TAKE CHANCES

Winners don't wait for chances, they take them. — Dustin Moya

Friday, August 24, 2012 (DAY 173)
It is early morning when my alarm goes off, just before 6am, and I am ready to head to the sixth country of my great journey and the twentieth country I have been fortunate enough to travel to in my life thus far–Costa Rica. Quietly throwing over both shoulders is the black rucksack that was packed carefully the night before in order to get an early start, but as slow as I am in my attempt to make my movements ninja-like, Claudio is still woken by me and after apologizing he gives me a quick farewell and safe travels before falling back to sleep to dream about giant mushrooms or saving Princess Toadstool or whatever Italians dream about. Wasting no time I am out the front gate and walking down the street towards the Mercado where the buses congregate. Climbing aboard the green hulk, as I like to call it due to the color of this particular chicken bus that has an oversized Mercedes emblem attached to the large front grill, the ride to Rivas lasts almost an hour to travel the 21km (13 miles) as the bus stops every few minutes either picking up new passengers or allowing others to vacate. The cost, however, is a mere C$15 córdobas ($0.63 USD) so I can’t complain too much since I am using the same transportation that the locals use. Arriving in typical gringo fashion I am verbally assaulted by the barrage of taxi drivers waiting at the bottom of the steps exiting the bus. The first time you experience this, it is overwhelming and you cannot help but laugh at the quick talking sales pitches thrown at you, but, over time it wears on you, and soon becomes one of the biggest irritations wherever you make an arrival that forces you to exit. Pushing my way through with force, because of their aggressively incessant attempts, I move away from most of them but of course one lingers behind yelling, ‘taxi, taxi, taxi … collective.’ After taking a moment and haggling with the driver over the price, C$60 ($2.60 USD) later, and I am on my way to the border sitting shotgun while four other poor souls are wedged in the back seat of this late 80’s Honda Accord. Not even fifteen minutes down the road and the car rolls to a stop. Attention, we have a flat tire. Thinking this could take several minutes I climb out of the front seat since the heat of the morning is already beginning to bake the interior of the car. Shocked and amazed, I watch with the driver with NASCAR-type precision skills change the flat driver-side tire without a jack in record time, as he has already pulled off the old tire only to replace it with one that has far less tread than the current deflated one. Stunned at how quickly the change has occurred I also realize that if we experience another tire mishap I may be walking or hitchhiking to the border. Thankfully, this is not the case and we arrive at the frontera border town of Peñas Blancas. Oh, where to begin with this chaotic ordeal, of yet, another overland border crossing?   

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Once again, the second I step out of the collective there is a new group of faces readily available to begin the verbal assault. This time, I am lead away by two guys that appear to be in their early twenties and one of them can speak a fair amount of English. Leading me to the large white building to retrieve my government approved exit stamp, there is confusion with the attendant at the window as the multiple stamps from Guatemala are an issue. This same situation occurred in El Salvador, and I am still baffled that this continues to be an issue. This seems to be a pretty clear situation as the dates and the stamps are very clear as to my travel route as well as the separate white piece of paper that is issued upon entering Nicaragua that clearly has the date stamp of ENTRY 06 JUNE 2012 and handwritten above days permitted is a clear Nine-Zero. Not a niner-zero, because I’m not calling this in from a walkie-talking, but the number 90. After being lead around the corner to a glass side door on the south end of the building, there are four people inside this room that is the size of a closet with two desks wedged against the wall. Handing over my passport and explaining that I entered Guatemala a second time after traveling to Honduras this was not understood after twenty minutes, but required for me to walk fifty yards to a different building where I was required to have a black and white photocopy of my passport and the dates that were stamped, specifically for Guatemala, copied. Returning with this piece of paper that seems irrelevant to me, they have me sit and wait while they discuss what to do with me. Even though my Spanish is still in the late beginning stages, I am pretty sure I overheard that they thought I was a traveling martial arts magician and they feared that I might just roundhouse kick my way through the border. Fearful for their lives, they discussed with great intensity how much money to offer me and ask for mucho forgiveness for their failure to acknowledge my angry fists of fury. Yeah, these were the thoughts that were rambling through my head as I sat impatiently for more than another forty-five minutes, before they located an English speaking border agent that listened to both my explanation and overlooked my passport in less than thirty seconds before telling the entire room that they are a bunch of morons and everything I had attempted to explain made perfect sense. Bravo, mi amigo for having common sense! After almost an hour, I was legally released from Nicaragua without the repercussions of paying any additional fees, but only the C$46 ($2 USD) exit fee. The reason I became so nervous about the situation, is they were trying to tell me that I officially entered the C4 back in early March, which could have been an astronomical cost if they chose to try and charge me anywhere from $2-$5 USD per day that I was over the allotted 90 day tourist visa, which could easily have been more than $200 USD. Feeling as though I dodged a bullet thanks to the border agent that has more understanding than a room of four other individuals combined, I was off down the dirt road in a hurry. Glad to have this situation behind me, in front of me about a quarter mile was the border and a large sign that read, BIENVENIDOS A COSTA RICA. 

