Monteverde Adventures - Bus Ride Part 1

This entry was written on paper at about 2pm this afternoon.

Ok. So I got up early this morning at 6am, all ready to begin my journey to monteverde. The other field assistant and I got a ride into town together with the driver who everybody at Santa Rosa Park uses to go back and forth. His name is Ronnie and he's awesome. He's this happy costa rican dude who you just can't help but like right off the start. He speaks about as much english as i do spanish so i don't understand him very well yet - but he's super kind to all of the researchers and comes out to the park to drive us whenever we call (for way less than a regular cab). Anyways, first ronnie took the other field assistant to catch her direct bus to nicaragua (she is from mexico and has to renew her visa every month by leaving costa rica for 3 full days - hence this holiday). Her bus was 1 hour late so we stood on the street in Liberia for a long time waiting around. Here is a photo I took of the place we waited. After that he took me to the bus station. Ronnie seems to know everybody in Liberia... he was pals with the driver for my bus and arranged the first part of my bus ride for me. It helped a lot cause I didn't really know what was going on.

The trip to monteverde from liberia is made up of 2 parts. Part 1: I board a bus for San Jose and get off at a place called Legarto. Today, the San Hose bus was full, but ronnie worked his magic and instead of getting a ticket, i paid the driver $2000 colones ($4) and got a space to stand in the aisle. So here I am at Legarto (which turned out to be a bench on the side of the highway) waiting for Part 2. Part 2 involves me waiting 3 hours during the hottest part of the day for a bus to monteverde, paying the driver, and probably standing for that ride as well. I hope I don't get carsick. I am writing this blog to pass the time. This is a photo of where I am waiting. You can see my backpack sitting on the bench.



Ooh! A semi-truck with three wolves howling at the moon airbrushed on the side just drove past. BITCHIN!!

A really cute dog was just here digging through some trash. I wanted to give her my granola bar but she ran away. :(
OK! Wish me luck on phase 2!!

xox
Dayna