Puerto Viejo de Talamanca

I´ve been staying at Rocking J´s in Puerto Viejo. All the rumors about the amount of ganja here are true. I met Jay of Rocking J´s and also met Juppy of Juppy and Tino Adventures, who brought us to the Manzanillo reserve for a half-day hike. The Manzanillo reserve was absolutely beautiful. We blazed our own trail through the jungle behind our guide, who carried a machete. My 35mm camera has been taking the place of my digicam, but I´m suffering through growing pains. I keep forgetting to bring extra film and always run out of shots about halfway through whatever activity I happen to be doing. I haven´t been sleeping well since arriving at Puerto Viejo. I knew early on that I couldn´t stay here for too long. As much fun as the nightly drum-and-guitar bonfires are, I could see easily that this wasn´t a healthy environment for me. The people here feed off of each other into an endless cycle of peer pressure and giving in.

J of Rockíng J´s seemed like a sweet, albeit lonely man. I didn´t see a wedding ring on his finger, and he´s always got a J in his mouth. He´s a middle-aged ex-pat from the U.S. Though, I suppose running a hostel that kids can come to party at can´t be considered too bad of a life. He gets to hang out with girls in bikini´s all the time. And its different girls every week. His hostel also has an artistic flair to its design that I appreciate. Poems on the inside of the bathroom stalls instead of things like "I will love Eric forever."

I did meet a surprisingly sweet gentleman from North Carolina who has his own band - Forward All. I do have a weakness for tall blue-eyed Southern gentlemen. But all hope died when he admitted to having a knight-in-shining-armor complex. There´s something, he said, about girls who need to be saved. Barring drug addicts. I realized at that point that I was out of the running. As a girl who´s travelling Central America on her own and starting med school in the fall and stubborn to a fault, I´m the last person who needs to be saved. I don´t appeal to those in search of maidens in distress. Perhaps more so to those who enjoy challenges. After all, how attached can you get anyways to someone you meet on the road for 2 days? Even despite an easy-going personality and an utterly charming one-sided dimple?