Day 1... Whew!!!!!!!!!

So we are on day 2, but let me tell you that day 1 was full of many surprises and adventures. When I say many I mean that it felt like we did a week in one day. No shit!

We left San Jose with our private guide Mauricio around 10am to get to La Fortuna. It was funny because the traffic was busy but the roads seemed really confusing. Limited signs and random acts of Capitalism. Lets just say you can get plantains, sunglasses and those blow up things you punch all before you hit the tolls. And of course I happened to find the best strip club in all of San Jose. "The Atlantis" In the words of Quagmire, "Giggity"

Anyway, after a long ride we ended up in La Fortuna. The Mecca of Touristas and Pirate cab drivers. We ate at this 24hr restaurant and surprisingly the food was not too shabby. Even really good. I ordered the only thing I understood, Pollo Frita... Fried Chicken baby...

From there we departed the city and headed for the hills. Oh, Before that, let me tell you about the road to La Fortuna.

The road was so narrow, twisty AND without guardrails that not only was I worried about falling off and plummeting to our deaths that I tried to fall asleep. To be awoken to an 18 wheeler flipped over on its back over the side of the non guard railed twisty narrow road. I gotz the pictures to prove it. From there on out I just decided to put my trust in our PRIVATE guide Mauricio who only seems to sleep 3 hours a day. Gee, I feel at ease now. :)

Okay, we left La Fortuna before our truck got stolen and went to Ventura Caves. After dawning our proctective helmets and our rubber boots and non working flashlight half way through the pitch black, Yes I´m blind cave.. We were off.

Luckily our guide, not our PRIVATE guide but the cave guide and his cousin took us into the depths of the cave maze. Let me tell you this. No gordo people can make it further than 250 feet in. BECAUSE right away you have to squeeze through this tiny hole that honestly I never thought I would get through. It was like I was the triangle going into the circle hole. Tight!!!

It got worse.

Climbing, crawling, schimmying, falling, standing on shouldering, none finding footing to climb downing, jumping from plateauing, peeing in watering, and then it got worse.

Oh, have I mentioned the spiders and the tarantulas and the spiders in particular that were abundant. Yes, there is even a picture of Catdoggg pretending to eat a scorpion spider Fear Factor style... Me I just stood to the side and wondered why my flashlight died. Help!

To be honest, it was actually pretty fucking cool. It was everything you wanted to do as a kid but in a grown up barely squeezthroughable body. ?Oh, did I mention the spiders?

We got the pics from our PRIVATE guide Mauricio. So pretty soon you can see what we were experiencing, just a little bit. He had a waterproof case for his camera because we were WAIST DEEP IN WATER HALF THE TIME. In our GUANO (Bat Poo) tainted water. YUMMY!!!! SMELLY!!! STILL ON OUR CLOTHESY!!!

Then we left and found, Oh wait earlier we saw a monkey with the biggest ball sack I have ever seen. It was cool cause we saw one and got back in the truck and I noticed this huge bush moving around ala Jurrasic Park style. NO NO NO our PRIVATE guide said. It´s just the wind. BULLSHIT! I have seen enough movies to know that something is coming our way. And behold, a whole family of Big Balled, Tight Rope walking across the power lines, Howler Monkeys. Very cool.

We also saw Mr. Fruit Loops himself, Tucan Sam and his flava of the week making some pretty loud tucan noises. And yes, I never got my fruit loops. I was disappointed.

Anyway, after that we went back La Fortuna and searched about 6 Hotels before finding a non smelling, non dead smelling, non dead old people smelling room. Moth Balls anyone?

We ate, and promptly passed out. We can talk about Day 2 tomorrow....

Oh, and my keyboard is in Spanish...