I am only a few days into the trip and I have already lost track of which day of the week it is!
I am staying in a small town called Mal Pais right now. It is on the southern tip of the Nicoya Peninsula. It is known among surfers and therefore caters to tourist that come to ride the waves. But, it is not tourist season so more than half of the restaurants and hotels are closed at the moment. It is nice though because it is quiet and the locals are extra courteous and friendly as they haven´t seen any foreigners in a couple of months now! The other bonus to the low season are the prices. I am getting a deal at the place that I am staying. I have a full bungalow with private bath and kitchen for $8 a night. I plan on staying here until Oct 16th at which time I am going to go to Jaco to try out the Bikram yoga studio. From there I am going to make my way to the Caribbean to see Mom and Denis.
So - what have I been doing you ask? Well, I have been waking up between 6 and 7 each morning (going to bed very early). I am still trying to get some sort of a workout first thing in the morning. It just starts the day off right. So, I have gone for a couple of jogs on the beach and I have also led myself through yoga, which was much more difficult than I thought that it would be. Mostly, I just felt a bit silly to anyone walking by and wondering what the heck I was doing (also done on the beach). Yesterday I went fishing with a local named Josue. We hitched a ride up to a town called Playa Hermosa, about 7 kilometers away. We had lunch at his family´s house there, which was much different that what I had expected. It was not quite the dwellings that we grew up in but it was really nice and had everything that many would want - including all possible electronics! After lunch we went to the beach and fished with just line and crab as bait.
It seems to rain mostly at night and with a tin roof on the bungalow I feel like I am really in the jungle as it beats down and drowns out every single little noise that you would hear otherwise. I have been watching movies on my netbook at night before bed. I am really happy that I can do that as I am not sure what I would do otherwise - probably just read my Lonely Planet over and over and over again. There wasn´t any room in my pack to take even a single book and there certainly aren´t any bookstores here!
Anyways, that´s enough for today. So far, so great! I will try to keep this up :)
C.