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Spending no less than three minutes at the customs and immigration window for entry into Costa Rice, I had a new country stamp and was released unscathed. Since there is no charge to entry the country, I had yet for a need to change either any of my córdobas or dollars, but after discussing the purchase of a bus ticket to the city of Liberia with the driver, I was directed to a mobile bank across from us that was literally a large white RV with the words BANCO DE COSTA RICA in red down the side. This seemed a far better decision than haggling with the individuals that carry wads of various currencies where you never really know what the exact rate will be since it depends on both the person and your own haggling and negotiating skills. Opting to change only $20 USD since the exchange rate should be 500 colones to $1 USD, but exchange rates for money are always the worst at the border, here it was 492 to $1, I knew that I had enough for the cost for the bus from the border to Liberia, which was only 1,405 colones ($2.81 USD) as well as the transfer to Playa Tamarindo, which was 1,320 colones ($2.64). Climbing aboard and sitting on the two and a half hour bus ride to Liberia calculating mathematics, because being Asian that’s of course what we love doing, I realized that I could essentially withdraw $200 USD, which with the current exchange rate would be $100,000 colones. If it weren’t for the fact that I would end up with a treasure chest of what Lindsay called pirate’s gold due to the fact that the typical coins leftover were the oversized gold $100 and $500 coins, I would have considered it just to roll around in $100,000 worth of bills. Can someone say, winning? 

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Falling asleep on the practically empty bus, I wake up to realize that I am in Playa Langosta about 2km south of Playa Tamarindo. Asking the driver if he would be kind enough to drive me back to the center of town, he declines and I am covered in sweat before I make it even ten meters. It’s funny that I’ve began taking on the metric system with more ease, even while despising it as I still like to use feet and miles. Take that for American ignorance for change. Finally, arriving in Playa Tamarindo around 3:30pm, I check out several hostels, and decide on La Botella de Leche, which costs only $10 USD for the dorm. Exhausted and covered in sweat, I enjoy a long cold shower before venturing around the town. Walking down the dirt road that eventually turns in to one of concrete I duck down a side street in hopes of stumbling upon the beach. Unlike SJDS where the ocean is visible from the main street because the buildings on the shore do not exceed more than a second floor, Tamarindo is bombarded by resorts, which sadly includes a large white skyscraper that blocks the entire view of the beach from the main road as you enter the Pacific beach town that resembles more of the States than Central America. Once my feet hit the sand, the flip flops are off, and I enjoy a barefoot stroll in solace as the sun is beginning to set. It is the end to another incredible day, even if most of it was spent on buses, and I am thankful to have reached my destination, “where there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away.” A quote by Sarah Kay. I doubt I will ever grow tired of the sunsets over the ocean since most of my years were spent watching them disappear over the Rocky Mountains. 

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