San Jose was by far a top favorite for me. It was a really cool city. After my last email we took it pretty easy for the rest of the day. In fact, I believe that
we didn't leave the hotel again until the next morning. It was lots of laying and laying and book reading and tv watching and enjoying the fact that we actually had a comforter and it wasn't sweltering. And hot showering. I took like three hot showers a day in our horse sized shower because it was such a treat.

Tuesday I was feeling pretty good, we woke up pretty early...as in like ten...and went to this argentina steakhouse and had steaks with baked potatoes and bread and butter and oh man...it was so good. I missed hot bread and butter and baked potatoes so much. I think when I get home I'm going to live on baked potatoes for like a week. They are so damn good.

Afterwards we did a lot of wandering. We tried to go to the top of the Holiday Inn...nicest hotel in San Jose FYI...but of course you needed a key to go anywhere cool in the elevator. There was a restaurant but it was closed and out of our price range...we could kinda peak a view of the city through like three windows but it was
only the 17th story so it wasn't that cool. We went to a bar called NASHVILLE BAR and took pictures of confederate flags and old white guys and laughed and, as per usual, the people hated us. We're not very popular wherever we go.

We went to a second bar and had another beer, but the third bar was the true treat. We ended up talking to, get this, a guy with one hand and one eye, and ADDITIONALLY he was deaf. He'd been taught sigh language by an american, and Anton took sigh language at ASU for 3 years so he was able to communicate "mas o menos", more or less. But the guy spoke spanish naturally, so when he spelled things (luckily i
know the sign language alphabet) I'd have to translate from crazy screwed up deaf guy to Anton and it was just a big triangle of mess. The guy was really nice though, we bought him quite a few beers and he brought some of his buddies over and we were all having a good time attempting to understand eachother. I danced with the crazy one handed one eyed deaf guy for a couple songs and I think it made his life. He was so happy, it made me feel pretty good. I was going all out, spinning him and holding onto his stump...definitely something that alcohol made possible. It was incredibly fun though, as weird as it sounds, haha. After we left our amigos we went to the bar we'd been at a couple nights before and ran into the same dude we'd talked to awhile, and he was even lamer this time. He was actually seriously talking about servers spitting in food, about the sense of first class tickets, about how DANGEROUS everything and everyone was, etc etc. He was just a lameo to the max. The servers spitting in food thing really got to me, I was arguing with him and he's like "oh what do you know?!" and I informed him of my years of restaurant work and he was like, oh well I guess people just don't talk about it because I know it happens. Yeah...right. Maybe at frickin Denny's, bro. What a
fool. He also had been to Europe once or twice so he considered himself a "TRAVELER", which was also annoying when he was arguing with Anton about travelers. He liked Prague though, which was his only high point for me.

Anyways, he was bald and kinda a loser, but he talked to us so that's okay. Whatever. Besides Antons triumphant fall in the shower (and a large cut on his hand) the rest of the night was uneventful.

I felt like shit the Wednesday, needless to say. We had planned to take the 10 AM bus to Puerto Viejos but we were both too lazy and while we woke up at 8 we layed in the bed and watched TV and complained about my hangover and his injured hand and foot. We caught the 4 o'clock bus to Puerto Viejos and then I almost pissed myself on the bus but we stopped just in time. We found a shittyish hotel for 18 dollars a night that has cold water and no AC and no TV but whatever, cause stuff is frickin EXPENSIVE here. 5 dollar drinks, anyone? We're used to people throwing rum at us, we were paying like 2 dollars MAX for a pina colada, here it's 5 or 6 dollars. We needed to get out of Costa Rica. ASAP.

Puerto Viejos was pretty cool though. I didn't feel too great even in night wednesday so Anton found me some weed (which isn't hard with every other person throwing it at you...definitely the most drug infested town we've seen) so that was better. He drank and I was a bit high and my stomach didn't hurt so it was great. The weed here SUCKS though. I imagine that this is completely unrefined weed that
would grow naturally in somebodys yard. It's so bad, but whatever. Once a month I guess shitty weed will still get the job done.

