Costa Rica Journal - Wednesday, 4-15-09

Over last night's dinner, we arranged to go to the Morgan's for some internet time and a trip into town with Amy. That was the plan, however we woke up rather groggy from our poor sleep on the leaky mattress. There was also the problem that we did not have any coffee or breakfast, nor anything to cook with. So from waking up, it was straight onto the bikes and down the road. Luckily, they only live 5 minutes away.

Only Joe was able to connect to the internet and Amy couldn't go into town with us, because her car was being repaired. She immediately showed us some garage sale type household items and we picked out $20 worth of things to take home with us. Then she wrote us up letters of recommendation so we could open a bank account. By this point, we were feeling overwhelmed, tired and undernourished, so we shared a Probar before heading into town.

It was a rather easy ride into Guatuso, but it was starting to get very warm. Our first stop was to the Pali grocery store where we bought apples & orange juice and a few necessities like toothpaste and scrub pads. Then it was time to tackle getting a bank account. The letters Amy wrote for us stated exactly what we were there for, and although we had a hard time communicating, we got out within an hour, goal accomplished. Next, we headed over to Gallo Mas Gallo to buy a fridge and something to cook on. We picked out a coffee maker, an electric skillet, 2 pillows, a mattress and our refrigerator, the last two would be delivered on Saturday.

There was a bit of a problem when it came time to make our payment, as our card did not work. We soon figured out that we had to break up our purchases, as the amount was too large for everything, so we decided to wait on the mattress. At this point we were feeling very grateful for the English speaking employee! After making our purchases, we hired a cargo taxi for a bout $12 and put our bikes and merchandise in the truck bed and headed home, stopping by at the Finca Leola office to pick up our kitchen supplies.

When we arrived and home, the number one priority was to take a shower. I relished washing my hair with proper cleaning agents shaving was divine. It seemed like it had been forever since we had these simple sanitation tools. After we were properly cleaned, we went for a walk and made the pleasant discovery of a small market, where we bought groceries to make dinner. It was a busy day for us and we retired early and slept well on the makeshift king, coming to the conclusion that it was better then the leaky air mattress.