Best. Bus. Ride. Ever

So the bus ride from Monte Verde to Cabo Blanco was...interesting.  We loaded all our bags on the roof, piled in the bus, and our driver starts tearing down the roads of Monte Verde.  I don't think I've mentioned the road conditions or the taxi drivers here yet, so I'll take a quick bunny trail.  (inside joke)

The roads around Monte Verde are odd.  In Santa Elaina, they are mostly paved, and in about as good a condition as Alajuela.  Just outside the city, however, they are all dirt.  Even up to many of the tourist hot spots, they're all dirt.  And rough.  Think about what happens when you have all that water coming down onto dirt roads, collecting into potholes that never get filled.  Very primitive.  So the taxis all have to be 4 wheel drive.  And diesel, because there's no gas station in Santa Elaina, which is on top of a mountain.  The nearest gas station is at the bottom of the mountain.  And yes, there's taxi service in the mountians, mostly to service the tourists.  Anyway, they drive about as crazy as the one's in town, but they're in 4x4 mode so they can take these massive potholes at whatever speed they dang well please.

Apparently our bus driver must have been a former cab driver, because he literally raced down the mountain, flinging us all over the back seat.  But he was really cool.  He stopped and let us get out and take pictures of a troop of howler monkeys that were hanging out above the road.  But the best part was his iPod.  There is this song that somehow before the bus ride became our group's song.  Well, it just happened to be the first song on our cool bus drivers iPod.  We rocked all the way down the mountain, to the ferry, and then from the ferry to Cabo Blanco.  At one point, he was letting Alex play other people's iPods on his stereo.  Here's some photos of our dance party in the back of the bus.

Updated! Culture Museum and the Streets of Alajuela

Even though I'm now in Monteverde, I still have tons of stuff to write about from the first two weeks of our trip.  Now that I have decent Internet access and a good computer to work with, I'm going to play a little catch-up.  First up is the culture museum in downtown Alajuela.

Costa Rica's George Washington is a guy named Juan Santamaria.  You can read a bunch about him here, but suffice it to say that he fought against some Imperialist American trying to conquer all of Latin America.  The museum has all sorts of artifacts from the war, but what was really cool was what you could see from the roof.  There was an elevator that took us up there, and from there I got some really good shots of the streets of Alajuela.  Take a look here and take notice of how different things are from the streets you drove down today.  Typically, there are 10 times more cars and 100 times more people, but it still gets the point across.

Edit: Must.....sleep....will post.....pictures.....latezzzzzZZZZzzzzz.....

Double Edit: Finally got some pictures up for this post.  Follow the link above.

Driving in Costa Rica

I have to tell you guys about driving here in Costa Rica.  If you think LA rush hour traffic is bad, you should come see Costa Rican's drive.  I am no longer afraid to teach my girls to drive, because I have been completely desensitized to crazy driving.  Lanes, speed limits, stop signs, street lights, when they exist are merely suggestions to a Costa Rican driver.  If they need to pass you, they will, if it takes driving on the sidewalk, the other lane, passing stopped school buses that are letting out kids, whatever.  Pedistrians do not have the right of way.  In fact, the only right of way they have to to get out of the WAY RIGHT now.

So you'd think that with all the crazy driving, there must be massive death rates, accidents, and rampant road rage.  Nope.  They are crazy, but careful.  They know the limits of their skill, which surpasses most NASCAR drivers, and the limits of their cars. I have yet to see an accident, an angry driver, or anything else.  But it is the best e-ticket ride you will ever buy.

I rode in the front seat of a cab the other day, and held on for dear life.  Brakes are for stopping RIGHT NOW, not gently coming to a stop.  And buses, holy cow, buses.  Imagine the same kind of driving attitude, but moving a several ton vehicle.  Since they are so big, they have automatic right of way.  I was almost ran over by one when my group crossed a street against the light. Es stupido Americano!

There's no maximum occupancy on the buses.  The bus was so full coming back from a field trip that this one dude had to stand in the stairwell entrance.  And this moring, a guy was sitting on the dashboard.  Standing room only is the norm here.

More later, stay tuned!