Discover Top Posts Tagged with #playa cocles

Last night as I was blogging, I was Facebook messaging with a few of my real life friends and I mentioned to one that I get sick of having the same conversation with different people every. single. day.

He said, yeah, single serving friends suck. What???? Did he just say SINGLE SERVING FRIENDS? This, is exactly why we’re real-life friends, he gets it.

What, you might ask is a single serving friend? The phrase is from the movie Fight Club (which I oddly just watched last week in a rare bout of vegging-out state). Single serving friends are basically people you have conversations with in a public setting and you’ll never see them again…. and after being on the road for months now, single serving friends have been the story of my travel life.

Whats your name? Where are you from? How long you traveling for? Where have you been? Where are you going? What’s been your favorite place?

That is the breadth of conversation I face every day when either I or someone new drops their bag on to the floor of the hostel I’m staying in I know those exact questions are coming.

My Antarctica single serving friend Kim from Books & Wanderlust wrote about something similar a few weeks ago as well in her post, “I don’t have friends” as she described her social life the first few weeks she was living in Buenos Aires while studying Spanish.

So yes, I’m desperately missing my real-life friends, real talk, and not having to explain my modus operandi and itinerary while telling everyone I was a bartender or hairstylist in my former life because every other answer is just too complicated..

Yes, I realize I’ve been saying real-life friends and I do realize that this lifestyle and therefore single serving friends are also a huge part my life at the moment and as long as I stay on the road changing cities every 3-4 days, my conversation will continued to be single serve scripted.

So while the conversation may be a bit drab, my life is not and after a couple of days of lying around in Bocas, I decided my body was in need of much exercise. So this morning I was out running early, just as the sun peaked above the horizon.

Cocles Beach during morning run

After I sweat my heart out, I headed down to Cafe Rico for breakfast. I’m a bit shell-shocked by Costa Rica prices as a coffee and this breakfast special ended up being over $12 USD along with a side of more single-serving conversation with the waiter.

I then decided to rent a bicycle for the day to explore the area around Puerto Viejo. I have to honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever driven a beach cruiser bicycle in my life.

The people of Costa Rica obviously did not know what they were getting into and the danger to public safety I was about to become because beach cruisers come without hand brakes!

Mi bicicleta roja

I was terrified for myself, knowing I have a need for speed and quickly recalling my last run-in with a 3 speed bicycle in Myanmar, when I flipped over the handlebars and got some serious road-rash after I tried to drive it like a full suspension mountain bike.

Apparently the Costa Rica vultures could also already also smell my defeat as they eyed me down as I peddled past the beach in Puerto Viejo, flew into the air and continued to circle above me the rest of the morning….waiting, just waiting for the moment that I damaged myself in a bicycle incident.

Vultures in Puerto Viejo

But today was not their day, as I tipped the odds in my favor 20 minutes later when I figured out that there are brakes on a beach cruiser bicycle, if you try to pedal backward, it slows the bike down. (How I’ve survived thus far in life, I’m also not sure).

After that life-saving discovery I headed south out-of-town, looking just like the Wicked Witch of the West, rapidly peddling my chubby thighs on that red beach cruiser….except in a shorter dress, no hat and in technicolor :)

Wicked Witch of the West

On the way, I stopped to watch the surfers at Punta Uva surf break…

Punta Uva Surf Break

Before arriving at the smaller beach town of Manzanillo where I grabbed a fresh mango juice from a small local restaurant and then headed to Playa Grande, the large very popular beach in town. I found a park bench under some trees and passed out on it like a homeless joe, enjoying the gentle warm breeze and the sounds of the waves crashing down as I took a mid-morning siesta.

Playa Grande Beach in Manzanillo

The problem was, my mind was busy thinking about a video entry for a contest I am entering so I started getting antsy to get back into Puerto Viejo so I could go research and work on the 15 second video clip.

I have never made a video before so it was a good learning experience and I found it to be something I think I’d enjoy messing around with a bit more in the future to improve my skill.

I think that 15 seconds was much too short to tell a story or grab an audience…. what do you think?

Project completed and mind laid to rest, I jumped back on the beach cruiser to bike around Puerto Viejo some more. I was really quite enjoying having the freedom of a bicycle and the roads around Puerto Viejo are relatively flat, tarred and perfect for leisurely bike riding.

The road to Manzanillo

I spent the entire late afternoon peddling that beach cruiser up & down the roads in between the beaches, the warm sun on my face and a slight breeze in the air.

Blue crab

I was admittedly quite sad when I had to turn it back in to the rental shop tonight…. but it’s probably for the best, or I would have probably hit one of these little guys and made even more carrion for those vicious circling vultures.

//The I.A.

// < ![CDATA[ (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i[‘GoogleAnalyticsObject‘]=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,’script’,’//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js’,’ga’);

ga(‘create’, ‘UA-56086157-1′, ‘auto’); ga(‘send’, ‘pageview‘);

// ]]>

Puerto Viejo & Single Serving Friends Last night as I was blogging, I was Facebook messaging with a few of my real life friends and I mentioned to one that I get sick of having the same conversation with different people every.

#Fight Club #Manzanillo #Playa Cocles #Playa Grande #Punta Uva