Montezuma’s... what’s the opposite of revenge?

Started writing this December 12, finished it December 18 in the Houston airport.

I can say with certainty, now that I have returned from my last weekend trip before I go home, that my weekend in Montezuma was my favorite weekend in Costa Rica.  From the weird adventures and the people I was with to the amazing weather and beautiful beaches, everything about this weekend was extraordinary.  I guess the only place to begin is at the very beginning...

But first, sunset at Playa Grande in Montezuma

For my Ecotourism class, we had two planned field trips this trimester: Tortuguero and Montezuma.  I already wrote about how amazing my trip to Tortuguero was, and now I will be writing about how amazing Montezuma was.  Can’t you tell I just hate that class? ;)

Now, this story really starts the week before in Panama.  I had planned to go a week earlier with some girls from my dance class, but I got sick so I waited a week and tagged along with some girls from my program.  Two went on Thanksgiving, and then I went on Friday with another girl.  As for the return, two girls had to return on Sunday, but I planned on staying until Monday and the fourth girl was planning on staying until Monday with me.  However, and I didn’t find this out until Sunday morning because we ended up staying at different places due to personal preferences, that other girl ran out of money and had to go back to San Jose on Sunday, too.  Since I had already booked and paid for two dives that day, I decided to stay in Bocas del Toro by myself for that last day, figuring I would make some new friends...

When I arrived at the dive center for my first dives as a certified Open Water Diver, I saw that the guy I had gotten certified with the day before was there as well.  Unfortunately, I forget his name and haven’t been in touch with him, but we’ll call him Dive Guy.  (We have since connected on Facebook and I remembered that his name is Devin, but I am too lazy to change all the Dive Guys to Devins.)  Anyway, we take off in the boat for the first dive and I am talking with Dive Guy when I think I hear one of the girls with the group, Julia, say California.  It was really loud on the boat, so I decided not to ask her about it until I heard her say San Francisco.  Turns out she is from Sacramento and goes to Chico, but was studying abroad in Puntarenas for the semester.  After the dives, since diving seems to leave you starving, a group of us went to hunt down a place to get some lunch.  After lunch, I went with Julia and her friend from her program, Corbi, as well as another guy from our dive group to go to Dolphin Bay.  We had a great time, even though we were probably in the slowest boat in all of Bocas, and I found out that Julia and Corbi were taking the bus back to San Jose on Monday morning, too, as the first leg of their journey back to Puntarenas.

Devin and Julia are the people right in front of me

Come Monday morning, I get to the boat to find Dive Guy and his friend there, but no Julia and Corbi yet.  Let me explain the journey back to San Jose from Bocas: boat to Almirante, van/taxi to Changuinola, then a bus to the border where you have you get off to go through customs and then get back on to go to San Jose.  Anyway, I figure they caught an earlier boat or will catch the next one, so off we go to Almirante.  When we get there, most of the vans fill up and leave for the bus stop, but ours is not quite full and wants to wait for the next boat.  So there I am, sitting next to Dive Guy with what looks like room for maybe two more people, with the driver telling us he knows we have to catch the bus and that it will all be fine.  Half an hour later, the next boat arrives and the driver crams maybe 5-7 more people in the van, including Julia and Corbi in the front seat and a couple guys who are sitting about two feet away facing me and Dive Guy.  Well, Dive Guy ends up sleeping and I decide that if the backwards-facing, French-speaking guys and I don’t talk to each other, this 45-minute ride is going to be very awkward due to how close we were all sitting.  Best.  Decision.  Ever.  Chris and Francois from Belgium ended up being some of the coolest people I met in Costa Rica, who I hope to stay in touch with.  Long story short, we ended up passing the 9-10 hour journey from Almirante to San Jose talking pretty much the entire time with each other, Julia, Corbi, and some other travelers.  This was facilitated by the fact that when we finally got to the bus, it was full and our driver had to talk to the bus driver to get him to let us get on the bus even though it meant we had to stand in the aisle for most of it.  We also spent 2-3 hours at the border, chilling and eating ice cream while we waited for everyone on the bus to get through the border crossing.  Was I irritated with the driver for making us wait back in Almirante?  A little, but Pura Vida.  Do I wish I could go back now and hug him because if we hadn’t waited I probably would not have become friends with Chris and Francois?  Definitely :)

