Liberia, Thursday/Playas del Coco

Thu 16th 1805 Sitting in hostel kitchen with bottle of chilled water. Quietly successful day of touristing, I think. :-)

Didn't sleep that well, woke up about midnight and about 4am and then maybe about 730, the first couple of times feeling generally hot and stuffy with maybe a background tone of "gah, this sucks" which I quietly fought to stop it turning into something worse.

Got up about 0830, dorm empty by that point! Cleaned teeth, got last of the free coffee in the urn in the kitchen, which was surprisingly good and also helped provoke a pre-departure toilet visit. There was a handwritten sheet with some nearby tourist stuff on one of the tables so I snapped a copy of that - it showed where to get bus to Playas del Coco, it had times for Tamarindo buses and it also has some details of a waterfall you can get to by getting off Liberia-Canas bus part way which I think I will try to read up on tonight and have a go at tomorrow.

Got bus over to Playas del Coco from Pulmitan terminal, correctly twigged you had to pay at a kiosk inside the terminal. Bit hot on bus but keep telling myself that in about two weeks I will have acclimatised (maybe less, given there was *some* heat in the Monteverde-ish regions I've just come from) and that it isn't unbearable - it isn't, and off the bus it's even better as there are intermittent breezes and so on.

Main road in PdC very very touristy and not super impressed, but the beach is actually relatively tranquil. I didn't stay there long but went on a 3km walk round a back road to Ocotal beach - no trouble with dogs at all but I was a tiny bit edgy over towards Ocotal where tourist businesses thinned out. That beach was nicer, quite a lot of people around but not so many it felt crowded (to be fair, main PdC beach didn't either). No apparent facilities, I could have got a cold soft drink or probably beer from a mini supermarket a few mins back up the road but I didn't - I had some very warm water I'd brought with me in a "single use" plastic bottle and I sat and thought about random stuff and watched the goings on for maybe 1.5h or so. The walk back was playing on my mind a bit but it was fine and as it happened there were a few other walkers in groups around me pretty much all the way back.

I got a litre of lemon ice tea (1k) at a small supermarket along the back round once I got back to the more touristy bit of it nearing PdC, which was very welcome. I then went and sat on PdC beach for maybe an hour doing more staring+thinking before heading back - I had thought I'd wait until I needed a piss and then go eat somewhere in PdC (I'd eyed up a Pollolandia as a cheap and tasty option) so I could use their toilets but I didn't really feel the need so I just got a bus back. My Claro 30 day top up was due to run out any day now and I wanted to see if I could top it up back in Liberia before closing, as I vaguely plan to head out earlyish on this waterfall self-excursion tomorrow to maybe beat the heat of the day and to give more time for fuckups.

I think back of my left hand may have got a bit sunburned from leaving it palm-down on sunny rocks while staring meditatively out to sea. Fingers crossed it won't be too bad.

I got over to Claro no trouble once got back, it was about 1645 [cat just let me stroke it!] but they were open, after a false start where guy looked blankly at me and apologised I managed to ask for what I wanted and got it paid for and fingers crossed it's sorted. 10k not cheap but not terrible. Had half been wondering if should see if Kolbi had a better deal but this was easy and at least I know Claro works for me etc etc.

Incidentally I've used about 300MB of the 5GB allowance, but I had to buy that option to get the 30 day validity anyway.

Saw a nice kitten (no photo) in a garden on walk back from Ocotal and also an older cat which looked horrible, something vaguely "wrong" with its face, since there was absolutely nothing I could do to help I avoided looking at it as soon as I saw so maybe it *wasn't* bad but I suspect it was. Hope it's OK but obviously outside my control.

Wearing orange wool top (which I noticed was inexplicably wet when I took it out of bag yesterday) which isn't excessively hot but I am itching a bit under arms which may be caused by it (though makes no sense) or may be some general reaction to heat etc. I gave the RB "plastic" top I wore today a quick pseudo-wash (no soap) in sink when I had a shower+shave when I got back to hostel tonight, it is very thin and I think it has a chance in this heat of being dry tomorrow and then I can probably wear it in the day tomorrow instead of dirtying a fresh top.

I went to Soda La Hormiguita (sp) in bus terminal after topping up at Claro and before coming back to hotel, very decent casado de bistec with a generously sized tamarind juice for 3.6k, I saw some kind of charity collection box near till and put 200 of my change in there in lieu of a probably unnecessary tip.

Waterfall for tomorrow is "llanos de Cortes" according to my photo.

1842 OK, apart from having to get off the bus at the side of the Interamericana and wondering how helpful driver would be that doesn't look hard. Also saw a suggestion that a good thing to pair it with is Rescate Las Pumas, the animal sanctuary near Canas I mentioned other day - again, subject to buses this looks not too hard and I may have a go at that.

