Costa Rica - San Jose (again!)

Ben:
After another long arduous bus journey, we arrived back in San Jose. At which point I had a stinking headache and had to lie down. Got to the hostel... moaned a lot... got Heather to place a cold flannel on my head... and tried to sleep whilst feeling worse and worse. In the meantime Heather went to get some food. In the ten minutes whilst she was gone I threw up all over myself and all over the laundry room floor (the bathroom was occupied)... and immediately felt fine again, though a little damp! Half an hour later feeling amazingly recovered I went to get take away for myself too!

The next day we wanted to go shopping in the city centre. San Jose is not the prettiest of cities. The 'Lonely Planet' guide book has most of it's San Jose space dedicated to warning you of all the bad areas of the city. It gives advice such as "if at any point you're held at knife or gunpoint, do not resist or fight back". So having taken off all our watches and jewelry and stashed money for the day in secret pockets we venture into town. First thing you notice is how all the local lots have security guards with big guns and large razor wire fences around them! Thankfully the trip went without incident and I even managed to buy some nice new shorts to replace the army camouflaged shorts that I've been advised not to wear in South America! Suffice to say the camera didn't come with us so there are no photos.

Today, our final day in Costa Rica, we've spent the day white water rafting in a national park near San Jose. It was a three hour raft trip over class III and IV rapids. To be fair I didn't know what class IV rapid really meant. Now I know it means you get very wet! Apparently it's one of the top five white water rafting rivers in the world. There were five people in a raft, a guide who would give commands to the other four who would then paddle appropriately. I was at the front of the raft and I realised at one point that I was failing to hear some of the commands when after a particularly vicious rapid that involved me getting drenched and almost falling off, I was wondering why no one else was still paddling. Turning round I noticed everyone else was lying on the bottom of the raft and I had missed the vital "get down" command! It was amazing fun and a great way to end our time in Costa Rica.