Crossing the border back to Costa Rica

How does this relate to Montezuma?  Chris had just finished his program in San Jose and was talking about his plans for his last week in Costa Rica when he mentioned going to Montezuma that next weekend, a.k.a. the weekend my class was going to Montezuma!  Francois ended up deciding to go, too, and together they convinced me to take the bus with them on Friday, the day before my class went.  This journey consists of taking a bus to Puntarenas, a ferry to Paquera, and then a bus to Montezuma.  Unfortunately, my cell phone does not have the clearest reception so I didn’t hear when Francois told me to go to the Coca Cola bus station instead of the Puntarenas station to catch the bus straight through to Montezuma at 2 pm.  This was further complicated by Chris being later than he expected and going straight to the Coca Cola station, but getting there a few minutes after Francois had left to come to the Puntarenas station since I was at the wrong one.  After much confusion, we were all at the Puntarenas station to take a bus around 2:40 pm to Puntarenas and make the journey piece by piece.  At 5:30 pm, we arrived at the bus station in Puntarenas only to hear that there was no point in taking the ferry that night because the only bus from Paquera to Montezuma is the bus that goes from San Jose, which caught the ferry at 5 pm.  After about 20 minutes trying to come up with a way to get from Puntarenas to Montezuma that night, we decided it could not be done within our means.  Since we knew that Julia and Corbi lived near the ferry, we decided to take a taxi there and then hunt down an internet café to try to contact them via Facebook about staying with them for the night so we could catch the ferry in the morning with the morning bus from San Jose.

When we got out of the taxi by the ferry, a man asked me if we were taking the ferry that night and I said no.  He then said something about a bus and I stopped and looked at him.  “What bus?”  “That bus over there.”  “Where is it going?”  “Montezuma, Mal Pais...”  “Wait, wait, wait.  There is a bus going to Montezuma tonight?”  At this point a man walks by and tells me that the bus missed the ferry at 5 pm and had to wait for the next ferry at 9 pm.  We can’t believe our luck, so we go over to the bus and talk to the driver and sure enough, we can get on the bus after taking the ferry to get to Montezuma.  At first we were worried that the bus missed the ferry because Chris had made it wait a few minutes back in San Jose, but it turns out they had a flat tire on the way and got to the dock just as the ferry was leaving.  While not really important, we were glad to know we were not about to get on a bus full of people who had missed the ferry because of us.  Instead, it was just bad luck for them, great luck for us!  We found internet, messaged Julia and Corbi that we had 3 hours to kill in Puntarenas, left them our phone numbers, and went across the street for some dinner.

When we walk in the restaurant, who do I see but a group of people from Veritas, including my friend, Kelsey, from my Spanish class back in October.  She starts hanging out with Francois, Chris, and me as I eat gallo pinto and scrambled eggs for dinner, with an Imperial, before we decide to walk the few blocks to the beach.  We get there and chill for a bit and then Julia calls, so we go and find her back by the ferry.  While we walk around with her, we meet these people who drove to Costa Rica from the US in a giant bus-van, and then happen upon Corbi.  We hang out some more, and then it is time to go back to the ferry to cross to the peninsula.  On the boat, they have music and lights and the sky is clearer than I’ve seen in a long time, so we dance and stargaze our way to Paquera.  Stoked off of our luck, we get on the bus and head for Montezuma.  However, one more bump along the way, we have to switch buses in Cobano and our new bus is belching black smoke so we have to go back and get on another new bus before making the last trek to Montezuma.

When we get to Luz en el Cielo, the hostel Chris’ friend recommended and that I now recommend wholeheartedly, it is 12:30 am so we ditch our stuff and head to the local bar, Chico’s.  After some dancing, we go out to the beach and watch the stars.  Chris mentions that he has never seen a shooting star and I tell him that if it is clear enough, you just have to look for a while and you will probably see one.  Well I think there must have been a meteor shower last weekend because we ended up seeing more shooting stars than I could count!  Since we were on the beach, I decided to take off my Rainbows (flip-flops), and left them next to Francois’ shoes by a rock.  After a while spent stargazing, he left, and then about half an hour later I left with Chris and his friend Sina.  However, I could not find my shoes.  The three of us combed the beach looking for them with no luck so I walked back barefoot, and I even went back around 8 the next morning but they still were not there.  I decided I would buy some new ones later that day.

At the bar the night before, Kelsey had asked Chris, Francois, and me if we wanted to go to the waterfalls with her, so that’s what we did.  This hike was probably the most untamed hike I have done.  There was barely a trail visible, so we jumped and climbed our way to the first of the three waterfalls.  As Kelsey said in her blog, it was like tree-root hopscotch!  The first waterfall ended up being so beautiful that we didn’t make it to the other two.  There was a rock that we could climb up and jump off of, and the weather was beautiful.  We took turns taking pictures with my camera, and Chris added to the rock towers off on the side.  After the waterfalls, we hiked back to town so I could meet my class for lunch.

