I strolled into town to find a bakery for coffee and something to eat before heading off. I also needed to work out where to head next as Sarapiqui wasn’t quite what I was expecting. It was a small Costa Rican town who clearly wasn’t used to having westerners traipsing down its main street and I did attract a few glances. As opposed to my lovely stay in Orosi Valley, these locals were somewhat more aloof towards strangers, although I did manage a few greetings my way.
I found a reasonably priced room at a hostel in nearby Chilemate from which rafting tours were run out of, so booked that. I was wanting to do a rafting tour somewhere in Costa Rica and this seemed like a good place to do it. Next, was to find a bus to get me there. Costa Rican buses are cheap, numerous and can get you most places. Whilst by no means modern, they are state of the art compared to the monolithic ex-US school bus hand-me-downs rumbling through the rest of Central America. I wandered down to the bus terminal and waited for the next bus to Chilemate.
I had asked the driver to let me know where to get off as the property was not in town. And so found myself stepping off outside a tiny store in the middle of nowhere. Across the rural road and down a bit was my lodgings for the night. I crossed over and wandered down. A rafting tour had just finished up and the group were dispersing to the changing rooms when I arrived. I checked in and was seen to my room. To my surprise, I found out I was the only one staying the night and hence had the whole place to myself. I thought I had booked an overpriced dorm bed, but it turned out I had the whole room to myself and the adjoining bathroom was technically my ensuite.
After to attending to a few things upstairs, I wandered down after about an hour to find the place deserted. The rafting group had had their lunch and left on their private shuttles and the staff had gone home. The main lobby area was locked up and I was quite by myself. After checking out the pretty gardens and the river which flowed just below, I decided it must be time for Happy Hour and hence needed to source cerveza. I walked back to the little shop I had walked from to find they didn’t sell beer. The hombre who checked me in had said there was a bigger shop in the other direction so decided to try that one.
The thing with rural Costa Rican roads is there isn’t any verge as such which makes walking on them quite hazardous to say the least. Butting hard up next to the traffic lane is usually vegetation and/or a steeply sloping incline. I had to eyeball oncoming traffic to determine whether or not it was going to veer slightly so as to not hit me or seek appropriate evacuation route. I always erred on the side of caution when it came to bigger vehicles such as trucks and buses, finding a safeish spot to move to until it passed. All the time hoping I wasn’t going to stand on one of the extremely venomous snakes that like to sleep in such places.
After a couple of kms, I found the store I had been referred to and bought my 1L bottle of beer to take back. Deftly dodging traffic again, I made it back in time for my self-designated Happy Hour. Or hours as it turned out. An on-site caretaker eventually turned up and went straight inside his quarters. Still it was a lovely place to just chill and listen to the sounds of birds, monkeys and the rippling river.
Wild Woman Wandering 