Montezuma, Tuesday

Tue 28th 0025 If forgot to say earlier, this hostel (of course) resells the Jaco boat tickets, but I prefer not to give them my business given their persnickety attitude to my microscopically torn bills. I don't know if they were "open" to selling earlier when I knew I wanted the boat day after tomorrow, but a staff member was around so probably. Hope I don't regret this but will talk to someone in town tomorrow and also ask about Quepos - I suspect bus Jaco-Quepos is not hard and almost certainly not expensive, but if I can pay say USD70 instead of 50 and have an extra hour on the boat (I'm assuming seasickness is not going to be a factor) and save hassle, I may splurge.

1921 In room copying photos around (in anticipation of four days in dorm plus maybe limited power supply for three days after that), once that's sorted will go sit outside and write more.

Couldn't sleep super well for no obvious reason. Woke up 6ish thinking it was later. Drowsed fitfully. Bit worried about clean clothes supply (silly - yes my quantity of tops is limited and that makes laundry a faff if I can't wash myself, but obviously all tourists have laundry needs so these can be met one way or another) and also about maybe not being able to get boat ticket and being faced with a massively complex itinerary to make it up (and wondering if the arsiness of the accom industry would mean - totally unfairly - if I failed to turn up on the first night of my non-refundable booking, I would be charged for the four nights and not be able to turn up a day later and use the remaining three).

Finally got up 7:30ish and walked (it's v close, just round corner almost) into town to see about boat. The place I had my eye on first - which advertised service to Quepos - was shut but I went round corner and another was open and brief chat with guy said there was no availability problem, think sign said USD50 and he didn't go to Quepos, only Jaco. Being semi-reassured about availability came back to hostel and after not being able to get a cup (FFS, what is it with this?) for a bit I had a couple of cups of coffee, a second shit and went back out to book boat. The place I'd wanted to go first was open now, he said it's a bus Jaco-Quepos anyway - something like USD25 for private bus or there's a public bus every hour-ish for about USD5. Guess which I preferred? I would have gone round corner and booked with first guy to reward him for being open early, but for some reason this place only wanted USD45 so I booked with them. I have to be outside the shop/kiosk where I booked with my bag at 8:20 tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed don't oversleep etc but should be fine.

Back to hostel, prepped daypack to go out and dice with death a second time on the local waterfall. I am toying with drafting an "actually meant to be readable by other people" blog post offering advice on these falls, although who knows if anyone would ever do so. But let me just bash out today's experiences for Future Steve as-is as normal. Maybe after a little finger cramp break. :-)

1941 Right, on uncomfortable chair on otherwise empty terrace bit just outside room. Not hiding away, although given I'm leaving tomorrow I (irrationally - chat is chat and maybe erodes broader BNM feelings) am not super keen to "meet" anyone.

Fingers still hurt, I think having cut nails (long overdue - but dorms...) yesterday maybe doesn't hurt. But let's push on manfully...

Incidentally woman asking about Cabo Blanco while I was booking boat made me feel maybe I "should" have gone there. But I have seen and am going to see many national parks, it's good to have something for a subsequent visit, etc.

So I got up to the top of the waterfalls no problem, offering semi-solicited advice on where to find the SunTrails steps to a couple of women on the lower approach along the river. Incidentally I deliberately kept my ST wristband on since the other day, so while they *may* insist it only has single day validity (colour change, the guy remembers who he sold to) I could *maybe* have used their trails for free, and of course 2k is negligible if I had had to pay - but I didn't *want* to use their trails today.

A smidge uneasy doing the upper "high difficulty" bit upwards (actually locally downwards, so to speak) but nothing too bad. Tried to be careful the whole way not to be overconfident because I'd done it before.

At top I put trunks on and stuffed trousers etc into 5l dry bag (though tbh it's a bit thin-looking at bottom and not 100% sure I trust it - I think I have a brand new bag of exact same type hidden in a box of Christmas presents back at my parents' place) and semi-gingerly explored the quiet-ish pools above the upper of the three falls. (There is a sort of fourth fall above his point, but it's probably about a metre high and doesn't seem to get counted.)

Water cool, obviously not freezing, kind of pleasant given warm weather but also that "heated swimming pool back in UK" shock to the system on first getting . Bottom quite rocky and uneven and I did slip around a bit. Did feel at various points a bit jealous of people jumping into pool below upper fall/above middle falls, but as noted ad nauseum since I can't swim and this water is well over head height - you can see this as people jump in - while I *might* get away with it, especially in the smaller surface area upper pool where distance to swim on resurfacing would be less, it is really only sensible not to take stupid chances.

