Chips and Shelbys

We left San Jose on friday and had to endure a 4 and half hour bus trip to Monteverde. The bus driving stopping so often to let on locals who didn't pay, the seats that were made for midgets with a lovely metal bar as a head rest and barely any leg room. 2hours in and i got car(bus) sick.. well almost, i got that lovely salty taste in my mouth and had a paper bag in hand. the road for the last hour and half was a dirt road up a mountain pass with a drop on the other side. chris's words of comfort were "if a bus had gone over and people had died we would have read about it in lonely planet". hmmm. we made friends with a french couple who also came here from san jose and were staying at the same hostel as us there. she told us about a good hostel she had stayed at here so we were going to stay there. as soon as we got off the bus we were surrounded by men all shoving pamphlets at us and trying to get us to stay at there hostel. tony won the fight. 7 usa dollars a night each in a private room,free internet and free breakfast(although the pancake mix was only there the first day). friday we started out late as chris was feeling ill and weak. we took a walk to the ecological sanctuary and did a short hike there. 9 dollars enterance fee and well sign posted trails. we went to the 3 look out points but skipped the waterfalls as it was a steep climb back up. at the one look out post we were so busy looking at the view we almost didn't notice a coati! the basically these cute looking animals that are a mixture of a racoon, opossum and anteater. their tails are held extremely high and when the digging for grubs in the long grass you just see the tails standing up. every hostel we stay in seems to have the token american couple . we have named the men chip and the women have all sorts of names from shelby to kelsey. we are up to about chip number 5 now. my personal favourite quote is from a young couple from san diego "wow the hike was like so super steep and muddy, but when we got up there it was awesome and like you could see the volcanoe and a bunch of other things. we like played hacky sack and ate some mango then these awesome costarican guys came and talked to us and like gave us some avocado with this like spicey stuff and lemon it was awesome!". there is also a possibly gay older american couple who are so scared of the water they cooked pasta in about 2 litres of kindof expensicve bottled mineral water. our second night we missplaced the key well i left it by the computer and chris didn't know so he didnt pick it up. we then realised this at 9ish and it was too late as porkticia (the not so friendly young lady at reception) knocks off the moment it hits 9 and closes up the lounge area., computers, tv and kitchen. so we had to break into the room by removing window pains and me getting thrown in! at least we got in even if i have a few bruises! yesterday we just chilled as i have the squirts but not too badly yet. today is sunny and nice so not sure what we will do. we leave here tomorrow at 4 20am and head to granada nicaragua.xx