Tree-root hopscotch

Jumping off the rock

Rock towers

At lunch, I learned that one of the girls in my class, Jackie, knew the girl who owns Luz en el Cielo (the hostel I stayed at) and so she came up with me after lunch to go hang out for a bit.  While there, I was talking about how I lost my shoes at the beach and had to buy overpriced flip-flops from one of the little touristy shops.  I went to dinner with my class, since all meals were included, then showered and met the guys back at the hostel.  Again, we went to Chico’s, and it was there that Jackie told me she thought she had found my shoes.  After I had been talking about them at Luz, she walked back to the hotel where our class was and found a pair of Rainbows sitting on a rock on the side of the road.  I still have no idea how they got from the beach to a rock a couple blocks away, but I got my shoes back.  This second stroke of amazing luck led Francois to decide that weird things happen around me.

Sunday morning, before my class left, I decided to stay for one more night at Luz with Chris and Francois and take the bus back to San Jose the next morning since I didn’t have class until 4.  The rest of my time in Montezuma consisted of meals with my class, hanging out at the beach and pool with them before they left, chilling at the hostel, and making the half hour trek to Playa Grande with a group of people staying at Luz.  Monday morning, I had to catch the bus at 6 am, so I got up a little early so I could watch the sunrise.  Well, waking up at 4:30 ended up being very easy since a pack of howler monkeys went by at 4:25 and made so much noise I am sure they woke up the entire hostel.  I said my goodbyes to Chris and Francois, and headed down to town in the dark to park myself on the beach with my camera and wait.  I am not a morning person, but this was definitely worth it.

Sunrise in Montezuma

Under the Sea

This post is about my PADI Open Water Certification.

Part One

While this was not originally in my study abroad plans, I have always wanted to get scuba certified.  I love snorkeling, so why wouldn’t I love scuba?  So when I saw that my university in Costa Rica, Universidad Veritas, offered a program to get certified, I decided to go for it.  It cost $525 (not a cheap hobby to pick up, is it...) and included the online theoretical course through PADI, the practical course with a PADI Dive Instructor, transportation to and from a Dive Center, 2 nights stay by the Dive Center, 2 breakfasts and lunches, and dive gear rental.  Looking back on it, I definitely could have done it cheaper, but oh well.  What’s done is done, and if Veritas didn’t have the program, I may not have done it so I guess I’m paying for the convenience that got me to actually take the plunge ;)

I gave myself 2 weeks to complete the online course before the weekend I had set aside with another girl to go do the practical portion of the course when we actually do the dives.  She had already done the theory part of the course and the confined water dives at home, and just needed to do the open water dives.  Oddly, we were the only two getting certified this semester at Veritas, so she was my dive buddy.  As for the online course, I ended up cramming almost all of it in to the week before we were leaving due partially to internet troubles and power outages, but due mostly to procrastination.

Punta Uva Dive Center

The university works with two dive centers: one in Quepos and one in Punta Uva.  Due to the heavy rains that week that actually made it impossible to get to Quepos and closed down the dive center, we went to Punta Uva (just south of Puerto Viejo).  Looking back on it, while Frederick was nice and seemed qualified to be our instructor, it seemed that he was not following all the rules I had learned about in my online course.  Anyway, funny story, he was staying at the same hotel as us and came to talk to us the night before to go over when and where to meet in the morning.  Then the next morning at breakfast, he must not have recognized us because he and his friend asked to sit with us, introduced themselves, and then proceeded to tell us about how drunk they had been the night before and how he had not slept much because his friend kept him out late despite protests that he had work in the morning.  When he introduced himself, we thought he had just forgotten our names from the night before, but then when we told him where we were staying, he said, “Oh, I’ve got a student named Anna who is staying there too”.  That was when we realized he didn’t recognize us as his students and told him that yes, that was me, Hannah, and we were his students for the day.  Of course, this made him blush and apologize and appear quite embarrassed.

