Into the Wild

January 12th 2017

... with Jan, Nils, Willi and me.

We changed north to central America and arrived at the airport of San José in Costa Rica where Willi (Blog) and Nils (the other one, Blog), who will join us travelling around for the next week, pick us up.
Jan and I don't remember much of our first day as we spent another night without sleep on the plane and are accordingly disinterested in the exhibit of the museum we visit.

The museum was very interesting. I particularly liked the recent history of Costa Rica and the coin exhibit (including a German banknote printing press (built in 1950, Made in Western Germany) from Heidelberg). The archaeology and modern art parts were alright - Felt good to be able to visit a museum again.

I agree. The rural areas of Nicaragua, too, pose a cultural vacuum for the car-less volunteer that has not allowed me a museum visit as of now.

After getting some much needed sleep, we want to head to the Poas volcano near the city together. We ask about 6 to 7 people for the right bus ...and walk from one bus station the the other three times, are guided into always different, seemingly random directions and finally notice that there is no more buses today.
On short notice we take a bus to a small lagoon that someone recommended to us instead — only to notice that said lagoon is closed right now (Naturally, lagoons in central America are closed on Mondays by principle). So we sit down on the side of the road, enjoy the chaos of central America and have some papaya, pineapple, and apples for lunch.

Well you have to say that we were really unfortunate.

Unfortunate is someone who shall not be named, but whose name does not lead to confusion, forgetting more than half the pineapple and apples at the bus station.

The extraordinary value of the papaya — especially with regards to its low price — deserves to be mentioned. For one thing, it offers a nutritious, sweet and very tasty meal in combination with a spoon and a pocket knife when you are on the go. But additionally, the seeds of the papaya are the perfect natural protection against parasites and don't even taste that bad, although not good either.
The next day we take a bus to the Manuel Antonio National Park, which will be our first stop outside of the capital. The climate here is noticeably more muggy and we can't avoid the sweat even in the evenings.
I'm already looking forward to New York!

From my limited experience, Costa Rica is warm, but a bit cooler than Panamá. How do you feel about the temperature, Mr. Front-Nils?

I feel similarly from a Nicaraguan perspective. Despite two blankets and a sleeping bag I felt a bit chilly at times during the night.

The national park, which we only explore the next day, is about five times as expensive for us tourists than for locals (for Back-Nils, Jan and me $16, for Beck, Nils 9000 Colónes ($18)), but definitely worth seeing nonetheless. There are different monkeys climbing around through the deep jungle and we find beautiful beaches and cliffs along the coast.

The monkeys will follow us around the entire day and also keep us company at the beach.
While the rest of the group is keeping busy with regular vacation activities, Willi apparently needs some more adventure: A fight is started with a racoon trying to steal valuable cereals (the victor remains unclear) (imo the one walking away with the cereal is the winner, but one could also call the one getting away without a bite from the other a winner), jogs up some stairs in the tropical heat and meets a "not so fresh" sloth on the way.
The water is pretty warm but does offer a welcome change from the humid heat — the beaches seem to be the park's main attraction and draw in crowds of tourists from all over the world.
At a vantage point on a cliff above the ocean we (minus Jan) try our hand at a tiny math-class reunion and attempt to calculate the distance to the horizon. We make great progress with a small sketch, the earth's radius, and some Pythagoras but fail in the end at estimating how high above the sea we are. Guesses range from 15m all the way up to 60m.