San Hose and Pooonta Mona

I flew in to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica and hopped on a bus to the center of town. Getting a taxi proved difficult and confusing. There were a bunch of them lined up at the curb, but none would take me the 2+ km to my hostel. Why, I don't know. Eventually I found a goodly taxista who took me to a hostal across the street from the Supreme Court. I stayed there that night and then hopped a taxi (waiting right outside) the next morning for Escazu where my great Uncle Jack lives. Escazu is an American suburb dropped from the sky into CR complete with Quizno's and Pottery Barn-esque places. Aparrently it wasn't always so. I got dropped off at my uncle's gate and we hung out and had lunch and he told me (when asked) about his time as an anthropologist in Africa with a small village of Africans and his time in the OSS in Africa during WWII trying to extract intelligence pertaining to Axis troop movement and whatnot. It wasn't nearly as interesting as I'd hoped it would be, but nice nontheless. I took a bus back to San Hose and went back to the hostal then took a bus the next day to Sixaola which is near the Panamanian border on the Caribbean. Then I took a 1/2 hour cab ride to Gandoca. Along the way a cop stopped us and asked for my passport which I presented. I asked the taxista if there were lots of problems with turistas here and he said that Columbians bring lots of cocaina through. I assured him I had none. After grinding down a pothole pocked road in the early 80's Toyota truck (with well-warn shocks) I got dropped off at the beach in Gandoca. I walked for an hour along the beach and on a jungle trail to Punta Mona, a so-called permaculture farm/community. Punta Mona sat in the jungle, literally with the beach in front.