Woke up to the sound of what we think are cicadas. If not.....then the aliens are invading and trying to probe our minds for information!
Started the day off with our free breakfast which consisted of eggs, ham cut into small pieces and cooked in oil with onions, and what looked like some kind of pepper, and a rice and bean combination....muy delicioso!! Sat on the balcony of the hotels restaurant over looking the pool and out upon the beautiful landscape.
Once we finished with breakfast we went to the front desk to inquire about transportation into town so we could get some essentials....you know....since our suitcase was lost somewhere over the ocean.......and we needed to get toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo....things like that.
Now rememeber that it is Good Friday so almost everything is closed here....they really shut the place down over Easter. The receptionist, whose English was a little better than the taxi driver, called the airport and left a message since no one answered. They are all extremely helpful here! Then she called one of the other workers, a man we have dealt with before, and he talked to us about what might be open. Then he called for a taxi, told us it would be about ten dollars round trip, and set the appointment up for them to drive us to the mall. He told us to be back by ten till twelve so we would be ready for the taxi. We had a little time to kill so Jake went swimming before we went out front to wait for the taxi.
11:50.....11:55.......12:00......12:05......12:10.....12:15.....getting the picture?
12:20 I go back inside to inquire about the taxi. The man who made the reservation is no where around but the lady understood my Spanish so she called about the taxi. When she hung up she said they wiould be here in a minute.
Went back outside to wait and sure enough...they showed up quickly. Now things are starting to look good, right? Wrong! We get into the car and as we shut the door the guy from the hotel runs out and asks us once more what we are looking for and then tells the drive, in Spanish, what we need and where we need to go. Doesn't sound bad, right? Keep reading!
We start out from the hotel and within seconds, the taxi drivers cb radio starts to go crazy with some one on the other end. The Taxi driver picks it up and starts to talk to her very quickly. Then.....he more or less stops in the middle of the road and turns to me and starts speaking in the fastest Spanish I have ever heard. I think he is saying that the mall is closed but when I say that he shakes his head no. Frustrated, he slows his Spanish down and repeats himself. I swear he is telling me the mall is closed! Again he shakes his head. Remember we are more or less in the middle of the road...we go back and forth for a few seconds before he holds his hand up and closes his fingers together apparently making the universal sigh for when something is closed...yes you heard me right...closed! So in other words...the mall was closed!
Now that we have established that the mall is closed (and that our driver speaks NO ENGLISH!) we then try to find out if there is an open supermarket somewhere. He puts his dispatcher on and tells me to talk to her. I do so in English and it looks like things are improving because next thing we know we are moving once again. Yay for translators!
Now we are quickly moving through town, dodging in and out of traffic, just missing pedestrians, and totally ignoring all stop signs. As we are traveling along, passing what loo like open grocery store and trying to point those out to out taxi driver who appears to not hear us because he is a man on a mission, Jake and I are pointing out the sights...KFC....Taco Bell....McDonalds....did I just say McDonalds? Next thing I know he whips into McDonalds, points proudly at the front door and tells us to get out. You heard me right...McDonalds...get out.
The taxi driver turns around and heads back out onto the street where we are once again entertained and slightly terrified by his driving skills. Traveling along at great speed and no longer afraid he can understand a word we are saying we play a game of can you spot the supermarkets he is passing as we drive by because we have now figured out what they look like....one....two....three! A few minutes later he whips into the parking lot of a supermarket and proudly proclaims that we are here.....at the first supermarket we tried to point out to him when we started.....
When the car stop no one moved until he assured us he was staying....that we do know how to say in Spanish..."wait here!" is a very important sentence to learn. He promised that he was parking right around the corner so we got out and went inside. After making a mad dash through the store, and after buying our driver a soda too, we headed back outside only to find him standing at the door waiting for us. Did he seriously think we would skip out on him? He had driven us around in so many circles I don't think we could find our way back if we tried!
Seven minutes later we are back at the hotel and when I inquire in Spanish how much we owe him, which is clearly visible on his meter as about $17.00 in colognes, he holds up 3 fingers and says "Trenta". Mistake number one.....I can change his colognes into American dollars because we know the exchange rate for the day. I look at him furrow my brows and ask in Spanish if that is the colognes amount. "What?" he says. I point once more at the meter and say..."Colognes?" he finally says yes so I oull out the 11,000 colognes he needs and hand it to him..... mot the American $30.00....and we all get out. He opens the trunk, we take our stuff, thank him, and head back to our room. As we walk down to our room I fill Bob in our what he was trying to do with the money. Scratch off taxi driver number 2!
We then go back to the room, play a few games of Rummy, and then go swimming. Had a great time at the pool and then came back to rest before dinner. While we are waiting too eat there is a knock at the door. When we open it there is the maid. She says somehting in Spanish and we invite her in to do her job. She stands at the door and says nothing. We invite her in once more and she continues to stand at the door but speaks again in Spanish. This is going nowhere so I get up, go to the bathroom, grab a wet towel and show it to her. She noddeds her head and asks me somehting in spanish then waits. Yes sounds like a good answer so I say "Si!" adn she smiles and goes away. No I am not sure if we are going to get towels or not so we go back to our game of Rummy and wait. Several minutes later there is a knock at the door and there she is with our towels. I inquire about washclothes which we have yet to see, she says something and turns away. Good, maybe she is going to get us some. We again return to our game and wait. Next thing we see is her heading down the hill towrards another set of buildings....oh well...at least we have towels!
Finally we went to dinner where we had a delicios meal of foccacia bread with ham and cheese, think pizza with no sauce, and a beautiful view of the hotel all lit up. Just before dinner is over, the lovely young receptionist, whose English is a thousand times better that anyone elses, bounces over to our table and announces that our luggage has arrived! I have never seen Jacob move so fast! Jacob returns a few minutes later with his luggage and a huge smile and we finish our meal, but not before Jacob gives his luggage a big hug!
Once again, our day ends on a high note and we go to bed planning the next day, Thanks to the young girl, with the wonderful broken English, at the front desk, we now know that you CAN get from Alejuela to San Jose by bus, which is exactly what we are going to do on Saturday.
Wish us well!!
More Saturday night!
****Foot Nnote****
After reading my notes from Day 2, I realized that it sounded a little harsh how I described the taxi driver at McDonalds. I didn't mean for it to sound as if he was throwing us out of the cab....what I meant was that he was telling us we could get out because he had done such a wonderful job getting us to where we wanted to go.At least to where he thought we wanted to go...which it wasn't.
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