Nuevo Arenal, Friday

Fri 10th 1408 Set an alarm for 10am and woke up on my own about 0850ish; semi-drowsed in bed until got up about 1020. Slept fairly well and felt nice not to have to get up for anything specific.

Puttered round room a bit, went out for dinner at El Establo (? place I spoke to woman yesterday), got fajitas de res (which came as just beef with onions and peppers, no tortillas or anything) with beans and rice and a (slightly expensive) tamarind juice for 6k. Not super cheap but not terrible. Pretty nice though. They are closed Mondays FWIW. Brief chat with woman from yday who wasn't serving when I got in but came down as I was paying. I was only customer.

Rained a bit as I started to walk over but rapidly stopped and light rain here doesn't seem to be a big deal as you dry off straight away. It did piss it down while I was in there though, so I got quite lucky there.

Walked back no real problems, two smallish yappy little dogs outside one house on a hill started off as I walked past but I ignored them and although I'm not sure they were fenced in they never came all the way down to the road.

Was going to have a coffee on balcony when I got back but a group of about five elderly-ish probably Americans were making their way up the stairs slowly so I just popped up to get my key back and may have a coffee in an hour or so instead - not a big deal, but maybe I'll have balcony to myself then, and if not it's nice if I don't have to listen to a conversation in English in the background.

I just booked for another two nights here via booking.com - I am a bit torn, I may get bored and I may be "wasting" time, but OTOH it is nice here and for now it's still nice to do very little for a bit. I have free cancellation right up until 6pm the day of the new "check in" so this is basically a free option - I could probably change it to a single night if I want to. I toyed with speaking to staff and asking if I could get it cheaper by dealing direct with them, but I figured there's enough weirdness about can/can't pay this that and the other with card that it wasn't likely to end well (also maybe linguistic difficulties with the guy I have down as the owner), plus by going via booking.com I get the free no-fuss cancellation.

1905 On balcony at restaurant, on second cup of black-with-dash-of-milk coffee. May not have any beer tonight by way of mixing things up. Watched sunset, very nice depth/parallax effects of clouds scooting across the sky. Never did come up here in afternoon as it happens.

Been reading RG a bit to think lightly about onward plans. Forming vague idea that to head NW-ish I need to get a bus from here to Tilaran and then a short frequent hop from Tilaran to Cañas which has fairly good onward connections (eg to Upala, though I haven't read that far yet). Neither Tilaran nor Cañas feels like it's super attractive in itself - there's a big park near one but it may be mainly for birdwatching types. I would need to ask staff here about buses but based on observing the odd bus along round here today and yesterday it does feel like Tilaran and La Fortuna are the main exit points for this region by bus. (Geekily, I am reminded of trying to navigate around Elite's galaxies by this. Fortunately pirate-ridden anarchies seem rare so far. :-) )

I will read/cogitate more over next day or two but gut feeling is that if there are lots of Tilaran-Cañas buses I might prefer to do here-T and T-C in the same day, not really seeing anything of Tilaran. It feels vaguely conceivable I'd end up in Tilaran some other time (and if I don't probably not end of the world; you can't see everywhere), perhaps on a future trip if I decided to pass round Lake Arenal by a different route than I took this time, and with C having the better onwards connections it feels a better place to spend maybe just a couple of nights and check out onward options and maybe get to have a few conversations with other people in a hostel to see where's good to go etc. My plans could also be modulated by availability/pricing of accommodation online. But having done this initial bit of thinking feels useful, priming the pump and all that.

Just while I remember, someone (Dutch woman on volcano tour at lunch?) told me about the biggest waterfall in CR down in south which has a "challenging" hike to it and is doable by bus+walk - subject to getting down there (quite probably not an issue) in the time I have available, that sounds right up my street. Don't remember name but fact it is biggest and roughly S should make it identifiable. She said it was still impressive despite it being dry season and thus *maybe* not absolutely at its best.

I checked FCDO Nicaragua advice earlier and no change - didn't really expect it, but as well to check as if they *did* drop PCR test requirement I *might* want to visit.