Water mostly waist height, but the pool just below the "fourth" fall was neck deep as I crossed the little submerged barrier into it from roughly waist-ish height pool further from it, and I didn't think it prudent to try going closer to falls. Pool small enough I'd probably be fine, but no point being stupid. I also had my backpack on (and maybe shoes in hand?) at this point and although I'm sure the water was neck deep I may have been carrying the backpack because I'm pretty sure it didn't get totally submerged. Memories a bit confused now I mention it. *Maybe* - this sounds plausible - I'm conflating two things. While exploring one of the pools re depth, I ended up sort of a bit above waist and/or I slipped a bit and the bottom of backpack went in, then I took backpack off and perched it on surrounding rocks and *then* had the

I had a quick look inside dry bag to see if trousers (and more importantly phone/camera) were dry and they seemed to be more-or-less (my hand was wet as I was checking etc) and an hour or two later actually dug phone out and tested it and it was fine, and camera is fine too. So dry bag may be OK, or it may be the dry bag wasn't at bottom of daypack (had big bottle of water in bottom) and it didn't get very wet for very long.

In case it's not clear I was wearing two-tone blue plastic top I had worn at beach yesterday, I had rolled the sleeves up and sunblocked my arms/legs when getting changed and hung around keeping dry for 10-15 mins with aim - not that instructions on bottle said much (tbh they kind of say, paraphrasing "assume this doesn't work, even though we say it's waterproof reapply frequency especially if bathing, and don't spend too long in the sun" ) - of letting it soak into skin a bit. To jump ahead briefly, I no-soap washed it and orange wool jumper in sink (incidentally - deliberately? - the sink here is in corridor outside shared bathroom, so no privacy for surreptitious hand-washing, though *maybe* surreptition is not required? before I had a shower, I did them separately and the blue top did give a certain amount of brown dirtiness coming out, presumably just from a mild natural dirtiness present in the water today at falls/yday at beach.

Seeing some small crayfish (as always, creature names purely indicative of "feelings" , I am not a biologist) in waterfall pools reminded me that in a rock pool at waterfall on beach yesterday there were some white aquatic slug looking things, some of them about the size of my thumb.

Fingers hurting so another break...

Putting some photos on shared album for parents, reminded on beach yday there were *loads* of small silver fish, all apparently dead - presumably stranded by tide/wave some time before.

Started to feel bit cold after being in water a bit and sat out on side (trying to stay out of sun to avoid burning) - bear in mind all this swimming stuff is kind of new to me, however obvious it might be to everyone else. I gradually dried off and started to feel better [incidentally two cats here, a ginger and white one and a black with tiny bit of white one, black one is friendly-ish but not overly effusive, ginger a bit flighty, think I have managed to stroke both but tiny bit unsure about finger] and subsequently alternated between brief-ish dips and sitting on side drying off, going into sunnier bits and/or sitting on hot rocks (one so hot it was borderline painful) to dry off quicker. Didn't spend huge amounts of time in water but was sort of nice to spend the time I did.

I did a tiny bit of swimming in the pool I mostly settled one, a biggish irregular one which I think went over the top of the "three" falls at its extremity. Cautious exploration showed it got about neck deep in one tiny spot and was generally between knee and a bit over waist deep. Lack of fitness and/or very inefficient technique meant I managed to swim maybe 5m from my "base rock" where I'd perched bag and shoes, turn round and swim back without stopping once or twice, but I was struggling a bit towards the end and even though I knew I could stand up there was a semi-playful and semi-real feeling of "am I gonna make it?" .

To be fair to myself, because the depth was so variable and there were big rocks coming up to maybe a foot below surface in some places, swimming was hard/inconvenient anyway - didn't try my poor front crawl because I'm sure I'd have smashed my arms on these submerged rocks, so stuck to kind of dog paddle (breast stroke might work, but never learned that really) and a brief backstroke with feet only (which worked, but I was in danger of banging head first into the rocks edging the pool). I am sure the world's best swimmer could not have done much better than I did given the shallow and variable depths. I assume that if you can actually swim properly, a deep pool is much better as you don't have to worry about drowning *or* about submerged rocks getting in the way, but since I do have to worry about drowning I had to stick to the shallow pools with their submerged rocks

The prospect of having to go down was vaguely lurking nastily but not too big a deal.

I was kind of forcing myself to stay up there a bit longer than I maybe wanted - not that it wasn't fun, but kind of "milking" it a bit. In the end I forced myself to go for one final pseudo-swim and spent half an hour or so going for a "final" drying off, and decided I'd do at least the first part of the climb down wearing shoes+socks but otherwise swimming gear as that way maybe if I fell in on one of the not too dangerous but scrambling round edge of pool bits I'd have a better chance and at least wouldn't get trousers soaked. As it happens I decided to just stay like that all the way back to hostel, took small risk of extra scrapes on legs and probably looked a little odd (tho maybe less odd than wearing trousers?) but no one really cares.

