howler monkeys, the end of extravagance and the case of the stolen purse

what a few days.

first of all, i´m totally bummed that marnie´s leaving tomorrow. it´s been so awesome with her here and this trip is going to be pretty different from here on out. ¨the end of extravagance¨is the next chapter. while we haven´t exactly been living large, we definitely have not been sleeping in bunkbeds or taking the chicken bus quite yet. that starts tomorrow when i get up at 5:30 to hop on a 6am ferry and then a bus to san jose, where i´ll stay for one night and then head to nicaragua. i´m looking forward to having a little bit of structure (for real!) and starting spanish classes. god knows i sure need them.

two days before we left zancudo, i am sitting on the porch with a book and marnie´s out in the ocean. this guy appears out of nowhere and strikes up a conversation and i´m thinking that this is strange but also a nice way to practice my spanish, so we end up talking for a half an hour or so. he eventually left and marnie came back and we got ready to go out. as we´re locking the door, he reappears and asks if he can use the outdoor shower. we said fine and went to talk to the cabina owner for a few minutes. we both had a weird feeling and came back about 20 minutes later. the padlock was still on our door, so we were relieved, but as soon as we got inside the bed looked really messed up and the sheets were overturned. stolen purse. why he didn´t take my ipod that was sitting right next to the bed, i have no idea, but he got my purse, which thankfully had nothing in it except my flashlight and some batteries. he´d reached through the bars on the window by the bed and we were pissed. we hopped on our wobbly bikes and headed into town for dinner. we spotted him on a pay phone in town and he didn´t look very happy to see us. we yelled at him to give me the bag back and he played dumb. anyways, as we´re going to sleep that night, we hear all these weird noises around the cabina. a half an hour later or so, there´s a knock on the door and it´s him with the soiled bag, which he claims to have found in the river. flashlight was gone, but the bag is back. i´m a little more on guard now.. however, the next day i got a surfing lesson from the husband of this girl we met at the disco on saturday night. i am positive that i looked like a complete moron, but i totally stood up!

we left zancudo and took a boat across the gulf to puerto jimenez and then got on the colectivo bus to this eco lodge in matapalo, about an hour south on the beach. the ride was crazy -- we were all crammed on this short bus, literally an old american school bus going over the bumpiest road i´ve ever been on (i´m sure there´s way more of this to come), a few bridges without guard rails and it feels like the whole thing is going to tip over. we met some awesome swedes and some people from brazil and they´d just been to nicaragua, so i got some tips on where to go up there. we spent two nights at this magical hippie lodge -- no electricity, no walls, just this gorgeous main room with chairs and a long table, all open and beautiful, where they made meals out of all organic ingredients. our little hut didn´t have any walls, just a roof and a platform and a couple of beds with mosquito netting. it´s right in the jungle and on the beach, so going to sleep there was amazing. the whole jungle was hissing and sounded alive and then the monkeys started screaming about 4 in the morning. we hiked up to this gorgeous waterfall and swam in some of the swimming holes along the way. saw a macaw and a million monkeys, an iguana, huge cockroaches and lizards and geckos everywhere. since we missed the early bus out of there this morning, we decided to try and hitch a ride instead. we waited in the sun for about an hour, and ended up hopping on this gasoline truck. these guys put our stuff in the back and we white-knuckled it in the cab squished between two men as this rickety truck made it down the bumpy roads, through streams and over the same bridges we´d come in on. having an amazing time and it´s a relief to be back in town..

love to you all!