Suerte.

This Friday and Saturday I had planned to go to Montezuma--on the Nicoya Peninsula, in the Pacific--with Whitney.  There is only one ferry per day to Montezuma, and it leaves at 9AM from Puntarenas.  To get to Puntarenas in time, you have to take the 6AM bus from Coca Cola.

Whit and I had already planned our meeting spot, so I didn't think it was a big deal when my internet went down around 830 the night before our trip, and was only mildly annoyed when it still didn't work the following morning.

I woke up before the sun rose at 445 and went to meet her, but of course she wasn't there (turns out I was actually in the wrong spot).  I walked around until 520, screaming her name (rude, maybe...) and trying to find her before I lost hope and went back to my room to decide whether travelling alone was worth it or not.

I decided that maybe she'd misheard our meeting time, and so I went back outside just to check.  Sure enough, she was walking down the street towards my house.  I grabbed my stuff and we ran full tilt to a taxi at 542.

Told the driver exactly what we wanted to do and he pretended to understand, but dropped us off at the terminal for Monteverde, not Montezuma, at 552.  Thinking we'd probably missed the bus and upset that we might not get to see Montezuma afterall we ran and got another taxi to take us to the right stop.

We got there right at 6, and literally had to run to get on the bus before it left.  But we did it!  Montezuma time!

Got in to Puntarenas around 830, and strongly debated walking over to the ferry to save some money.  Thank God we didn't, because if it wasn't for our cab driver we'd have gotten on that ferry and left for Montezuma without ever having heard about the tsunami watch that was in effect.

Sidenote:  The vast majority of cab drivers--maybe 95%--won't even talk to gringos unless asked a direct question.

This guy was incredibly friendly.  We got to talking about how we lived in San Jose and how we had been in CR for 2 and a half months, were just finishing up our program, and had heard that Montezuma was a place we couldn't miss.  When we told him this last thing he kind of raised his eyebrows and said "mejor no, hoy," and explained the whole situation to us.

At the ferry station, we asked five or six more people, all of whom said "do not go to Montezuma".

See, the thing about Montezuma is that not only is it immediately on the Pacific shore, it is also incredibly difficult to get to--as in, the next ferry didn't leave the peninsula until at least 230.  If we had gone, in all likelihood we would have been stranded.

So we got right back on the bus and drove back to San Jose.

We'll find out really soon whether or not we needed to, but if it hadn't been for this cab driver, we wouldn't have even known about the tsunami.  We could have literally been swimming at when this thing hit.

Woah...