Travelling South - Costa Rica by Bus

Monday 30th July - Tuesday 31st July

Hi Guys! Beth and Stephie speaking :-)

Got up at half five on Monday :-) everyone was blooming knackered so it took us a while to organise everything and get ready for the travel day ahead. Gilbeth’s wife made us a final breakfast of pancakes!! Buzzdog! We then fed Capechio one last leaf and said our teary goodbyes, Beth was especially sad as she didn’t see the doat on the final day :-). The bus came soon afterwards and thankfully the stop was just outside Gilbeth’s home so we didn’t have to walk with both our packs. The first bus was a two hour journey sped along by the spectacular views of Costa Rica. Our first stop was at Santa Cruz where we transferred to another bus for another spectacular ride where the main topic was again bears!

We finally arrived in San Jose four hours later, where we had to walk nine whole blocks with Alex in a back to front sun cream stained t-shirt on and swimming trunks(which he has sported for a few days now!) we got to hostel Pangea safely with the help of a police escort as the surrounding area of the bus station was slightly dangerous (but don’t worry Pangea is secure!) After some people went to change money and go to the supermarket to buy breakfast for the next morning we ordered our tea from the hostel. The lonely planet guide says that Pangea makes the best burgers in San Jose, we were all starving so the burgers couldn’t come quick enough! The ‘world famous pangeaburger’ consisted of two beef patties, bacon, cheese, pickles, lettuce, tomatoes and served with chips!!!!!!!!!!!! For $2 :-)

After tea we all got ready for bed as it was a very long day. We finally had a hot shower and felt clean for the first time in what seemed like months! As we were going to bed we realised Beth and Jenny looked very suspicious as they were giggling as we walked in, turns out they bought a secret selfish carrot cake to eat themselves! But karma got them as what looked like a generous helping of butter icing all over the cake turned out to be cream cheese! Bleugh! :-)

As the girls all settled into bed we realised how early we had to be up and went to sleep.

This morning was an even earlier start as Ella’s alarm woke us at half four, everyone looked zombie-like as we had around five hours sleep!! But somehow we were all ready for half five. We all had to get into groups of threes and fours to get taxis to the bus station. Four of our taxi groups ended up at the wrong station as there turns out to be more than one coca-cola station. Cliff, Danny, Alice and Jenny however ended up at the correct station only to realise we weren’t there. We had to get more taxis which took us to the right station and the group was finally reunited safely. As we realised we were over an hour early we made our breakfast in the street, we had bread and nutella or laughing cow cheese. The bus finally arrived and we all got a seat for the nine hour bus journey ahead. The bus journey seemed longer than nine hours but we spent our time singing, sleeping and eating.

When we finally arrived in Puerto Jimenez the owner of the hostel greeted us and showed us the way to our accommodation for the next two nights.

Our Tea was made in the trangias outside the hostel and made rice and a Bolognese type dish with wraps which filled everyone up nicely! After all the washing up was done an early night is needed after the last travel days.

Finally HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! love you! Hope you had a fab day, and I hope you save me birthday cake:-)))) love Steffi Stough! Xxxxx

Helped by Bethan Roberts