Puerto Viejo and San Jose

Well a lot has occurred on this fantastic excursion... note to self... dont trust a soul and always pack lighter than i did on this trip. our hotel in arenal was quite magnificent and boy do we miss it now... our final day in arenal consisted of school, graduation (yes nat and i graduated with 100% in medical class and regular class, we have papers to prove) we then drank our last vanilla cafe freeze from our favorite abuelos at down to earth.. headed for the hotsprings with our friends Ruj and Menai, then off to lava lounge where we ate the most amazing meal... omg... we were kicking ourselves for not eating there sooner. it was beyond amazing... things were looking up... until... a four and a half hour drive to puerto viejo... just think of thousands of bob marly fans, pot and peace signs everywhere and a beautiful beach with 3 ft of sand between the water and palm trees. we arrived at our hotel excited and ready for an amazing stay at a great place... i am not sure we wrote this earlier... but we met some friends at school during our first week that told us that we could stay at this place with them for 25 dollars a nite because their original friends were not going anymore... they were going to tell the owners that we were coming a week late... we emailed them and then showed up
little did we know that puerto viejo is a hoping town that was completely booked that night... seriously, nat and i walked for a good hour, sweating profously looking for a place to stay... no vacancy, no vacancy, no vacancy... finally a nice woman called numerous places for us... one place was available... at this point we didnt care what is was, how much it cost, or whatever... we just wanted a place to lie down... we were told this was a great place... 30 dollars a nite, warm water, great bungalow... the owner, gloria was outstanding and so wondering... the place, not so wonderful... lets just say there were huge black ants all over... all over my bed... i just didnt look at them, freaked out inside and headed out. no air conditioning, no pool, no tv... nothing we expected... yet again. we also had to find a bank, waited in line for like 30 min, then we just had to sit and drink coke and have pizza. gross pizza... this is when we let it all out... nat just confessed that she just wanted to go home. and we both cried... the waitress came up for our order and we just had huge tears running down our faces... instantly we started laughing and after she left, we cried. and we cried some more over gross pizza. it really was funny... but we had it in our minds we were done... we would rather pay money to fly home early than be in costa rica... luckily our parents calmed us down... we booked the soonest bus out of the town... took 2 benadryl each and fell asleep at 10 pm and woke up at 8 am. dont worry i killed the ants as usual, pushed our beds together and had a mosquito net surround us... didnt help much as nat i woke up with about 10 new bites the next morning. we did have some time to lay by the beach, which really was beautiful... we swam in a hole in the middle of coral which was also pretty cool and watched a bunch of people smoke pot in front of us... what a day...
it just got better too... i say that sarcastically... we jumped in our shuttle and realized the wrong day was booked for our trip from san jose to manuel antonio... in costa rica, they dont care what happened, if you change it, you pay twice... i was livid... one more thing... if that isnt bad... natalie had hundreds of ants in her backpack because of the food we had brought with us. i was in tears yet again... luckily natalies mom got us a travel agent that is there for us for anything... he is our man and trust me when i tell you we have talked to him more times than you can think in the past two days... we are now at an amazing hotel that we love, enjoyed independence day in costa rica, and are ready to leave for a spectacular hotel in manuel antonio... what makes it even better is that our friends from london are meeting us tomorrow. things are looking up again... what a rollercoaster of a trip... and a rollercoaster of emotions... thanks to our parents who helped us through it all... i am embarrassed this has all occurred. i think it is me... i know for next time... if there is one