Anyways the next day I wanted to take the bus that left from the border at 10am. My friend wanted the 3pm bus. I really like getting home early because it's less stressful for me. Plus for the one at 3pm there was sort of nothing we could do before the bus came, just sit around really. I caved and went for the 3pm, next time I'm sticking with my gut!!!
The morning we got up and had a cheap breakfast. Since it was 7am we walked around the town a bit. The town was only, oh, 5 blocks long or so, so we had basically seen the whole thing. But this time I caught sight of a cute little dress store. Went in and LOVED IT. I ended up buying this dress. What do you guys think? (I also bought myself some earrings since my SO still hasn't bought me jewelry yet)
The pictures are a little shitty, and I hate doing that mirror thing but there's no good place in my apartment to get a full body shot other than the mirror. I wanted a full length dress like that for a long time but they always are just a bit too short for me. I finally found this one and really loved it! I wanted a more casual one you could wear to the mall, or just around during the day, but I think this is a little too fancy. I don't know I'll have to figure it out. It's so soft and comfortable. It's also a little big on the top and I planned on bringing it in a little, but my SO really likes it baggy so I might leave it. I'll have to see.
SO! On to the ugly story. We get the boat taxi back to the dock and the taxi up to the border. Head through the border, no problems again, and go to the bus stop to wait. We get there at 1pm and the bus doesn't leave until 3pm. So we have 2 hours of waiting (after traveling 2 hours to get there via boat/taxi). I hear the guys at the bus stop talking about how another bridge fell and the highway was closed and how we'd have to go through Turialba (here is an article, even if you can't read the Spanish you can see that the road fell apart). Which is basically a mountainous curvy twisty back road. But it's the ONLY other way to get from the Caribbean to San Jose. They figure it'll probably take an extra hour. I'm pissed because I can't believe how unable Costa Rica is to keep up with infrastructure. If you didn't see my last rant about the other bridge collapse see appendix below. I mean can we change CR's national saying from "Pura Vida" to "ANOTHER bridge has collapsed!"
Well we make it from the border up to a city called Limon with no problems. As soon as we leave Limon around 5pm, we hit traffic. And not like stop and go traffic. Just stopped traffic. We wait in this for two full hours before moving oh... 15 meters or so. Just to stop for another hour again. And this is how the trip goes. And it is dark as a muther fucker. Remember this road is through the mountains- there are no houses, no people, no lights, no street signs, nothing. So when all the cars and buses and trucks turn off and turn off their lights, it's pitch black. And it gets dark here at 5pm. Awesome right?
One of the main traffic issues is that Limon is the biggest port in the country. Basically everything shipped into and out of the country goes through Limon. Which means there are big 16-wheeler trucks going to and from Limon. And big 16-wheeler trucks do not mix well with narrow, winding, mountainous roads. These fucking trucks are falling over, getting stuck in ditches, blocking the entire road, going slow as fuck, and basically causing all our grief. At one point we stopped right next to one that was about || this close to falling off the mountain. I hopped out of the bus and took a picture. Because why the hell not right? I hate to sound morbid but I wish it had just fallen off the cliff, that way the road would have been cleared quicker.
(not seen to the right- a giant fucking cliff)
Before getting on the bus I started talking to this really smelly Canadian guy. We were getting along pretty nice and by around 12am, after probably having only moved 20 km or so in the past 5 hours we both sort of went hysterical. Like laughing non stop. The whole situation was so fucking ridiculous! He was like "isn't there a better road to go on?" And I was like "yeah, but the fucking bridge collapsed, this is the only other way" He's like "what! How can there only be TWO roads?" He also had a flight out today at 4pm and we were joking that he might have to reschedule since we'll never get off the mountain. We were laughing and laughing. It was almost like I went through all the stages of grief while on that bus- I was so angry, then so sad, then just wanted to get home, then hopeful, then hysterical, and then finally- acceptance (we will never leave this bus)
We finally get off that shit-hole of a mountain and get back to San Jose. It took us 10 hours to get from Limon to San Jose. And you want to know how far away they are? 150km (93 miles). That's right. Fucking 150km in TEN HOURS.
So yeah, that takes the cake as the WORST bus ride I have ever been on. I thought it was a runner up to a 13-hour, hot, purely dirt road avoiding riots on the main street in Peru bus ride. But no, this one is a winner.
Happy to be back home! My SO promised to take me somewhere nice tomorrow so I can wear my new dress
Well that's it for now, I really need a freaking nap. Went to bed around 4am or so and woke up at 6:30am. What the hell is wrong with me? Why can I never sleep in??!!
Appendix- Months ago a big hole appeared in the middle of one of the most important highways in San Jose. It basically shut the entire country down, so much so that the President excused people from work since no one could get anywhere. Instead of fixing the road, they built a bridge over it. Which then collapsed 2 weeks later when a truck went over it. So they built the bridge AGAIN and now they say that it "can't handle the rain" (uh duh, we live in the tropical rainforest and it's RAINY SEASON) and have closed off the entire highway while they work to fix the road for an expected TWO MONTHS which we all know will be way longer than two months. It has caused constant traffic issues all around San Jose and when I leave school after 3pm it takes me 1 hour to get home instead of 10-15 minutes. It's caused so much havoc that the country considered calling it a national emergency. They were planning on giving people 2 days of restriction (currently you have 1 day Mon-Fri where you can't drive through the city) but people were so pissed about that they decided not to do it. They've now switched government hours to different times to attempt to lower the amount of traffic. It's just a huge shit show.
That road crap.... ew.