I have arrived!
The flight from Miami was hell. I slept for all of an hour and a half of the 8 hour flight. Tried to have a conversation with the girl seated next to me, she spoke no English and I no spanish. I fumbled endlessly through my pocket phrase book trying my best. I managed to uncover 3 pieces of information: she is married, has no kids, and thought the chicken served for dinner on the flight was Bueno! We passed most of the time playing solitare. Suprisingly she was much better than I was. I only won 1 game out of what must have been 30 or 40 attempts. She was winning about 1 out of 5 it seemed.
Things went from bad to worse once we landed. I basically had the same conversation with everyone I talked to:
Me: ¿habla ingles?
They: No.
Me: *sigh* gracias
At customs they gave me a form to fill out. Obv it's in Spanish. I fill it out best I can. The officer looks at it, laughs a little, smiles and waves me through.
It took about 40 minutes to claim my baggage, I was sweating my ass off, still wearing the clothes I had put on when I left MN. Bags in hand, I attempted to find my Thrifty rental car. Every car rental option, save Thrifty, had an office at the airport. I was asking everyone in sight for help, but every conversation was the same (see above). Finally, one of the delivery drivers for a different agency offered to call Thrifty. I only understood a handful of the words he said, most importantly something about being out front in five minutes. Five minutes later a Thrifty van arrived to pick me up.
We drove a few blocks to the thrifty office. Again, no English, but we got through it. I ended up having to buy insurance, added about 50% to the cost of the rental. $0 deductable though. I was unhappy about buying insurance at first, until I got on the road. Drivers here are INSANE. Speed limit is 90km/h. I was the only one going that speed, everyone was doing 110-130. I got passed by a bus in a no passing zone. Simultaniosly another car is passing him WAY off the shoulder. It was not uncommon to see cars three wide on the two lane expessway, and there was a motorcycle or hitchhiker every 100 yards or so.
I finally got to the Hostel after about an hour and a half drive. Rodrigo, my host, met me on the street when I pulled up. ¿
habla ingles?, I asked. "Yes, perfectly." was his responce. I have never been so relieved. The hostel is very nice, pretty much exactly what I expected it to be. I'm very centrally located. Five minutes to the beach, the main shopping center, and the Mantra Casino.
Rodrigo showed me some points of interest on the map. I'm going to try and go horseback riding, maybe later today. I also want to do some ocean fishing, should be fun.
Well, that's about all for now, I'm going to check out the Mantra later tonite. I made a video on the drive I still need to upload, and I'm going to make one right now too I think.
Thanks for reading!