Costa Rica 36

Once safely out of that SNAKE infested place, we hunched our shoulders against the wind, drew our hoods tightly around our faces and headed back downtown. Our destination, naturally, was to find a bar. I really needed a drink at this point to calm my shattered nerves and get over the SNAKE overdose that I had just endured.

We had seen what looked like a really interesting bar on Main Street earlier. It was actually built around and into a huge tree. Instead of chopping it down, some enterprising soul turned it into a tree house bar. L had never ventured into its’ limbs on his prior trips so we decided to give it a go. Let me tell you, the idea of this is much nicer than the practicality of it. Each of us bonked his head at one point or the other while trying to climb over and around branches to reach a table.

When I go out, I am usually a beer drinker. No guess work about the strength or quality of booze being used. Plus it is easier to gage my encroaching level of drunkenness that way. I was really upset to learn that a simple bottle of beer in this place cost $2 US, plus they added 13% tax and then another 10% gratuity onto that! That made my one beer cost $2.53 US! I know, it is probably cheap compared to American prices, but for CR, or Latin America in general, it was expensive. We each had one drink and then made our way out. As difficult as it was, I cannot even begin to imagine trying to climb our way out of the place if we had been a bit tipsy!

We made our way down the street to a much more user-friendly bar/restaurant/disco frequented by the locals and the foreign hippie crowd. L ordered some concoction of pork pieces, beans and tomatoes. He swore that it was very tasty but it sure didn’t look it. Having decided that I was eating way too much on this trip, I passed on eating anything for dinner at all. Besides, I wasn’t hungry. But I have mentioned my lack of hunger before. But I was thirsty and had no problem consuming huge quantities of Cuba Libres that night! (Geez, I sound like a real booze hound. But I’m not. Is denial the first sign??)

The evening pretty much over and me drunk enough to have forgotten all the slithery things we had seen earlier, we made our way back out to the main street and hailed a cab to take our weary and slightly tipsy bones back up the hill to bed. We had just made it back to our room when a terrific mountain storm blew up. The wind and pouring rain was incredible, but mesmerizing. Safe and snug in my warm little bed, I fell asleep to the sound of wind racing by and rain pelting our wooden deck just outside my window. Bliss.