Grecia/Tacares, Thursday

1809 In garden with beer. Had half planned not to tonight but meh.

I realised this morning I slightly fucked up with onward stuff. Both accoms I booked got back to me, the one in San Ramon just asking me to call some number when I get there - fingers crossed my Claro SIM will work. V slightly edgy about tomorrow (and incidentally it does feel a shame to be leaving here, bit sad, but that's probably better than thinking "good riddance" - but it is time, as today's minimal tourism will show) but sure it will be fine.

Other accom told me about buses from San Jose to Monteverde even though I said I was coming from San Ramon and I initially thought "FFS, does no one read?" and then I started looking into it (about 9-10am when I had planned to go out, albeit for nothing highly important). I had somehow got it into my head there were various frequent buses from San Ramon to Monteverde/Santa Elena but I seem to have made that up out of whole cloth. It's just the two San Jose-MV buses which go via San Ramon. They also (presumably the "possible roadworks" are not an issue) go via Grecia, ie where I am right now. I had kind of ruled this out on reading about it in hostel blog because I didn't fancy getting bus at side of road at arse o'clock am (of course the two daily buses run stupidly early and stupidly late), but I have a fairly strong suspicion I am going to have to do exactly that in San Ramon.

I am not sure because the company which runs the bus has a minimal timetable which shows departure time from San Jose and arrival time in Monteverde. You can buy a ticket from any of about ten places including Grecia and San Ramon but they won't show you the time the bus is there, or tell you where to get it. I bought a ticket online regardless because it's peak season wank wank wank and I'm worried it will sell out. I have e-mailed the buggers asking for this info but that was this morning and no reply yet.

Worst case I think (and I will ask owner of place in SR in case he knows, he may well) I will have to get the "Grecia" side-of-the-road time from hostel blog and add say half an hour to that and be at side of road in San Ramon then, and I assume any taxi driver will know where I need to be. I picked the morning bus as it should be daylight at this time and I didn't fancy arriving in MV after dark. I just hope there isn't a minimum check out time on the SR accom.

Apart from the major fuckery of not telling you when or where to catch the bus, the bus company's website also charges CRC500 "service fee" for booking online and saving them the effort of maintaining ticket offices, and when you click on a seat on the "choose your seat" plan (the bus seemed virtually empty FWIW, but I am booking earlyish), it offers you the choice of regular or senior citizen and if you instead click the "they put it right there" close button to (I assumed) return to the seat map, it greys out the entire site and you can't do anything except refresh the page and start the whole booking process from scratch. This is with Chrome on Android, hardly a niche browser.

Anyway, I did book and I am assuming the brief e-mail (no QR code) on my screen will be enough for the staff on the bus.

I then went out for a bit, I got the bus to Tacares and back. It's a pleasant enough but very small town (practically a village) and there's hardly anything to see but I wandered round a bit. I did experimentally get a modest way down the highway to Carrilles (?) but a dog barked and although I didn't see the dog and it would *probably* be fine on the highway (there's a very low level of intermittent local foot traffic all along it, I think, locals walking a few hundred metres down from wherever they live to visit a neighbour, that kind of thing) I wasn't chancing it.

Buses usually empty but the return bus to Grecia was rammed so had to stand for a bit, not a big deal. I was really looking forward to filet de pescado again at La Delicia de mi Tierra and I did and it was good and I felt quite chilled and satisfied. I had also been vaguely meditative staring at random scenery in Tacares and especially while waiting for the bus (I just missed one, but I almost wasn't even trying) and did get a fairly relaxed "hey, I'm on holiday, I don't have to 'do' stuff constantly" kind of vibe going.

