Uvita, Costa Rica

I have arrived. Let me start by saying I am grateful for the wonderful people we have met thus far and the people who have helped get us here to Uvita. It has definitely been a journey. It was all made worth it by waking up this morning drinking fantastic cafe con leche while watching monkeys hop amongst the trees. I am writing this as I'm laying in a hammock listening and watching the downpour of rain in the forest all around me. The story starts here: On Tuesday Steve drops myself and Michelle off at the airport blaring a Latin American Pandora station to get us in the mood. We fly to Denver and then into Houston. We are set to fly into San Jose that evening. But we take the offered flight, meal & hotel vouchers to fly out the next day. Cocktail in the airport and hotel then bed is how the night ended. Next morning we have a layover in Panama and I can't stop singing "panama... Panamaha. " We get into San Jose arriving later than we had hoped. A lady at the airport gives us a map and directions to where we can catch a bus to Uvita. (Uvita is where we are now, the town in which we signed up to volunteer for a few weeks) We take the public transit, the only foreigners who do so (now I understand why) and then hoof it the next however many calles y avenidios. Navigating through the crowded streets, with our gigantic backpacks we are no doubtedly smacking everything. We end up having to ask in broken Spanglish some policeman what calles or avenidios we are on because it seems only some of the streets are marked and the ones that are you have to find what building and side has the marking on it. I made the observation that having at least one good looking policeman in every group must be mandatory. As we make our way to this station we notice the surrounding areas start to look more and more shitty. The sky is also getting darker. We started to walk down a street a man in a truck stops shakes his head veheminately "no!" and points to go down further up the block. Who knows what awaited us down that street? Nothing good that is for sure. We finally find this bus stop, which seems to be in some sort of park area. Some dude yells a slang word "tortilleras" which I remembered meant lesbians. We sit down and try to figure out what bus we are looking for and what time it's supposed to come. All the while feeling a bit uneasy with the amount of creepers in the area. We get a hold of one of our contacts from Cascada Verde (where we are volunteering) and he lets us know we are in the wrong area and that there most likely isn't a bus for tonight. At this point a lady comes up to us and asks if we speak Spanish. I'm just barely learning the language and Michelle is not fluent, so the lady speaks to us in the English that she knows and tells us that we need to get out of this area that it is not safe, that there are bad people. We thank her perfusely and decide we are going to need to stay in a hostel in San Jose overnight. We end up hailing a taxi and going to Costa Rica Backpackers hostel. The area looked shitty surrounding it but our travelbook recommended it and we were in need of finding a place to settle in for the evening. This place was pretty chill and we had a dorm room for 8 all to ourselves. There was a bar/restaurant attached to the place so we didn't have to leave to get what we were craving...beer. Food was good that night and in the morning and so was the coffee. The only downside was I got a phrase book [that had been really helpful] stolen. So we are up to Thursday Morning. We take a taxi to where the real terminal is only to find we missed the direct bus to Uvita and that we would have to wait 6 hours for the next. There was no way we were going to stay in San Jose any longer than we had to so we decided to take a bus to Quepos. Our travel book said there was a bus from there to Uvita. No one there spoke English so all the ticket buying and getting on the bus was done in what little Spanish we knew and hand gestures. Thank you Michelle. That bus ride I was so stoked. Woohoo! Get me the eff out of San Jose!!! The surroundings changed from dirty city to beautiful lush green! Oh and at that bus station we met some pretty hott Swedish guys that let us get on the bus in front of them. "After you Idaho". One of them was wearing a "stop wars" in the same letter style as StarWars. Once we get to Quepos we find out there isn't a bus to Uvita. Or so they say. So we eat at this funny little place and drink horchata. I figure out we need to go to Domincal and from there we can get to Uvita. So we find out we have to pay on the bus. Problem is we aren't quite sure which bus we need to get on. While waiting we meet some dude from Montana who used to used to live in Boise. As the time approaches for when the bus to Dominical was supposed to leave we stand up and try to figure out which bus it'll be, a kid from America who is grouped with other kids(young adults) from all over the world approaches us and through him we figure out we are supposed to get in the same bus as them. *ill finish the story to here later. I'm tired. ;) I also wrote this through my phone and so it´s a little messed up...don´t judge me too harshly.