Alajuela, Sunday

Sun 22nd 2106 On the whole a quietly successful day by my fairly undemanding standards.

Just been adding Grecia hostel to Google Maps/OSM and it's only 11.9km from here! Saw a road sign today saying Grecia 22 (km I assume) so maybe the road winds a bit.

Woke up about 9am though had been intermittently drowsing before then. Think I maybe left accom about 10 but far from sure. Went out to get cash (eg to pay new hostel) and the streets were pretty quiet although there seemed to be some guys playing music in central park IIRC and a few vague "stall" things (eg a hopscotch grid chalked on pavement?). Got some cash with Starling at Grupo Mutual, I suspect the "160000 is less than 2000" problem *was* caused by the need to enter an extra two zeros for the fractional colones, as I got it to work after doing that. Definitely best bank so far as the fee is "only" 1500, and for all I know it's possible to amortise this further by withdrawing more than 160k.

Vaguely fancied sitting in somewhere for a coffee but nowhere massively appealing came up - lots of places shut anyway, prob as it's Sunday.

Came back to accom to drop off cash and went back out. Popped down to the street outside Feria and somewhat hastily snapped the nice view and briefly admired it in person, though I felt not quite edgy but as though someone might come up and hassle me, although hardly anyone about. Also suddenly on this walk thought about random dogs having a go - to be fair, although there's been the odd yappy bastard inside someone's house as I've walked past, so far there don't appear to be any street dogs just wandering around.

Then went into town for walk round, vaguely tried to locate Soda del Banco for lunch but couldn't find it (it might have been shut, but I didn't find it to find that out). I ended up going to a random soda which had prices on display (*possibly* Las Delicias, but I really wouldn't like to say).

I dithered heavily from the street but decided to go in as it was busy enough to presumably be good but not too rammed and intimidating. I took a punt on the casado de bistek, having been made edgy by seeing various casados with "pollo/carne/etc en salsa" , but since this menu did have those options but had no mention of salsa on some others I had a go, and I'm glad I did as this opens up easier dining options for rest of trip. I also managed to get the salad undressed, so 3-for-3 on that! Anyway, the casado was nice but actually utterly lacking in novelty - steak with (suggested by waitress) onions on, beans (frijoles-ish but still individual beans, not cooked to a mush), salad and rice, which is pretty much something I've had in loads of places before. Not complaining, just pointing out that although it may or may not have been called a casado in other countries I've visited, the same kind of dish was there under some name or other.

I think I sort of figured out the "rules" for sodas, at least based on observing other people in this one - it's table service to order, but you go to the counter to pay. They also don't seem geared towards letting you eg order a coffee after the meal - or maybe I'm just crap/nervous about trying to attract waitress attention. As no one came over when I sat down at first I actually went over and ordered at the counter, despite thinking it would have been table service and it actually being so for some other people who sat down while I was there.

The waitress was nice enough but - maybe I was just edgy as it was small enough with enough customers I felt self-conscious - seemed to start talking at me when I approached counter without giving me time to say anything. Meh. I did at least avoid any massive linguistic hassles.

After that I felt time hanging a bit heavy on my hands - I had done a fair old walk in the morning and after lunch I might guess it was 2ish. As it happened I wandered round and to central park (in front of yday's museum) and there was a "senior citizen's dance" (I think) in the kind of covered over pseudo-very-large-bandstand with some guy playing vaguely (sorry, no good with genres) Latin type music and various old-ish (maybe one or two young-ish) couples dancing with lots of people standing round watching.

Not normally my cup of tea but I had absolutely nothing else to do so I stood and watched and kind of enjoyed the music and got a bit lost in thought and was impressed by one or two very energetic dancers and didn't feel "threatened" or terribly uncomfortable most of the time. I stayed there til about 1615 IIRC, as I wanted to get water on way home and also get back before dark, though I probably wasn't pushing it wrt darkness.

I have remembered one of the "tricks" to getting rid of large bills from cash machines is to use them in a big supermarket where they generally don't make a fuss. That said, I only remembered when buying water but had already palmed off a 20k on the soda for lunch. Incidentally I missed the "X" in "X mil blah blah" when they told me the price, I should have asked but I felt off balance and just handed over the 20k. Sure they didn't rip me off but not ideal on my part. I rather awkwardly put 400 in coins on counter as a tip, I rather suspect I don't need to do this but not sure.

