So folks...
After a great day at the hotsprings in Panama yesterday, I felt the need to Ramble on back to Costa Rica for my final week. Hit the beach at Dominical, make it to Quepos. Maybe more.
So I got up early, packed, grabbed breakfast, paid the 24 bucks for the 4 nights I spent at Pension Merilos... yep, thats for all 4 nights. And hoped on the 1 hour chicken bus to David. From there it was right onto the 1 and a half hour mid size bus to the border. There I got stamped, walked through the crowds of semi trucks idling and people all over to the costa rican side. Had to wait 2 hours plus for the next bus after getting my passport stamped.
So i chilled, wrote in my journal, watched people, saw a tvshow called ¨"Cycling the Americas" roll through, and got on my bus. Well, its a bus to San Jose, but I´m only going 4 hours to Dominical. There was much confusion about the ticket, and how to get it, and ended up just paying the driver 8 bucks to take me.
So I had a great seat, with window control (always important on buses to keep the temp comfy), and away we go. Rain rain rain and more rain comes. A washed out road that we skirted around. All good.
Then they load more folks on the bus, and fill it up, and for some reason I was forced to give up my seat for the last 1 and a half hours to someone going all the way to San Jose. Don´t know why. I stood in the stairwell at the back, and listend to music. Not a big deal.
After the food stop, I put my dayback up in the luggage rack above the seats so it wasn´t on the now muddy floor. We drove another hour. It rained a lot.
THen the driver pulled over at an intersection in the middle of nowhere. He pointed at me, said "domincal", and we hopped out. He was in a hurry to get my big bag from under the bus. I was trying to figure out where the hell I was supposed to go, since there was no town there. He kept telling me to get on another bus to San Isidro, but I don´t want to go there. But that is where I would have gone to get to Domincal if the main highway was open, which it isn´t because of all the rain. So he hands me my backpack, jumps on the bus and it drives away.
I look around for a minute, trying to get my barings. Theres someone on the curb. Theres some tourists feeding monkeys at a roadside stand. I think "I best look in the lonely planet to get my bearings", reach for my dayback which is normally on my chest when I carry my big bag... and you can see where this is going...
FUCK ME I LEFT IT ON THE BUS!!!!!!!
" FUck1 Fuck!" I run after it, but it´s long gone.
Fuck.
So I try to wave down a car to take me after it. THen the tourists walk toward their van and I run up and ask if they speak english: they do, they ARE english. ANd tell them whats up. The tourists were cool, the guide at first was like " we don´t take other travelers"
"But all my shits in that bag" I say.
"Okay, lets go".
SO I hop in and for some reason the bus is like lighting and gone. We chase it for 40km, trying to find it, and never see a sign of it. At first I was hopeful, then I realized the tour driver isn´t a maniac on rainy roads like the bus driver, so fuck me... bags gone.
So the tour drops me off on the side of the road outside Quepos in the rain. Tell me I can grab a bus into town and catch a 6pm express to San Jose (and it´s now 5:15).
I stand at the bus stop... pissed at my amateur hour travel. I NEVER put shit in the top rack, only amateur travelers do that. But with no seat and all I made a dumb choice. A car pulls up and will take me to town for 3 bucks. I do it. Hoping hes not a serial killer. Hes not.
He drops me at the Quepos bus station in the rain. There is no bus tonight to san Jose. And no one speaks English to help out. So I duck into a convenience store, the clerk doesn´t speak English, but her friend Christopher does. He offers to call TRACOPA bus lines. Fortunately I´d taken a picture of the bus at the bus stop because a doggy was standing by it in the rain. Since I had no ticket, this is the only way we got the bus number. Lizbeth at the other end was helpful. We described the bag, where it would be, etc. The bus gets in at 9:30 pm, so she´ll meet the driver and hopefully get it...
...I´ll manifest that it´s just fine and we will.
So I took the bus to Manuel Antonio, about 3km from QUepos, checked into a backpacker place with a view... but it´s dark, so we´ll see tomorrow. And we´re supposed to call at Noon tomorrow about the bag.
So I´m either gonig to San Jose to pick it up tomorrow, or not... I don´t know.
I was just thinking to myself that travel in Costa Rica and Panama has been so easy ,that it´s so familiar and safe and that the next trip should be something with big time culture shock like India.
OR
I can just make the trip hard and lose my dayback like an amateur and get stuck in the rain.
Oh boy!
Craigo
PS: I should note whats in the bag. Not the money or cards or passports. Not even the ipod, since it was in my pocket, or the camera. Which is lucky. It´s my hat, the bag itself, my rain coat, my LonelyPlanet book, my RUINS book that I´m reading, my headlamp, pocket knife, toilet paper (yep Olga and Tom, gotta have it), and the worst thing to lose, the Journal... yikes. Fortunately I have all these updates, but you don´t think I put everything in these do you?
PPS: Wish me luck!
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