A Weekend in Alajuela

I had no idea how cool of an experience we could have in Alajuela. I arrived around 930 pm on Friday night and shortly met up with my cousin Kori. We took a cab and arrived at the Maleku Hostel. We ended up going to the market place to get some food and of course some panama rum.
The next morning we packed up and started our journey through this unfamiliar land. We found a room at Hotel Internacional which had walkways that were right above the streets. We put our packs in the room and started to explore town. As we were walking on the edge of town a group of 3 small children kept yelling at us and calling us Gringos. We sat around to talk to them a bit and they ended up knocking these strange fruits off the tree´s. We picked them off the ground and ate them. They were really good, but I still don´t know what I ate.
That night we got out the rest of the rum and shared it with the hostel employees. We talked and joked around with them for hours. After that one of the guys asked if we wanted to join him for a drink at the bar. We ended up going bar hopping all over town until about three in the morning. Everyone kept warning us of banditos but we were with a group of about 4 locals. There was even a guy named Hans who told me he runs this town and he hates tourists, luckily he said we were the exception. As interesting as it sounds we couldn´t have asked to meet any better people.
Today we were going to try to make it to the Poas Volcan but it was pretty cloudy and we each had pounding headaches. Instead we spend about one and a half hours trying to find the bus to the butterfly farm. We found the bus, paid the driver 190 colones (about 35 cents) and were off to see the butterflies. It was definitely a cool experience. We learned a lot and got to see some really cool things. Kori and I just got done going out to a nice dinner (3 dollars) and now were getting ready to go live in the jungle
We will be taking a 900 am bus tomorrow towards Tortugeuro. We should arrive at La Tortuga Feliz around 4 pm. As most of you know we will be there for 3 weeks without phone or internet. We are both extremely excited and cannot wait to be on the beach. Wish us luck and I will update this as soon as I get back to civilization.

adios, Eric

p.s. Whoever told me that everyone speaks spanish down here is a big liar. The vast majority of people in Alajuela do not speak English which has added a nice spin on the trip.