Brit in Liberia

Costa Rica Arriba!: Liberia

Costa Rica Arriba!: Liberia

Sunday, 7 September 2008
Liberia
Buenos Dias,
Sorry for the long delay in this update - we ended up staying in Samara for 5 nights and refused to use the internet there again because it was so expensive (we think there´s some sort of cartel operating there, like OPEC except more evil) and also because we went over the hour by 2 minutes and they charged us for 15, which doesn´t exactly inspire repeat business. Anyway!
I just wanted to start by saying thank you so much for the comments and emails, they brought a big smile to my face after a lacklustre couple of days (on which more later) and I feel really buoyed for having read them. We´re in ´Planet Internet´, which is unlike many other planets - its terrain is white, cool and shiny, computers and teenage boys are bountiful but any signs of life have sadly become extinct long ago. Also, while I always appreciate not having strange European men looking over my shoulder as I type (I mean you, Mr man in internet cafe in Orosi), the fact that these booths are quite so ´private´is odd and not a little bit creepy.
So, Samara; it was a beautiful place, but we agreed that we weren´t leaving too soon, mostly due to the atmosphere and people.. it´s hard to place exactly what it was, but basically the area around the beach is entirely given over to tourism: all of the nice properties have been bought up by American expats and now it´s too expensive for any natives to live there.. and none of the tourists were particularly friendly (I think they were people there for a week-long beach holiday, rather than youngsters backpacking around like us), so the community doesn´t feel like a community, and although Ticos are far too polite to tell you that they don´t like you, I can see exactly why they´d resent tourists. But we did have a really really good time there, mostly due to the place we were staying, which constituted a cultural experience in itself, although not of the Tico kind. As I mentioned last time, we wangled a really good discount at a B&B near the beach with a lady from Arizona, Marlene, who was many things, among them.. a dedicated Republican, ardent devotee of McCain and even more so Sarah Palin, devout Roman Catholic, and quite hard-of-hearing. But really, genuinely lovely. She regaled us with many tales of her extraordinary family - a whole family of them, 6 kids along with the parents, sing, play instruments and do riverdance-style Irish stuff and have toured all over the world, performed for El Papa (the pope, not to be confused with la papa, the Spanish word for a potato), and got to the final of America´s Got Talent, where Piers Morgan was rude to them. She and her husband used to have a circus, and always had a different animal each year, which appeared onstage with them, and she has written books about cats and faith, and is now an artist. Oh and they´ve led pilgrimages to lots of holy places like Israel, Ireland, Venezuela and Yugoslavia to special places where people have seen the virgin mother, etc. We didn´t let on about our not-being-Catholics and she didn´t ask, but she seems very tolerant and although she´s anti gay-marriage, I bet she wouldn´t mind a gay couple staying in her B&B. We watched a few nights´ of the Republican Party Conference which is about as far as is possible to get from the British equivalent, and which made me feel incredibly grateful that us Brits have a sense of decorum and don´t chant things like "drill baby drill" and "U-S-A!" over and over again. We don´t like or trust McCain, but have decided that he´ll probably win because Obama is still a bit too scary for the Americans, and so ´liberal´, that dirty word. We also spent a lot of time wandering up and down the beach in Samara, and swimming, and Ben tried his hand at surfing while I read an awful, awful Mills & Boon-esque book that I´m sure Marlene doesn´t realise was in her library or she would´ve thrown it out in disgust. *I* was tempted to throw it away in disgust, but more for its poor storyline and character development than the pre-marital sex etc. We also found a really good spot for lunch, called Shake Joe´s, where they do service without a smile but really really good (Canadian!!) smoked salmon baguettes for about 2.50. The currency here is seeming less bizarre, although I still can´t get my head around the fact that their biggest note is, effectively, a tenner (10,000 colones). The cost of living is about 5x lower though.
So, Liberia .. well, it sounded nice in the guidebook and it´s not too bad but there´s nothing really to do, apart from sit in the central park trying to hide from the sun (even in the ´winter´it´s like an oven here) and gawp at the ugly, Modernist church. We´ve just had breakfast in a chain bakery called Musmanni, which may well be our saving grace in Costa Rica since most cafes serve nothing but (things) con arroz, which isn´t my favourite breakfast dish.
We´re planning to have a day trip to Rincon de la Vieja tomorrow, which is a national park not too far from here with a volcano and lots of lovely walks you can do - we´re learning from last time, don´t worry. After that the plan is to head for the Caribbean coast, Cahuita in particular, and have a week there, before going to Uvita (Southwest, near Dominical) for more surfing/beach things. We´ve seen footage of the weather in Britain at the moment and it looks appalling! Flooding everywhere and really cold too :( It´s a shame that it seems like summer, such as it was, is over - and that we can´t send some of this baking Liberia sun over there (really, please take some!). Oh yes, and I finally feel like we´ve had the quintessential Costa Rican experience which had eluded us through sheer chance, of the least comfortable bus journey in the universe. Basically, there are two general types of bus - the coach type which are quite robust and almost as good as National Express, lots of padding in the seats etc, and ex-American schoolbusses (yes, those yellow ones that they have in The Simpsons) which are very ´functional´, or as I like to call it, ´dude, where´s the suspension?´. So I´m pleased we´ve had that experience, but would be grateful if we were to avoid it in future - although at least on this one no-one performed the entire percussion section of La Bamba on the back on my chair. My main gripe at the moment is with sleep: through no fault of my own, I´ve been finding it really difficult to get to sleep for the past few nights - in Samara this was because (please don´t laugh) of Mr Cicada, who lived somewhere outside the building and chirruped constantly and loudly throughout the night - after a few nights I finally discovered that the only way to get to sleep was with a piece of toilet paper wedged into each ear, lying on my side with one ear pressed into the pillow and a towel over my head. You´re laughing now, I´m sure - and in retrospect it´s amusing but it was bloody awful at the time. The problem here in Liberia is that the walls are paper-thin, and in fact they´re not even complete walls since there´s gauze in some places - so the place we´re staying is very charming and rustic etc. (and cable tv, all for about 9GBP) but we can hear the Germans across the hall talking, and every single sound, as if it was happening at the foot of our bed. Last night I dealt with this by asking them politely to be quiet and then trying to listen to The News Quiz until my iPod battery died, before finally resorting to the good old tried-and-tested toilet paper / towel method. Tonight I will have bought earplugs and charged my iPod, which will hopefully fare better. So, I´m fairly sure it´s the 8th today which means we´re over 1/3 of the way through our trip - time´s doing strange things and it feels simultaneously like we´ve been here for a day/forever. At times like last night when all I wanted was a nice, quiet room, the BBC and a cup of tea I have been missing England a lot, and especially the people there, but I know it´ll still be there when we get back and I don´t want to kick myself for not appreciating this adventure while it´s happening. So, onwards and upwards to the volcano :) I´ll update sooner than last time!
Lots of love,
Louise and Ben (who is very chuffed because his website is now the first hit on google when you search for drupal guides)
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Posted by Lou and Ben at 09:57
Labels: Liberia