Day 42 (Travel Day from La Fortuna back to San Jose)

On my own again!  A strange relief or calm washes over me with this realization.  After weeks spent with my new found friends in Xela and then 7 days spent being a tourist with my friend from the Bay Area I find myself solo once more.  I feel almost as though I have a fresh start, an opportunity to really dive in and get serious about my Spanish study without the distractions of other people, travel, and tourism.  Many times in the past I have had a similar sense of relief after having long-term visitors to my apartment in Chicago before a different sort of sadness and loneliness sets in.  Perhaps this will come again, memories of my feelings when I first started in Antigua or Xela not being too far in the past.  But for now, I feel a sense of relief at only being responsible for myself.  To not have to feel left out or like I should be hanging out with the other people I am with.

April was off again this morning at 8am.  She was off to Monteverde to see the cloud forest and I continue to count my pennies, trying to save them up for the expensive language schools of Costa Rica and Panama.  I had wanted to get back to San Jose to attend a Contact Improv Jam in the afternoon, but alas, the first bus back didn't leave until 1pm.  Therefore, I had another slow morning spent in the same coffee shop with my latte with chocolate syrup spelling out "latte" where I recopied some of my Spanish notes into a newly purchased notebook.

On the bus, I spent time thinking about how similar this trip has been to my drum corps days.  All the buses, lugging my stuff from place to place.  Being exhausted enough to be able to sleep in any condition (noisy, light, bad mattress, co-ed dormitory).  The last two mornings in the hostel having made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at the complimentary breakfast, just like when I was in drum corps.  Even the juice tasting like our kool-aid/tang mixtures.  Looking out the bus window, seeing a field as very similar to the many we practiced on throughout the US, imagining our field lining crew getting up bright and early to turn it into our practice field.

It makes me wonder if those days spent touring the US in drum corps was the impetus for my love of international travel.  I wonder if there is a higher proportion of us drum corps veterans that become international explorers in comparison to the rest of the American population.  For me, I'd only made it one summer past my age-out year before obtaining my first passport, an incredibly fast 10 years ago almost to the day returning from my first international trip to China.

As this bus ride continued and continued and continued it became more and more clear that I wouldn't be getting back in time for even the last hour of the Contact Improv Jam.  Once we finally arrived at the bus terminal I tried calling my homestay to come pick me up from the pay phone.  At the second approach of a taxi driver trying to "help" I finally seceded and allowed him to call him from his cell phone since the pay phones did not seem to be working.

Turns out my homestay family was at a beach for the weekend and would not be returning until 5pm the next day.  After some argument about which one to take me to (both the taxi driver and my homestay host spoke no English, both the call and discussion with the driver afterward was all done only in Spanish), the taxi driver took me to the hostel of my choosing which was nearby.  He ended up overcharging me for using his phone but at least the hostel had space and was relatively reasonably priced though somewhat cold and industrial feeling.  I spent the evening hanging out there, eating their terrible fajitas and having a beer at their rooftop bar.