8:50 am: We’re on the bus. We got up around 5:30, breakfast of Gallo Pinto, huevos, tortillas, café. Last minute packing followed, I crammed all the heavy stuff in the large pack, which would be transported on the ATV. We started walking back to Santa Cecilia a little past 6:30; 2 hours along the path in the bright sunshine. Clouds of butterflies flew up around us as we disturbed them. The road looked dry, but the puddles have merely dried on top, leaving deep muddy sinkholes to step into. I went up to my ankles a few times. We passed through large orange orchards, with ripe, but green oranges destined for juice. Some orange-thievery may have occurred. As we got closer to the village, we passed quite a bit of people, lot’s of waving and “Hola”s.
    Diane’s escorting us to San José, meeting more of her students, and bringing them back to the station. Katsky and Daryl have left us. They’re staying at the station longer, and are using the time when Diane’s away to take a side trip to the beach. They blasted by us on an ATV, Katsky driving and wearing the one helmet, Daryl behind her with his eyes closed gripping the frame white-knuckled.
    Marvin and his son, José Pablo, are loading up the bus now as we stand around and try to be helpful.

9:14 am: We stopped in at a soda shop before leaving the village. They have washrooms. A woman was mopping as we approached, the marble tile floor immaculate. We all had two hours worth of mud caked onto our shoes and paused at the threshold. A man, presumably the shop owner amiably waved us in and we guiltily tiptoed in. I spent 350 colones (about $1CDN) on a kolita(?) flavoured Fanta, each flavour available has a different manga-style adolescent human character on the side. It tastes like cream soda, only fruitier. It contains absolutely no natural ingredients. Kristin bought pork rinds, which are chewy, salty, and mildly disgusting.
    A man was begging outside our bus, he zoomed in on the window where Dick was sitting, Dick being the only one of us who really looks like an adult. Dick studiously ignored the man’s breathless chant of sing-song Spanish.

10:00 am: We’re somewhere on the highway, we’ve passed two police checkpoints so far, no incidents. At the first one they wanted to look at all our gear strapped onto the roof. Marvin, deeply concerned, walked to side of the road to pee. At the second one, they wanted to see our passports, we showed them to one of the guys, Diane talked to them a bit, and they waved us through. We’re catching glimpses of the Pacific as we drive. High broken cloud right now, I’m sleepy.

11:05 am: It’s getting hot. We just passed another police check that didn’t even stop us.

12:23 am: Rancho Hannia for lunch. After drifting in and out of sleep for the last part of the trip, I have no idea where we are. The restaurant was open to the outside through windows screened with wrought iron openwork, an interior with simple white pillars, a polished wood ceiling, white ceiling fans, white melamine tables with numbers stuck to their sides, wooden chairs that squeak against the conglomerate stone tile floor (“Pick UP the chairs” – Ross), and soccer on the TV. There are lots of products hanging above the counter in plastic bags; plantain chips were all we could identify with any certainty. Lunch was Gallo Pinto; a vegetable mix with green beans, carrots, chayote; really sweet fried plantains (maybe they just used bananas); beef, tomato, and shredded cabbage in a vinaigrette; fried chicken, yellowish, hot and good. All for 900 colones; it was their “Casado especial con Pollo”. Lots of people got fries. It’s getting more humid. I had a glass of water, and the condensation was streaming down the sides to puddle on the table.

1:14 pm: We’re on the bus but not moving, there were sirens, I see an ambulance, there’s a line of cars and buses. We’re watching parakeets, squirrels, and doves on trees beside the road. Heather was pointing at something outside the window when a motorcycle shot by on the 2 feet of room between the cars and the edge of the road and nipped her arm. It’s hot; we pile out of the bus to wander restlessly or sit on the shoulder of the road.

2:02 pm: We’re moving, but Dick’s not on the bus. We see him on the road ahead, so he jumped in and we moved a whole 20m, and we’ve stopped again. Lots of the locals are out of their cars. I can see yellow tape across the road and two large tow trucks pulling something that is down the sloping land on side of the road. There’s another way to get to San José apparently, but Marvin says it’s hard enough to attempt in a capable car, much less a fully loaded bus. We use lots of hand gestures to communicate in “Espanglish” – Marvin. Sarah observed that if news gets out about a bus of tourists going off the Inter-American Highway today, anyone who knows our itinerary will be concerned.

2:37 pm: I’m sitting on the road, one more hour apparently. Marvin talked to a trucker on his radio, who heard what was going on through a Police scanner. Moving at 2:43, at 2:55, we can see a red and white tour bus sitting upright, but still down the steep embankment off the side of the road.

5:38 pm: We’re at Hotel Arajuez; got here at 4:30, unloaded the bus, I’m in room 23 with Ross. We had no towels to start with, so we were delayed in showering. I let Ross go first, so by the time I got in there the hot water was pretty much gone. After the shower, the dirty clothes just went right back on, as there’s nothing else. My grey shoes are now evenly brown. Finally I could shave in a real mirror with adequate light.
    The room has two beds and a cot, a nice sitting area with a view of some plants, and a big wavy-glass window that looks right into the washroom. We also have a nice TV, which makes us the party room.
    We were supposed to have some time to explore (the safer parts) of the city this afternoon, but the delay on the highway ate up that time, we all head out for dinner nearby shortly.

9:34 pm: We went to dinner in some Italian place with an Italian-ish name. We drew quite a lot of attention walking through the streets, just as a large group of obvious foreigners in a non-touristy part of town. A guy walked in with a guitar and started playing for us, then passed around his hat. He did a song called “Rice and Beans”, ironic as this would be our first rice-and-beans-free meal since arriving in the country. I had seafood pasta, but started feeling ill before the food arrived, headache and loss of appetite, we headed back and I just crashed. Everyone else was very nice and concerned; they moved the party to another room and let me sleep. (This was also the first meal with alcohol. I later found out that in the subsequent partying some people got cranky.)