It was sunny this morning and I was wearing the dark orange merino top I got at Decathlon just before trip and I felt it was maybe a smidge warm, though not necessarily. It clouded over this afternoon and it felt very comfortable then - even if it *isn't* ideal for very warm weather, I need to remember that I'm not always going to be in super stereotypically sunny tropical weather on this trip.

It did rain *very* lightly - like just a sort of watery feeling in the air, almost - not enough to really even notice. IIRC I checked forecast last night and it said 1mm of rain against the hours showing possibility of rain or something like that, which I don't think is a lot.

I also managed to speak to a bus driver at the Grecia stop to ask the price and he said it was 2100. I wasn't expecting it to be a lot (it's about an hour's journey and this is a local-ish type bus, although generally they do look modern-ish coach types) but good to have a rough idea so I can have approx right cash on hand.

Bit edgy about tomorrow and getting the bus with my bag but it should be fine of course.

I did a sneaky (and slightly unsatisfactory due to no plug working, as other day) wash of a couple of tops tonight. This gives me an extra couple of days in hand when combined with uw wash the other day. Using room's tower fan for a bit of assistance with drying these off.

I allowed myself to kill some time on YT this evening and I also a bit weakly snacked on one of the packets of nuts I brought for the flight out if necessary. I'm vaguely hoping to lose weight over this trip, as I did in Colombia, and generally although not huge the one soda meal a day has been fine. I think perhaps the nerves induced by tomorrow's transition made it more tempting to snack tonight. Not saying I won't snack and eat more and have beers etc during trip, just that barring special "temptation" I don't think it's entirely a bad thing if I'm slightly under-eating in general.

2135 Quick look at RG says very little about Grecia. Which is maybe kind of reassuring. It would be good if I could get some kind of walking in the countryside in and I kind of have to do that via a tour given I lack the balls (or perhaps enjoy not lacking the balls) to head out solo and get savaged by some random dog in the middle of nowhere. I don't know how tourist-oriented Grecia might be, maybe there will be some options or maybe not. Worst case I'm sure I can pass three days there pleasantly enough and identify somewhere near-ish for a next little hop.

I will be vaguely sad to leave Alajuela. It seems a nice enough place on the whole, although I also have to say that it doesn't feel like there's a huge amount of "tourist" stuff I haven't seen - guide book says you can do it in half a day IIRC. But still, seeing things like the dance this afternoon is quietly cool.

I am genuinely surprised there seems to be no real concept of a sit-in or takeaway coffee shop here. I don't think I've seen one of the big coffee chains (despite a notable presence of other chains like McDonalds, KFC, BK, Taco Bell) nor do there seem to be local businesses of this type. Yes you can get coffee anywhere, but everything seems to be a soda ("get in, eat, get out") or a full-on fancy-ish restaurant, with very little in the way of cafe as an intermediate step. In particular nowhere seems to have anywhere to sit outside despite the weather seeming perfect for that (it's not as if it's searingly hot, at least right now, even when the sun's out - an umbrella etc over a table would go a long way), and it seems a bit surprising there's nothing of the sort on the central square. (It might have been too expensive for me anyway, but I didn't get to the point of rejecting anywhere on price grounds.)

2223 Cleaned teeth, had shower and shaved. Moving towards bed. Not super tired but not not tired either. I haven't really packed but it's not as if I have that much, some clothes are still slightly damp, today's dirty clothes need to be out in case I need them in the night (eg for toilet visit) and it's not as if (touch wood) I expect to be short of time in the morning - I am stone cold sober and on recent form I'm getting up around 9am anyway, checkout isn't till 11 and although I'll probably be tempted to leave earlier it is smart to stay as long as I can, since check in at the new place isn't til 2 (of course you can always get lucky and they let you check in early, but no guarantee) and touch wood even with walk to bus stop and waiting up to an hour for a bus the journey isn't likely to take over three hours.

Camera has been fine, incidentally, though only been dragging it out of pocket for quick snapshots.

It might seem a bit silly but in some ways if tomorrow goes OK the basic "framework" of the trip is in place. I have been getting around OK here in Alajuela, if I can manage a bus trip that's the basics sorted. :-)

Incidentally if I didn't already say since I actually got here to Alajuela properly, people don't seem to be so keen to speak English as they were at the airport. I'm not complaining, just making the observation. I suspect a lot of them might speak basic English and if you were confident and/or desperate enough you'd get by just fine without any Spanish, but obviously I'm not trying that.