No one else in bar/restaurant except two staff (couple?) tonight. Did see a few other guests (overnighters like me or restaurant guests?) wandering round the grounds this afternoon IIRC.

Possibly spending five nights here feels wasteful but then again if I am enjoying myself it's hardly a waste etc. My thighs (? upper legs) were hurting a bit when walking earlier and having a bit of a break can't hurt, though in a perfect world I might be having a break 4-5 weeks into the trip not 3. But really  who's to say what I "should" be doing, and as long as I am enjoying the peace and quiet and vague sense of "tropical laziness on a budget" that's fine.

This is not *exactly* what I envisaged when I waffled about having beers by a lake as one of pseudo-goals for the trip before leaving home, but really it isn't far off.

Wifi is terrible in room but not end of world. Uploading photos (with some difficulty) from here.

I am probably going to pay cash at this hotel tonight and from now on. I might guess the woman meant *their* account with the credit card processor/bank is in colones last night. In any case, if I can't for whatever reason pay in USD on credit card the financial advantage of paying by card isn't there, I'm not expecting to run out of physical cash before I move on and l expect there to be a cash machine there (as there probably is in NA, but I'm not desperate enough to faff getting there) so I might as well have the privacy/principle ("nights in white satin" playing *very faintly* from indoors) benefits of paying cash.

2050 Just come back to room. Charged 7250 (paying cash) for three coffees, which the menu says are USD3 each, but at the market exchange rate that works out at USD4.16/coffee. I feel I've been charged more than USD3/coffee rather than they've used a truly exortionate exchange rate, but still a little bit of a pisser. I might have very politely said "but isn't it USD3 a coffee?" had I been charged in USD but because the menu price is in USD but I'm paying CRC there is this lack of transparency; I was slightly surprised by what I was asked to pay but not in a way I could trivially question. I think I will stick to drinking beer here at this rate. I'm not frothing or anything but this does vaguely suck and although it's not specifically a problem with this hotel, it does kind of feel like it's cropping up more here.

On the bright side, woman who I paid thought I was checking out tomorrow and mentioned buses so I got chance to ask her about them - she reeled off some times but there are (my summary) roughly buses to Tilaran every 1.5-2 hours and it takes less than an hour and I can flag it down outside hotel. So assuming I book a Cañas hostel I can work backwards from their check in time and leave here at a time calculated to get me there just a bit later than that, which given the short distances involved and the alleged high frequency (in RG) of T-C buses should be easily possible and leave me a huge margin of daylight in case of problems. (I said I was leaving day after tomorrow; I didn't mention the separate booking as I still have free cancellation option and I think she was just asking me in the first place out of smalltalk/offering to help rather than any genuine confusion over my check out date according to the booking systyem.)

A couple of guys were sitting inside bar for last hour or so, so I wasn't quite the only customer.

No no no, truth though it kill me^W^Wmake me look stupid. I misinterpreted the change (and thought I heard woman say "siete mill" when she *must* have said "cinco mill siete or something like that) in a silly way and have only been charged 5250, which is USD3.02 at the market exchange rate, so I have no complaints at all, and because I'm honest to a fault I won't delete my earlier not-quite-rant. Notwithstanding that, the lack of transparency from prices being in USD but paying in CRC *even when the business is acting fairly* is still annoying. Also worth pointing out I was far from clear what I'd been charged while upstairs in front of her, so I almost certainly didn't show any (unjustified) annoyance to her.

Wearing blue wool top tonight; it seems fine, so maybe I shouldn't worry about it in tumble dryers, or maybe I should still try to avoid this. Not sure. Still, it is OK.

2154 Pissing it down. Not exactly tired but a tiny bit and not doing anything really (just been copying some photos off camera to SD cards and charging camera battery) so will probably move towards bed.

2240 Was waiting for camera battery to charge so could stick phone charger on overnight so did a few bits and pieces, but actually going to bed now. As yesterday have set alarm for 10am and see what happens.