The climb down from IIRC top pool to middle pool level was a little iffy but not terrible. The climb up from middle pool level to the "not too scary" intermediate path wasn't that bad really. There was a big lizard around that climb up - I saw from distance, some people were pointing it out when I was having brief rest/psych up/challenging myself not to rush to get it over with at base of that climb up but I couldn't see it then. I was a tiny bit worried it would be in the way as I was trying to get up but I figured it would scuttle off if it was and as it happens it wasn't there anyway.

Went back to hostel, had shower and pseudo-washed those tops as already mentioned, went out to Soda La Artesanal and got decent (left the slightly cheesy pasta) casado de pescado despite having ordered bistec, but I had been so apparently successful in sorting out the undressed salad (guy said it was chimichurri, and described it, and it was nice - *but* I pushed him to describe it, 'cos the chimichurri at the place I ate every day in Santa Elena seemed rather more saucey, judging from photos) that I felt quite cool about it anyway.

During meal and before I had said I wouldn't have a beer, and then having decided that I thought fuck it, I would anyway as it was last night. So broke a 20k (using up a load of smallish change too) at Super Mamatea and took a Pilsen down to beach for sunset, then came back to hostel and started to sort photos/charge camera battery as already noted.

Haven't packed yet but although I probably will and it would be good to "tidy" up my bag etc a bit, it's not super critical.

Feel slightly BNM with group of German speakers having dinner couple of metres from me, but not too fussed.

Not ecstatic about going into dorm but it is maybe better for meeting people and certainly stretches and isn't a huge deal.

Oh, while copying photos I went online (the only way you can do it) and paid USD18.08 for a foreigner ticket for parque nacional manuel antonion for day after tomorrow. I probably didn't need to - I experimented and you can see the spaces available and there were spaces for tomorrow if I'd wanted one - and probably only at weekend is this needed, but felt I'd better play it safe. Annoyingly you have to pick an arrival window so after dithering I picked 9-940 (from memory) - it's not as if I'm generally getting up terribly late on this trip, and guide book makes out there are lots of buses and it's only about 20m from town. Will need to find the bus stop tomorrow afternoon though.

I might go to the park a second day, either solo again or with a guide, but we'll see how it goes.

2112 Left bottle of water on chair to "claim" it while went for a piss and an arrogant cocksucker just put it on floor and took chair. Have come over to another identically uncomfortable chair near the kitchen, bit noisier here.

2139 Think I might see if I can shave and go back to room. Pretty quiet out here but room is nice enough to sit in and I don't think either of the cats is going to come near me.

2226 Well that was dramatic. Was just peering into shared bathroom prior to going for a piss and a big chunk of wood/plaster suddenly broke loose from the ceiling and smashed onto the bottom of shower stall. Snapped couple of photos of aftermath. Would have been a nasty surprise had someone been in shower, probably not have got head but could well have caught shoulder a glancing blow or something. Bit of a shock as it was, of course.

2243 Kinda sorta packed. Loads of stuff is a bit damp so leaving it out to put in properly in morning.

On a misc note, since in reality I *don't* bother with bundle wrapping clothes - dorms kill it, but it also doesn't work that well with a backpack anyway, and my travel clothes are not super fancy and I just tend not to worry about wrinkles if there are any - I don't need the floppy A4 pouch as a core object, and it would probably be better to replace it with something a little more rigid which would better protect the contents (not that they're super valuable, but any papers in there are going to get crumpled and dog-eared).

2251 Bed. Loads of "semi-dirty" clothes, ie not freshly (even hand) washed but sort of kind of clean enough to wear. Meh. Just might wear orange wool top tomorrow, I suspect I'll sweat like a pig in Jaco if guide book anything to go by about climate of Jaco/Quepos and although I still have a bit of a "wool? no!" feeling the experiment other day was reasonably successful and this will help keep the other tops clean(er). I'll have my pack with me and will keep a lighter top near top of pack so I can change it in a pinch. Do also wonder if it might be a bit cold on boat, I suspect it's just the kind of thing we crossed Lake Arenal on.

Skin is sort of coming away from right thumbnail a bit near the centre. Doesn't hurt and put some Vaseline on it in vague hope that will do some good. Incidentally I lightly grazed a knuckle on the way down from top of falls today, which kind of complements the light graze on a different knuckle I think I got going up the first day. Neither hurts.

Anyway, bed.

OK, last bit - the bloke at the USD45 boat booking place happily took the torn 20s, and I asked him for change in dollars too. (I asked this first and he said yes, then a few mins later when I actually paid I saw him reach for a calculator so I said "in dollars, please" as a precautionary measure. :-) )