The waterfall naturally has swimming/wading opportunities but given I'm going on my own I will not be taking advantage of that. (Also my swimming trunks seem super loose, if didn't mention it the other day re hot springs - I may well buy some more over here, I could see myself going into the sea - not much, riptides etc - if I find myself staying somewhere I can walk to beach from accommodation. But I'm sure it wil be easy enough to buy some more if that happens.)

Yes, that sounds like a plan. A *slightly* stressful plan, but realistic worst case is I get off in the wrong place and have to wait approximately half an hour for another bus - I also know both Liberia and Cañas now to some extent, and they're sufficiently close the extreme version of this worst case where I end up in the wrong city and have to do the entire return journey is not utterly horrific or anything.

I lugged the empty 1l bottle of "tropical te" back with me along with the squashed 600ml bottle I took out this morning, as it gives me an extra bottle to shove in the fridge for chilling water in rotation, and I'll try to remember to fill it and leave it in fridge overnight and take it with me tomorrow. I'm not going to take a bag with me, I don't expect bad weather and since I'm not swimming I don't need any towels or anything like that.

1936 Although I did it for a reason (new moon and turtles, although I do wonder if I imagined the new moon connection), and not that I love it here as such, but it does feel mildly annoying to have "over booked" by sorting out Tamarindo accommodation before I decided I was "finished" here. To be fair especially if tomorrow goes well the only vague "could do" is Rincon de la Vieja and as already waffled I could potentially visit that on a subsequent trip (maybe in rainy season) if I don't decide to come back and do it this time.

Oh, guide book says trees here drop leaves in dry season to save water losses - I had seen a few (but not majority) looking like that. However, at PdC today it was very obvious that all the trees on top of the headland sticking out around the beach were bare, and on looking closer the greyish sides of the headland were also greyish because of these bare trees. Tried to take a photo of this. Once I recognised it it was quite striking because pretty much *all* the trees there were bare.

Was reading Ngaio Marsh "Surfeit of Lampreys" in bed last night, only just started it. The vague themes of loss and homesickness not exactly welcome in the strange and stifling conditions. The mention of Commercial Road, even unfavourably, was vaguely heartening though. :-) TBH I'm kind of disliking the vaguely snobby "likeable but hapless aristocrat" tone of it (IME all the Inspector Alleyn books have a bit of this, not read that many though) but I'm sure it will be OK. I know it's not meant to be the same style but Wodehouse makes hapless aristocrats vaguely lovable, the family in SoL strike me as kind of annoying - I don't hate them as such, but frankly if they did/do finally come a cropper in a "financial crisis" I'll probably feel some kind of "ha ha" feeling in with the sadness (can I say schadenfreude here?). FFS, how many lucky inheritances can a family have *and need them every time* before you lose sympathy for them?

(It's not that I'm exactly a maven for work or anything, but Wodehouse's impecunious hapless aristocrats also seem to have jobs of one sort or another.)

2006 Bit of chat going on but all in German. I feel a tiny tiny bit awkward sitting here on my own but really I think the thing is I'm not hiding away etc and I don't feel massively awkward.

Probably move towards bed at 830ish, out of boredom plus vague hope of being up early tomorrow. Not cleaned teeth yet but that is about all I need to do before getting into bed.

FWIW I had a fresh sheet (had to put it on myself) waiting on bed when I got back. This is in some ways better service than the other places I've stayed in, where sheets didn't get swapped during my stay (except at the break between my two separate reservations in Nuevo Arenal). I could probably have *asked* if I'd wanted and it wasn't a big deal, but still.

OTOH the sheet has holes in and the one yesterday had some small stains on, so this is hardly ultra-luxury.

FWIW there is a guy sitting behind me on his own with a laptop, and maybe (don't like to look too closely) a woman sitting reading on her own on a bench in the corner.

The odd probably-mosquito flicking round. Touch wood I don't think malaria is a big risk here and beyond the near inevitable bite on one of my ankles I haven't been heavily bitten.

2031 Fuck it, it feels a bit early but it's oddly busy in here and I kind of feel I'm taking up valuable space and at the same time it also doesn't really feel like things are "chatty" in the kind of way that would lead to anything. I'm going to move towards bed.

2046 Bed, light on (was on when came in), possibly chunky young woman lying on bed reading. Alarm set for 745 and if I *must* snooze a little I will. Ideally won't.

Behind front upper teeth feels a little "raw" (hard to describe) after cleaning but 95% sure this is caused by some minor burning when eating pizza yesterday.

Snatches of English chat but it feels quite a weird place. Broadly speaking I'd like to exchange a few words with someone just to break the weird feeling, but I'm not actually feeling over-sociable and as I say it does kind of feel like I'm not the only one here not really talking much. It's all experience and as I keep saying, the main thing I think is not feeling overly awkward and feeling vaguely "settled in" etc.

If wasn't clear earlier while nothing desperately exciting I quite liked sitting pensively on those beaches, the walk between them felt like a bit of exercise and "challenge" (if only trying to overcome general "random guard dog" nervousness) and overall feels like I "did something" today.