"Gringa":White chick
This past weekend I had the pleasure of visiting Manuel Antonio beach located on Costa Rica's Pacific Coast. I stayed in a gorgeous hostel, Hotel Plinio, and the most frequent question that I recieved was, "Who are you traveling with?" or, "Oh so you're travelling in you own? That's awesome." While you would think that my answer would be yes, yeah, or si, the one thing that I consistently learned from this weekend is that traveling alone most certainly does not exist.
On the bus on the way to the bus public bus station you are not traveling alone because having been lucky enough to find a seat, you have the pleasure of having a stranger's butt, backpack, or crouch invade any personal space that ever existed. On the taxi ride from the bus to the next bus you're definitely not alone as you become the taxi driver's newest confidant in a matter of minutes. In the common occurrence of the taxi driver asking the very non invasive question of whether or not you have a boyfriend, I'll have you know that I am never alone. In fact, though my "boyfriend" (though I don't actually have one) lives in the states, he just started an amazing new job and will be coming to visit soon. In the meantime we find time to skype... Thank goodness for technology! Once on the bus on the way to your destination theres a 50/50 chance you'll sit next to a talker or a sleeper. On the way there I sat next to a sleeper, but on the way back, well that's another story. After finally having arrived at the hostal the first night, I didn't do much since it was already way past my dinnertime. The next day while I did go to the beach on my own, I was accompanied by hundreds of beach goers of all shapes and speedos. The second night I started talking to two other girls that had been traveling together, and we ended up going into the town and getting dinner together. Sharing food with two new friends, again not traveling alone. The following day I had time to kill before my bus so I got some postcards in town, went to a smoothie place, and began writing. (Don't forget to send me your address via the gringa girl mail section of the blog! ) As I was writing, up walked a clan of 6 very obvious gringos. One of the guys looked like jersey shore had thrown up on him, while the others had just walked out of a vinyard vines catalog. When they came and sat down at my table I realized they all had one thing in common...they were manscapers. Their chests and arms were recently shaven, but their stubble was still obvious. Now I understand the need to shave for swimming or for triathlons, but after talking to my fellow travelers for quite some time, the closest that any of them got to a water sport was that one of them kind of surfed. Therefore these became my wonderfully nice group of manscaping friends. The last friend that I made on this trip was Brian. After a long weekend of "traveling with friends," when it was time for my bus on Sunday I was pooped! I was one of the first to get on the bus, and as I sat and waited to leave I thought to myself, "There is no one that could sit next to me right now who I would want to have a conversation with. Even if it was a very attractive tican I don't think I could talk to him. " I quickly made up my mind that the only exception would be if Channing Tatum walked onto this $9 public bus and sat down next to me. Then I would talk to him. Unfortunately, I was not given a choice as my not so dear friend Brian came and sat next to me and literally did not stop talking the entire four hours...with stop and go traffic. After asking me how long I had been in Costa Rica, and I said 2 weeks, his response was that I looked very clean. He told me that he looked clean because he had showered that day. After nodding my head since I was semi speechless, he proceeded to tell me that even my backpack and clothes were clean. Suddenly he saw two small stains on my shirt and proceeded to point them out as if he was proud that he had found them. In this case I definitely had a travel partner, or rather a travel leech. As you can see, though I may make my own travel decisions, I never travel alone. I always have a wide array of travel buddies.
1 Comment
Tricia
8/12/2014 11:33:22 pm
Glad you are having a good time but be careful!
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Photo used under Creative Commons from Felipe Arias U.