Thrusday we slept late and went and got some good food...we had the BEST appetizer I've ever had. It was baked garlic bulbs with a yummy green sauce and pieces of bread to dip. So ridiculously good, I was weeping.

Friday we went to a national park in Puerto Viejos, it was SO COOL! It was a 8.5
kilometer walk from one end to the other, and at the far end you just caught a bus back. We saw lots of weird insects and crab looking guys, a sloth, a toucan (woohoo! it was really far away, though, boo), and lots of monkeys. The sloth was so absurd, they really do not move at all. He was just hangin round....haaannggginnnnn rouuunnddddd. We saw two monkeys at the start and then none to the very end when we saw like 15 monkeys! It was awesome. They made lots
of funny noises and were jumping around the tree tops and such. Very cool.

We came back and showered and went to an Argentina Steakhouse. We ordered a mixed plate for two...oh my god...what a mistake this was. For me, anyways. It had two kinds of steak which were okay, chorizo sausage that was okay, ribs that were okay, but Anton made me try...oh my god...blood sausage, chicken kidney, and sweet bread which is some sort of gland in a cow! I got SO nauseated, I couldn´t eat anymore
and he had to finish 2 peoples worth of meat. It was so absurd, I really almost threw up. It was not a ginger friendly meal.

He liked it though, of course. Weirdo, haha. I ended up eating a slice of pizza and some ice cream an hour later after my stomach was settled. I think the description of blood sausage is what really put me over the edge. GROSS GROSS GROSS. The texture was revolting too...I can definitely cross that off the things to try list.

Yesterday we made our way to Panama, which was rather uneventful. It was only a few hours on bus, and 30 mins on a boat to get to where we are now, which is Bocas Del Toro on Isla Colon. This island is really cool. It´s still slightly more expensive than we´re used to, but cheaper than Costa Rica so it´s all good. We found a hotel that´s brand new (we´re literally the FIRST people to stay there) and we got it for 105 dollars for 4 nights, which isn´t bad considering it has air conditioning and hot water showers. And it´s super clean since it´s never been stayed in, PLUS we have big pillows and a nice warm blanket to hide under since our room is basically freezing cold with the air up full blast.

We went and partied it up last night. Drinking 50 cent beers and two dollar margaritas all night ´mon. All the bars closed at like 12 except ones where there was a cover, and I was already almost blacked out so we bought some meat on a stick and went back to the hotel to pass the f out.

I actually felt pretty good this morning, we woke up and had pizza AND we even bought some ranch at a grocery store so we had ranch for the first time since leaving the states. We´re so fat.

After that it was diarrhea diarrhea diarrhea. The crippling stuff is back in full force, but what else is new. We were just at the hotel taking turns...needless to say we´ve grown fairly comfortable with eachother, hahaha.

Today I bought a cute little bag so I won´t have to have my pockets stuffed all the time, which is exciting. I think that will help my pants from being absurdly stretched out and falling off when I wear my backpack for very long.

We´re going to go enjoy happy hour soon (more fifty cent beers!) and then continue exploring. We might stay a whole week if it continues to please. Then we´re want to see the Panama Canal, and take a train between Colon and Panama City. (Different from island colon). I guess Colon the city is extremely dangerous and you´re not even supposed to walk around there during the day, but you can take a bus in and take a cab directy to the train and be just fine. It´s supposed to just be a town of squatters, which might be interesting to see. Then it´ll be on to Panama City and then a flight to Columbia, where the cocaine will REALLY start flowing! Here all the coke so far has been pretty lame, plus it gets all clumpy from the humidity. I hope Columbia delivers as is promised.

I really like Panama so far...the travel book lists tons of things to do. I guess there´s a snorkeling area with tons of starfish off the coast of this island which I can´t wait to see!

Time to get drunk.