick Quirk. SO despite the cramped space and the creaky knees the 4 hours passed fairly quickly and we arrived in Puerto Viejo as the sun was setting and the night was getting ready to begin. We were off the bus all of 90 seconds before being engaged by our first Tico Rasta who predictably attempted to peddle his wares; but was at least working the front of handing out coupons for a free beer at one of the bar/restaurants in town. We accepted his coupon and were on our way as it was a little walk through town to our cabina 1.5 km to the South of Puerto Viejo in the tiny beach village of Playa Cocochles. The 30 minute walk was just long enough to stretch our legs, as well as give us a chance to get acquainted with the layout of PV. Upon arrival to the cabina – at La Costa de Papito, (good site) we promptly accepted the first beer of the night as we patiently waited for the check in process. We grabbed another beer when it was time to head to the cabina – and made our way along these pathways made from different colored round cement blocks – that looked like tiles on a game of Candyland or Chutes and Ladders. The cabina was really nice, a little hammock chair and a corner table with built-in benches on the porch, a great tiled shower in the bathroom, and two beds with a rollaway tucked inbetween in the main room…not to shabby for $17 bucks a night. The best part was that it had some privacy (only 5 other cabinas) and that it was quiet and dark in the mornings allowing us to sleep late. After a third round of cervesas, a few quick showers to wash the road dust off our faces, we were pretty hungry and headed into town to grab dinner. We found this nice little restaurant and settled in for a long slow dinner. Being at the coast I was compelled to order seafood and had some excellent shrimp in a spicy coconut sauce with a salad and fries…of course a beer or two accompanied dinner. After dinner we headed off looking for a place that came highly recommended for it’s Reggae – Bambu Bar. Not difficult to find, just needed to follow the sound of the bass lines and Bob Marleys passionate lyrics to a tiny little spot right on the beach. The music system was good, the beers were cheap, the crowd was a mix of gringos from all over the US, France, England, Netherlands and Germany; some local Ticos (mostly trying to pick up the gringas) and the requisite rastas with their big heads of nappy dreads, their Jamaican colors and the permanent spliff in their mouths. We settled on a bench on the beach and watched as Rory played with this huge rock which was covered with 100 glowing white candles on every surface and crevice. After knocking two of them over in true clumsy gringo style, he managed to stand both of them back up, as well as add a third one of his own before calling it quits. We met a group of girlies from Chicago and chatted with them for a while as Rory attempted to mac…we chatted with some of the rastas for a while but they weren’t interested in hanging out with the gringos just in trying to take our money. We had a crazy late night drunken debauchery as we thought that I had been pick pocketed, and lost all of the money that rory had given me when he went swimming…then we thought that rory had lost it in the ocean…and then we thought this other kid who was hanging with us had taken it while we weren’t paying attention and trying to figure the whole fiasco out. In the end we avoided blows, chalked it up to karma, and called it a night. On the way home in a fit of drunken idiocy rory and I started sprinting on the potholed dirt road…and rory kicked off his sandals so he could go faster then me (and I admit when he did that he secured the victory) but his bare feet couldn’t take the vicious pounding on the uneven rocky surface…and he woke up in the morning with a hole in one heel and a hole in the ball of the other foot both filled with sand.