So yes, Dave and Courtney came to our rescue. However things didn't quite go to plan. Originally they were going to do the Sky Trek zip lines and be back at the Kokoro by 10:30am. We started to worry when they still hadn't returned at 11:30am. Felico made a call and it turned out that they were last in line of a huge group of people who had all decided to do Sky Trek today, hence there was a major delay. Great!
Amber was making me laugh. Her highly organised mind couldn't really cope with the concept of wasting all that precious time so she got quite anxious and couldn't concentrate on anything until they turned up. I think she needs a few more days to readjust to the 'pura vida' attitude of the locals! I'm a natural to this way of life, so I devoted this time to nursing my horrendous hangover in one of the hammocks.
Our chauffeurs finally got back at 12:45pm and we were on the road shortly afterwards. Unfortunately Felico had gone off on an errand, so we didn't get to say goodbye, but I have a feeling we'll see him again.
The drive to Nicoya around Lago Arenal was spectacular. This was especially the case once we'd broken out of the clouds and were looking at brilliant blue water and green hills bathed in sunshine.
We had quite an eventful journey. Firstly we saw a big pack of coatis rooting around in the mud at the side of the road. They are really rather cute with their long snouts, endearing brown eyes and lemur-like tails, pointing vertically into the air. They are Costa Rica's euivalent to the raccoon. Dave and Courtney were amused at the thought of anyone stopping the traffic to photograph raccoons in Canada!
The second event was less nice. The well-surfaced road was great, but the bends and last nights excessive drinking meant we had to pull over so I could make the necessary adjustment to the churning contents of my stomach. Amber commented that she was thinking something was wrong, as I had been so quiet for so long. She knows me too well.
The final hiccough of this leg of our trip was getting pulled over by a policeman for speeding. We were so unlucky because we'd been stuck behind a really slow truck for ages and had just got to a straight to overtake (which we did) and then got flagged down. The policeman was living up to stereotype i.e. a total crook. He got Dave out of the car and told him the fine was $400! Dave doesn't speak Spanish so I went to rescue him. It turned out that the policeman wanted $40 to not write the ticket. I smiled and asked him if he'd take less, he said sure, I said how much, he said to suggest a figure, we said $20, he said yes. Job done. My pigeon Spanish was even up to asking him to prove he hadn't written down any of Dave's details. I went through his whole notebook. All good.
We said our goodbyes to Dave and Courtney by the bus terminal in Nicoya. They refused to let us pay them the $20, despite our beat efforts. People can be so amazingly helpful, it restores you faith in humanity.
We found a helpul Tico in the terminal who caught the same bus as us. He was an English teacher who lives in Santa Cruz and he was on his way home for the day. He told us were to get off and even walked us to the next bus station to pick up a bus towards the coast, by which time it was 5:30pm.
The bus to Tamarindo was at 7:00pm so we had to hang around, but in the end we caught an earlier bus to Matopalo, which the friendly bus driver told us was plenty near to Playa Grande. It gets better: We had no idea what our stop would look like or anything, so kept asking people on the bus where we were, but we needn't have worried because the driver had called a taxi driver friend of his and literally stopped the bus next to his friend's car so we could hop off the bus and straight into the cab! It's no lie that Costa Ricans are, for the most part, really lovely people.
The taxi drove us to Ripjack Inn where we had a quick dinner before collapsing into bed, totally exhausted and grateful that what could have been a nightmare journey had gone so smoothly and only cost us $20!
Surf's up tomorrow.
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