After breakfast, we agreed to meet at the beach right out front in a bit to do the confined water dives.  He sized us up and called someone from the dive center to bring gear for us.  The weather was not great and it was raining, but as he pointed out, rain doesn’t matter much for scuba.  Wind matters because it stirs up the water, but that was not an issue until later.  Anyway, we completed the required tasks that are mostly comprised of practicing what to do in case something goes wrong in water shallow enough that you can stand up if you freak out.  As I expected, the part that freaked me out the most (and it is the part that freaks everyone out the most) was when I had to remove my mask under water and then put it back on and clear it.  I have always had issues with water getting in my nose, and it was even harder when I had to keep breathing through my mouth.  However, after many tries, a break when we did the other tasks, and then coming back to it, I was able to do it without a problem.  Hear that out there?  If you think you can’t get certified because of having to do that, I was able to get it so you can too :)

Giving the "OK" sign

 After the confined dives, we drove to Punta Uva for our first Open Water Dive.  Unfortunately, it was too windy and the water was so stirred up that we could barely see each other from only a few feet away.  We decided after that dive that we were done for the day and would resume on Sunday.  That night, I started feeling sick.  I called my instructor who said that we were not deep enough for it to be related to the diving, so I just tried to rest and hope I felt better in the morning.  I wasn’t feeling great the next day, but my instructor said I could try if I wanted to, so I decided to go for it.  This dive we actually saw some stuff.  We took pictures with the instructor’s camera, which I am still waiting to receive from him via e-mail...  (*I have them now!)  I was fine for most of the dive, but near the end we did a safety stop, where you stay about 5 meters under for 3 minutes to make sure the nitrogen properly dissolves out of your body.  While there is not much movement of the water near the bottom, at 5 meters you are definitely moving up and down with the waves.  Since I do get seasick sometimes and I was already not feeling good, this did not help.  I was fine, but I decided I couldn’t do another dive that day and would just have to finish my certification some other time.  Turns out I made a good choice because the water was rougher when they went out for the second dive, and the other girl who went with them got sick on the boat.  Due to the weather and time constraints, neither of us finished our certification that weekend, but that’s ok because I had a great time in Bocas del Toro, where I did finish it two weeks later.

Part Two

Since I came down here early, my stay in total is over 90 days, which is the limit on a tourist Visa.  This meant that I needed to leave the country at some point so that I would get a new Visa upon reentry.  I have heard great things about Nicaragua, but the political situation between Nicaragua and Costa Rica right now is not that great so I decided to go for Panama.  I had also heard great things about Bocas del Toro, the closest Panamanian tourist destination to Costa Rica, and I knew that they had dive centers there so I looked into finishing my certification at Starfleet Scuba.  Starfleet was recommended in my Let’s Go travel book, as well as by an office member at my university who dives a lot, and I have to agree that it is a great dive center.  It felt a lot more professional than the center in Punta Uva, while still being very chill and friendly.  Since I had done two Open Water Dives in Punta Uva, I only needed two more to complete my certification, but the center gave me a deal on four dives so I took it.

Saturday morning, I completed my Open Water Certification, along with two others who had been working on theirs there.  I am happy to say that when it came time to remove and replace my mask under deeper water, I had absolutely no problems!  An interesting part was when we had to practice a kind of emergency ascent used to safely ascend if you run out of air and your buddy is not close enough to give you their alternate regulator.  He had us go in order of who had the most air left.  I seem to be good at not using up my air quickly, so I was last, but one of the girls had to do it twice so I started running low.  In the Confined Dives, one thing you have to do is feel what it is like to run out of air.  Your instructor closes the valve and you wait until you feel that there is no air left, then you signal that you are out of air, and the instructor opens the valve.  During this, the air cut off pretty quickly which I found surprising and a little disconcerting.  However, during this dive, I learned that you in fact have a decent amount of time in which only the second half of each breath feels labored, but you can still breathe fine.  It did make my ascent more realistic in that I was actually running out of air, but I was more comfortable knowing that you actually can tell at least 5 minutes in advance that you are running low on air.  I don’t know how much longer I could have kept breathing from my tank, but I think there was still more time left before it actually ran out.

About to make my first dive as a certified Open Water Diver

Anyway, after the two dives, I filled out a card so that they could submit it to PADI and get my certification processed.  Funnily enough, I saw a new kind of typo in my name in the confirmation e-mail they sent me so I will have two cards: one correct, one incorrect.  Then on Sunday, I did two dives just for fun, as a certified Open Water diver!  I realized during these dives that not only is scuba cool because you can stay under the water and get a closer look at the fish and other marine life, but it is a completely different world with different laws of physics.  It was interesting discovering new ways of moving around in the water, and feeling like a part of the underwater world around me.  Sebastian sure got it right when he sang, “We got no troubles, life is de bubbles, under the sea!”