February 7: 90 degrees

What feels like a guilty pleasure anymore is naturally waking up, no alarm clock. My body clock seems to go off anywhere between 7 and 8 a.m. This morning, I open my eyes to find an animal coming through the roof. Our room at the hostel has a cloth ceiling below the roof of the entire hostel. The cloth is to help deter bugs and Mosquitos from entering. On this particular morning, a cat managed to find an opening and drop through the ceiling. After a couple of seconds, to make sure I knew what I was seeing, I wake up Mandy to show her.

After realizing what just happened moments after we opened our eyes, we chuckled in relief that it was only a cat coming through the ceiling. Moments later, we hear, "JESSSSSSUS CHRIST, IT'S A GOD DAMN CAT". I suspect our cat friend just dropped into our neighbor's room.

Deciding to take the morning slow and soaking up the beauty surrounding us, we prepare coffee to accompany our viewing pleasure. As the coffee is brewing, a woman from Alaska strikes up a conversation in the communal kitchen of the hostel. She inquires about our travels, where we are from and where we are heading next. I realize that we are on similar travel agendas just as the woman utters the phrase, "you betcha." Yes, Alaskans really do say, "you betcha."

The woman asks what room we are staying in. I tell her "room 6" and she mentions that she is in the room next door -- the same room our cat friend visited after it dropped into our room. It took everything out of me to not mention how dramatic her husband's reaction was to their morning visitor. Instead, I just giggled to myself. It was a beautiful morning.

That afternoon we found ourselves making a pitstop at our favorite bar/restaurant in this area called Marino Ballena. It is centrally located in town and one of our favorite features is that there are no walls. There is only a roof, which allows people to freely come in and out from all directions.

When we walk up to the bar, the bartender recognizes us and immediately delivers two Pilsen to the corner seats of the bar and asks us what we would like to eat. Every time we have come to this place, it doesn't take long for people to engage in conversation at the bar. Here, we have met locals, expats and other travelers who are eager to talk about their experiences. Today we meet Axle. Axle is originally from the Dominican Republic, spent 13 years in the US and now lives in Costa Rica as a contractor. His English is very good and he starts the conversation with the same line we have heard our entire trip, "Where are you from?" Axle is a very nice and smiley guy. We start talking about all the different types of visitors come through Costa Rica and Axle has seen them all. He built and owns a few Cabinas in the area and he rents them out to travelers. Axle clearly feels comfortable with us as he tells us that Americans are a favorite topic for local Ticos. They love to talk about how expectant some Americans can be, often lacking basic respect for those who live here.

Now, keep in mind that Axle is a jovial man who explains this out of frustration. He has also met awesome people from all countries, including the USA. Unfortunately, we have seen some of this negative behavior ourselves (from multiple nationalities). He also speaks similarly of Germans. All in all, this was a light-hearted conversation.

Axle then begins to tell us of a local topic termed "Jungle Terets". As we laugh at the term, he tells us what this means. He says that almost everyone that he takes on a jungle tour has it. It is that moment in the jungle where you spot an animal like a monkey, sloth or coati and you almost instantaneously hear someone smack themselves and say, "Agh, damn misquito!" or "What's on my leg".

Here in the jungles of Costa Rica, the local Ticos have finally identified this reactive behavior as "Jungle Terets."

We returned to the Uvita area to attend their second annual "BestFest" music festival. The fest is three days long on a farm near the beach. Activities include camping, surfing and access to just about any type of tour you could imagine in the area. We are only going to get a day pass to check it out.

We arrive late afternoon and once we park, we discover that we must walk down a long road before arriving at the entrance of the festival. A truck pulls up along side of us and asks if we would like a ride. A very nice guy named Ron, originally from Michigan, takes us as far as security would allow. We then only have about 100 feet to the entrance of the festival.

We are a bit early and set up a place to easily watch all stages. The music is cool and every band is just a little bit different. I imagine that this is what ComFest was like when it first started. It isn't too crowded, the food and beer lines are only a couple of people deep and everyone around is friendly and just wants to hear some good music. The music was better than we expected, but the event was MUCH emptier than we expected -- both Mandy and I thought more people would be there to watch the fest.

Well into the evening we were visited again by Ron, the guy from Michigan. Ron had quite a story of selling high end cars to the wealthy of California where he was the Porsche King of California and he made quite the financial cushion for himself. You can tell that Ron had a passion for cars and he didn't mind the cash flow that went along with selling them. He seemed to also have the same passion for his wife who lost her life to cancer. It was hard for Ron to talk about her. These two topics seemed to be the softer side of Ron.

Ron also liked to tell us of his dealings with Costa Rican officials and how he has worked with them to try to develop a huge resort and casino on the oceanfront. He didn't so much care for my question of where the money for such an establishment would be going. Costa Rica currently has laws banning development within a 200 meter distance of its shorelines. Ron proceeded to pat himself on the back as the "whistleblower" that took down Key Bank. Lastly, I asked Ron what brought him to Costa Rica. My first thought was that it might of been the loss of his wife. Instead, it was that he made millions in the car industry and didn't want the state of California to get their hands on it. Maybe some level of tax evasion.

Who knows if Ron's stories were true or not. Later in the night, he picked up a couple of girls who might have been a third of his age. He felt compelled to explain to me that he was not a pedophile. Whatever his deal, he is memorable.

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