today was our return trip to san jose via the local bus. the tix were about six dollars and the bus left the terminal at 12:30, so we had some time to kill. we decide to head back to cafe milagro and have breakfast. we had another bee encounter that drove us inside. while eating breakfast, i spotted another misspelling on a huge advertisement. come on! you spend thousands of dollars to get the thing printed or whatever, pasted to a billboard and pay for the space. the least you can do is double check the spelling.

We returned to the hotel to pack and headed to the bus terminal.

the belgians meet us there and we stood on the corner waiting for our bus to arrive. isn’t the bus terminal exciting?

Karel mentioned that we could have rented a van to take us back to San Jose instead of taking the bus since there were five of us. So, John offered up the idea to ask the taxi van across the street how much it would cost to transport us to San Jose. Dee, the negotiator, was recruited to ask. She came back with 140 total, but she said she could talk him down to 120 if we wanted, which would make the overall price 24 per person. yes, yes, please go, we urged. the driver had followed her and was standing almost behind her. so, she asked, he nodded and we were now styling in a comfy ride all the way to san jose.

guess what type of music the driver played. why 80s of course! dee and i agreed that the driver was playing the music to be polite to the foreigners, but we really didn’t know. i wanted to be a fly in the car when he is by himself. he probably plays the music and tries to sing along in a funny accent.

we stop briefly at a

convenience store for a bathroom and food break. the ride had been great so far. the one way bridge was a bit of a wait, but nothing too ridiculous. along the way, i spotted more

growing fences.

the way to san jose is through mountainous terrain. the road twisted and curved and at one point, you couldn’t even see

the car in front of you cause of the fog.

the fog quickly disappeared and we were heading down the mountain to san jose. as we pull up to La Amistad, it was apparent the taxi paid off. the taxi arrived an hour and a half early, we had A/C, comfy seats and 80s music.

we paid the driver and handed him our bus tix; maybe he could give them to someone. we checked in at the hotel and got a room, which john had been teasing dee and me to do from the beginning of the trip. see, we finally got a room.

the belgians were excited because today they would see their daughter, named Charlotte, who they haven’t seen in several months. Charlotte had choosen to volunteer for every type of project in Costa Rica, from working on a plantation to working in a hospital. we were impressed and shocked when we learned she was only 19. they were planning to meet up with her and then spend another few weeks exploring costa rica with her.
so, we dropped our bags off in the room and headed into town in search of food and whatever else. San Jose is an interesting city. it has beautiful parks with statues and interesting art. the architecture on some of the buildings was

colonial and ornate. some of the alleys looked ancient with old, decaying buildings offering a romantic side to the city. however, overall, san jose is not a pretty place. i couldn’t put my finger on why until john verbalized it. he commented that san jose looked like a city that had its hay day (the climax of fun and prosperity) back in the 40s or 50s. since then it became very functional and not pretty with graffiti and

decay everywhere. there was very little romance to the city. Monterrey, Mexico looked similar. john commented that cities in venezuela and africa looked the same. functional, not pretty.

we walked down the central avenue looking for food. the central avenue was pedestrian traffic only and the stores were not that intriguing. it was hard to find something in costa rica that you wanted to buy unlike thailand where we overspent on stuff. dee had had enough and was dizzy from hunger. so we settled on quizno’s (yep, same restaurant in US).

after quizno’s, we headed back to the hotel to relax and for me to finally get my hands on some fast internet. i had been dying to finally plug into a fast connection. i wrote for about an hour until dee and john showed up. i had been waiting for them because i wanted us to go through the photo shoot pics to decide which ones would go on the site. dee wanted almost all of her pics on the site. john was completely opposite. he selected a handful of pics despite dee’s insistence on putting more.

As we were going through the pics, Denise and Belinda from the group showed up. Denise and Mary were having severe issues with American Airlines. Mary missed her connection in Atlanta and had to spend the night there. Denise’s flight from SJ was cancelled, and even though she had checked in early, they didn’t rebook her for the later flight. So, she had to come back to La Amistad to stay an extra night. Belinda was waiting on friends before she took off for Argentina.

Denise told us we were lucky/smart to have taken a taxi to SJ because the bus was horrible. the bus driver went so fast through the mountainous curvy roads that it made a member of another GAP group traveling on the bus throw up out the window.

It was getting close to time to leave to meet D.A.D. so we said goodbye to Denise and Belinda and headed for the showers. More like dee and john went to the showers, i stayed behind to continue working on the site.

They got purdy and we head to a club called Discotec La Avispa somewhere in downtown SJ. As we pull up, the sign for the club shows it is a gay club with six hexagons arranged in a circle each a different color of the rainbow. It was also a sign that they played decent house music. I was excite to see what a Costa Rican club was looked like.
When we reached the door, John turned to me and said, “sounds promising.” He was referring to the music, not the bouncers or other gay men hanging around, because there was a groovy beat emanating from the place. We entered, paid the cover of 3 dollars, and proceeded into the main room. the place was filling up and

loads of people were dancing on a secondary dance floor. the main dancefloor that was raised was empty. the place had two levels with the second level being a balcony to the first and also extending into the back with a bar and chairs and tables. in the far corner, it had a garden with a waterfall. it was a nice place with tons of different lights and lasers,

disco balls, lots of places to dance and a big bar.
D.A.D. wasn’t there when we arrived, so we grab some drinks and head for the balcony waiting for them. we spotted some drag queens parading through the crowds, a really weird lesbian? looking woman/man that when stood in front of us at the bar about crashing into me as she/he was leaving, a guy wearing a new york soul shirt, a guy wearing a detroit shirt, and barely any women. the music was good and i started dancing a bit with dee. john and dee poised for a pic while we waited. * WPG2 CANNOT LOCATE GALLERY2 ITEM ID 6354 *

D.A.D. showed up and we tried our hardest to yell at them but with no such luck. the guy next to them saw us and tapped alex on the shoulder. we waved at each other and they motioned they would come up to join us on the balcony. it was cool seeing them again and we attempted to talk amidst the music. dee got the itch to start dancing, so we headed down to the dance floor. the secondary dance floor was empty since everyone had relocated to the main, raised dance floor.

i got a great video of dee and john dancing. alex shied away from the video when john pointed out what i was doing. check it out here. for some reason, the DJ stopped with the house music and switched to reggaeton. ugh. it was painful. so, giovanni, little dee and wren3 start taking pics of ourselves. i was using the speaker as a stand for the camera and a timer, but it didn’t work out. the black guy behind john works at the club and is about to tell john to not put anything on the speaker.* WPG2 CANNOT LOCATE GALLERY2 ITEM ID 6360 * so, instead we just held the camera and took this pic. * WPG2 CANNOT LOCATE GALLERY2 ITEM ID 6363 *

D.A.D. had disappeared so we went searching for them. Alex had found his current boyfriend up on the second floor, which is where everyone else was. alex’s boyfriend had a friend who dee started dancing with. i think dee wore him out cause john stepped in, or was he dragged in, to take over. i got some great videos of them dancing here. the next one is another video of them as well.

anyways, we had to wake up really early for john to catch his 7AM flight and our 6:30AM bus to Puerto Viejo, so we left early. it was great seeing D.A.D. again and we exchanged info and planned to look each other up if we were ever in the same city.

on the way back, we took a taxi and mistakenly forgot to ask him to turn the meter on. once we arrived at La Amistad, he named a ridiculous price of 2000 colonnes (4 dollars). it only cost us 1000 to get there. i got pissed off for being taken advantage of, but what could i do; i yelled asshole as he drove away. dee wasn’t happy about that, but i was pissed.

anyways, i let it go and head off to bed.