Went into church in Tacares and again here in Grecia for a look-see, didn't take any interior photos. Incidenally it sounded like a gale blowing when I was in bed this morning and I mentally envisioned foul weather, but of course it was sunny and warm, just a bit windier (not unpleasantly so) than usual. Did have a brief wander round Grecia, popped back to hostel for debit card and got a wodge of cash out ready for eg paying accom tomorrow and went to a supermarket (Maxipali) and got a bag of (think I've had then before) Taki Fuego rolled tortilla spicy snacks and a big bottle of arandano (cranberry?) zero tea drink which is in shared fridge now and also a 500ml can of (brewed in Spain!) Cezek (sp) beer/lager for about 780, which I (imperfectly) chilled sneakily in shared fridge and had about an hour ago - they had 350ml cans of this for about 500 but this was better value and I fancied trying it and something about a sneaky beer in my room at a third of the price down here appealed. This is all very unhealthy but there you go.

Spent ages on tech support call with mum, then watched a bit of YT (some with beer) and had shower/shave and came down here. I also checked the cloud forest place as was going to e-mail to reserve but on calmer reading you don't need to do that for the self-guided tours. I might be up for a guided tour but a self-guided also sounds good (guides know more, but it's hard to relax and get the feel for the place when you are being guided round).

I'm a bit edgy about the bus to Monteverde but putting that to one side, the fact I seem to have half decent accom and a price no worse than i'm paying here suggests that if there's stuff to do there (and the frog place sounds interesting, as well as any random paid hiking possibilities) I'm happy to extend and spend (say) 7-10 days there. So given my edginess about getting there, if I can avoid having to book a guided tour at the anti-plastic cloud forest, I can *probably* just go for a self-guided my first day there, and if I want I can go back another day for a guided tour during an extended MV/SE stay.

I do wonder if the SE accom is going to try to shove other people in my quad room but I don't think they should. I do also wonder if they might resent me occupying this room solo, but then again they put it on booking.com so...

As I say, I kind of fucked up. I could just have gone from here direct to Monteverde, perhaps extending here a few days. OTOH I have about worn this place out without a car/hiking partner, and assuming I manage to get the bus to MV at SR then really I've only fucked up to the extent of paying about 7-8 quid a night over the price of here/MV for accom in SR for 3 nights, which wastes a little time and money but nothing insane, and it *may* be that I like SR and it's probably worth seeing. At this rate I won't be going to Zarcero, as I have two full days in SR and the second I won't want to be heading out as I have the early bus fuckery the next day, and I should give SR itself a chance on the first day  I am there. It may be I can get to Zarcero from somewhere else I end up, but if not it would have been nice to go but apart from the vague quirky town square described in RG the main appeal I think was maybe a vague cloud-foresty nature itself and I should see that kind of thing in SE/MV for less anyway.

I am (stupidly) thinking it's going to be a bit cold and miserable in SE/MV. It may be a bit chilly but I'm sure it has its own charm and it's not as if I'm not used to it being a bit cold.

Think that's about everything. I wish I didn't have to travel tomorrow and especially on Monday. It's so much more relaxing to be in one place and not be thinking about changing accommodation. In part this is doubled because of my fuckup causing my short (because expensive per night) visit to SR when I could have not gone, but it's fine. Once I get to SE and assuming accom prices are as I booked for this time it's inexpensive enough simply to stay there that I may very well as I said above hang on there for a week or so. Maybe get a bit of strenuous exercisey stuff in the form of various walks/tours.

1850 Second (garden) beer. I'm aware that in (say) five years' time I won't care if I spent an extra five quid here and there. And I'm not "not doing anything I really want to" on cost grounds. (I think the only pseudo-cost veto so far has been Zoo Ave, and I wasn't desperate and at the time I also didn't know how to get there.) *But* five or ten quid a day adds up over a 77ish (IIRC) day trip like this and it makes all the difference as to when/if I feel I can travel again. My point is that if there's something I really want to do I try not to let money be a factor, but small day-to-day things (like eating in sodas instead of "proper" restaurants) that save a few quid a day consistently while probably giving me a more memorable experience and (perhaps) helping me lose weight can add up over the length of the trip and don't actually significantly hurt, either "in the moment" or looking back at the memories.

