We went to Bar Amigos to watch Costa Rica take on Greece. We got there almost an hour before the game started. We thought we had given ourselves plenty of time. All of the other Costa Rica games had been during the week, but this one was on a Sunday. It seemed as though everyone in the town had already shown up for this game, every seat was taken in the coveted, breezy upper section as well as the stuffy downstairs section. In fact, people had brought out plastic lawn chairs to sit in on the dance floor. We had just walked up the hill and were hot and sweaty and were not excited about sitting on the floor in the stuffy dance floor or sitting on the stairs so we left and wandered around trying to decide what to do. We grabbed a quick sandwich and beef empanada at the bakery and decided Bar Amigos was still our best bet for watching the game. We went back only to find that it had gotten still more crowded. The stairs were full, except for a small section that served as a walkway. The dance floor was filling up fast as well. So, we grabbed some beer crates to serve as chairs and made ourselves comfortable on the dance floor.
We watched in amazement as the restaurant continued to fill up over the next half an hour before the game started. People spread around us, some on beer crates, most on the floor, people stood in the back and climbed on the stage and speakers. People were streaming in the door, weaving their way through the crowds to find their own corner to stand in. And just when we thought there was no more room, a bus pulled up and dumped a bus load of people at the bar. The police showed up at one point and stood in the door taking pictures, clearly as amazed as we were at the number of people in the bar. As I looked around at the sea of people around me I realized how difficult it would be to navigate through them and suddenly hoped I wouldn’t need to use the bathroom. Fortunately the game started quickly and I had bigger things to worry about. Costa Rica scored first- we did our usual dancing and singing. As the game wound down and Costa Rica held onto the lead, the singing and cheering grew louder, people started waving flags and celebrating.
This worried me, having seen the US vs Portugal game, I know how quickly the cheering can change. How quickly a last second goal will change a sure win into a heartbreaking tie or worse. Almost as soon as I had voiced my concern out loud, Greece scored. I felt so bad- I realize that a passing comment made by me in a restaurant in Santa Elena in no way affected a game going on in Brazil. But I couldn’t help but feel a little responsible. However, no harm done. The game continued into extra time and then went to penalty kicks- my favorite! And these were excellent penalty kicks, all the drama you could ask for and Costa Rica making all five PKs and Greece missing their fourth. I was expecting another parade or some sort of celebration but I was still amazed at the size of the celebration. this time there was no parade, the streets were completely impassable, people flooded out from everywhere singing and waving flags. Chants of “si, se puede!” and “vamos ticos!” went up almost constantly from different areas, people were lighting and throwing firecrackers into the street. Later, we met a guy from England who told us he had been in a cab in San Jose when Costa Rica won and the crowd kept shaking the cab so, the cab driver threw this guy out so his cab wouldn’t get destroyed. Our party was not quite like that- instead when a cab did drive through someone opened the drivers door and gave him a beer! It was completely nuts. Earlier we had started chatting with a couple from England and after about an hour of watching the madness we went to grab something to eat with them. We learned that they were on the 4th month of a 6 month trip throughout Central and South America.
The next game we watched did not have a happy ending (although, I would like to say that Tim Howard is totally amazing!). It was especially bad since we had to watch it with stupid, taunting Belgians. But, it was our last day in Monteverde so we tried not to let it ruin our day. We went out for pizza again (even as a dietitian I can only eat so many rice and bean based dishes!) and met the adorable son of the owners, he was maybe 2 and was wearing a moose hat. He would come up to our table and smile shyly and then run off. We enjoyed our last dinner, despite the car full of Belgians driving around whooping and hollering, and then we walked back down our hill one last time, feeling a little wistful but also excited to move on. The next morning our shuttle to La Fortuna picked us up at 7:50, so we got up, packed and said our goodbyes to Larry the lizard and Manolo and left our cabina. We picked up a girl from Brazil, a guy from England and a couple from North Carolina. We drove for almost 2 1/2 hours over roads the were occasionally paved, occasionally dirt and occasionally mud but always on steep hills with hairpin turns. It’s amazing that there are not more accidents here, especially head on collisions. Everyone drives mostly on the right, but a lane is only a lane in the very vaguest sense. A double yellow line means “go ahead and pass anyway” we even passed a policia on a double yellow. No one yields to pedestrians either (but, to be fair, pedestrians rarely yield to the cars) and it seems almost like a game to see how close one can get to a pedestrian. Between the crazy washed out roads, the cavalier attitude about passing, bikers, pedestrians and the stray dogs that run willy-nilly into the road, it’s a miracle anyone makes it anywhere, ever. Anyway, we drove to Lake Arenal and from there took a boat to La Fortuna. The lake was at one point a town, but was flooded after the river was dammed (cuz, if there’s a river…). It was a very pleasant trip and a great way to travel.
Once we had crossed the lake we went got on another shuttle that took us to La Fortuna. La Fortuna is a much bigger city than Monteverde/Santa Elena, it even had a Burger King (no 7-eleven, unfortunately). The city sits at the base of a volcano, since there are no other mountains around the volcano is the prominent landscape feature. It has been dormant since 2010, so unfortunately we did not get to see any lava or smoke.
We did, however, go on an awesome hike to a waterfall. We walked down 500 stairs to the waterfall, easy going down, but 500 stairs is a lot to walk up! It was a beautiful walk, very tropical but very different from the tropical appearance of Monteverde. I cannot put my finger on what exactly was different, it wasn’t as mountainy looking and it wasn’t quite as dense. The waterfall itself was very impressive, almost 900 feet down into a picturesque pond, the water then flowed over large rocks and into another pool. We marveled at the waterfall for the appropriate amount of time then scampered down to the pools to swim. The water was extremely cold but felt good after being hot almost all day. We splashed and played in the water for a while, watching a hilarious photo shoot one girl was staging with her friends and trying to stay warm. There were some big fish in the pool and a park employee was feeding them, they were so brazen, they just jumped right out of the water to eat. One little boy sat trying to catch the fish as they jumped. We wondered what he would do if he caught one. The waterfall created a strong current that was almost like swimming in an infinity pool but much more scenic!
We spent our night wandering around La Fortuna, marveling at what a big city it was! Our next transfer was to Cahuita, a beach town on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. Our bus came at 6:20 and we started our long drive. We saw plantations of bananas, pineapples, yucca and even rice. It rains so much here that rice grows well. Our guide even pulled over to show us an iguana he spotted in the trees. It was such a beautiful drive, everything here is incredibly picturesque.
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