Puerto Viejo, Round 2!

Two weekends ago now (please excuse my tardiness on blogging), my roommates and I went to Puerto Viejo! The six of us packed up and went on our own! The previous weekends we had all been going with our programs, so this was going on a limb traveling by ourselves. It was quite the adventure, if you want to put it that way! It wasn't too bad on the way there, but the way back was a mayhem, but more on that later... Four of us arrived early - Elizabeth, Anabel, Tyana, and I - around 4 or 5pm. We made our way to the hostel we were to stay at for the weekend, which was about a 10 minute walk from town. The walk was absolutely beautiful through the rain forest along the coast. We stayed at Rocking J's, a crazy unique hostel - full of mosaic floors and walls and indie music playing in the background. The bed options included regular things like rooms and tents, but the attraction of this hostel was the option to stay in hammocks! What an experience, it was so awesome!! Surprisingly, it was very comfortable sleeping two nights in them... Guess what I'm bringing home :D 

Hammocks at Rocking J's

Cameron and Laura came a couple hours later with the majority of the other people from our school, Veritas.  I liked to call it gringo weekend. We had dinner at a restaurant called the Flip Flop while waiting for the other two girls. When they got there we went to another restaurant called Chile Rojo that was playing awesome live reggae music. That night we went out the Mango, where most of the gringos went for the night. It was tons of fun! I had met a tico named Marlon last time I went to Puerto Viejo, and this time, we met up again and all hung out. I was able to practice my Spanish a lot, since Marlon only knew some broken English. It was quite a fun night!  

Me, Marlon, and Laura

Saturday, all of us roommates spent almost the entire day at the beach! Laura has an underwater camera, which meant we had to take millions of underwater and in-water photos... :)  

About halfway through our day, Marlon found us relaxing on the beach and joined us. We met a couple new friends of the canine type, including a very friendly black dog! I've never seen a place have so many seemingly homeless dogs, it must be the capitol. haha  Saturday night we went out to Mango and Tex Mex again. I played a game of darts for the first time with Marlon and another girl, it was so fun! I rocked it, for being the first time I've played. Sunday was departure day, and after leisurely getting up, we went to lunch and to buy our bus tickets back. Calling mayhem! I don't need to get into detail, but all I have to say is Puerto Viejo's bus system is quite unorganized! In the end, three of us took the bus we wanted, and the other three of us took a taxi to the next town, and a bus from there back to San Jose. Luckily, we all made it home by Sunday evening. Puerto Viejo was a relaxing and fun time, it never lets me down!! <3

~"The summer night is like a perfection of thought." -Wallace Stevens~