FWIW I did enjoy those Taki Fuego things rather more than the lemon+pepper tortilla chips yesterday - the former felt vaguely exotic and hit the spot, the latter were nice enough but just disappeared down my throat and left me wanting more.

I do need to be careful not to let money spoil the "mood" of the trip, but I don't think it is. I wish accommodation (and indeed food; a soda isn't expensive, but nor is it "wow, this is cheap" ) were cheaper, but I'm more or less accepting that there (admittedly it's early days, and this figure could go up or down with more experience) is a baseline 16-17 quid a night for a private room (with shared bathroom) and a baseline 4-5 quid for a meal in a soda (on top of probably north of 10 quid a day for the amortised flights) to be paid. I can afford that, I don't precisely have a budget, but it's fine. (I also have a surplus budget after not travelling since early 2020, but I'm not anxious to burn through that excess if I can help it.)

While I do sort of look forward to getting home, I'm also glad it's a while off and (although the decision was based on flight prices) wish I had closer to 90 days or longer for the trip, but 77 isn't bad and for the first trip in three years I also was a bit worried about homesickness etc.

TBH budget permitting right now it feels like it would be nice to go abroad a second time later this year, but there's also an element of not wanting to miss the decent summer weather and in fact I quite like autumn in its way too (plus stress about getting stranded abroad over Christmas if things flare up). Maybe just keep an eye on cheap-ish flight opportunities and try to be proactive enough to decide "fuck it, let's have another trip" on semi-spur of moment.

1906 Quick web search is a bit vague but I think Alajuela/Grecia and nearby towns are about 1000m asl, San Ramon probably similar, Santa Elena town is probably 1300m and the cloud forest is probably 1600m.

Just sent another message to bus company asking where and when to get the bus, this time using the form on their website instead of replying to the ticket e-mail.

I don't know if it's the extra food (snacks) or leaving tomorrow nerves, but maybe having that 500ml can of beer before I come down has really slowed down (in a nice way) my drinking tonight.

I do think MV/SE is going to be a lot more touristy. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Notwithstanding a vague loneliness induced simply from seeing other people talking, I am not feeling generally lonely yet. However, up to now there have just not been that many other tourists around - a handful, but not lots. Whereas in MV/SE I expect there to be a lot, and that means in principle I can have a chat with people etc. Not bad, good in its way, but different. The F33W advice about "heading to the traveller's hangout" while still problematic for me probably applies in MV/SE, whereas I rather doubt the existence of anywhere meeting that description in Grecia, even in Alajuela, and certainly not in Tacares. (It's not much of a notch on my belt, but I suspect I'm in a relatively small group of non-Costa Ricans to have visited Tacares.)

"And all that I can see is just a yellow lemon tree" song on, lyrics (not that line specifically) vaguely cool and I should look it up another time.

1959 Third beer. Feel slightly pissed, not a big deal. I could of course save money by not having beers in bars, either not having them or having them from supermarkets. But within reason it feels smart to "be out and about" .

2016 Couple of Dutch (?) girls chatting with guy from Belfast at next table. Makes me feel a bit edgy somehow. Also slightly pissed so will go up and vaguely pack/kill time on YT with some of that arandano tea zero (calorie) soon-ish.

2024 Back in room with my bottle of tea. Feel vaguely short-changed (Belfast guy saying "I don't know what I want to do with my life" and saying stuff about how he lived in The Hague for a while, and one of the Dutch girls seems to have been travelling for approximately a year), but at the same time a) I have to do the best I can with what I have (left) b) I do have certain advantages I don't want to write about here.

2239 Been watching YT and drinking arandando tea. Bed. Quietly optimistic about tomorrow, it's two local bus rides and a modest (hopefully) walk in San Ramon. Plan is to leave here not much before 12 so as to not get to accom before checkin opens at 3; this still leaves me a fair safety margin before darkness hits, and push comes to shove a) I can get a taxi in San Ramon b) I can get a room at short notice and pay through the nose wherever I (unexpectedly) get stuck.