Anna leaves, and the Tortuga debacle

Anna's bus was scheduled to leave to 11:30, so we had plenty of time to have breakfast before taking her down to the bus stop. Very soon after getting tot he paved road, the traffic came to a complete standstill. It turned out that this was our first brush with the protests.

A law was passed in Costa Rica last year that added a 13% tax to services. There was already tax on goods, but now a tax is being put on services as well. Also, essential items that used to be tax exempt, like rice and beans, will now be taxed. The reasoning is that for the past 30 years, deficit spending has hindered the country's financial strength (I'm way oversimplifying) so the government is attempting to make a correction. It's a harsh one though, and many different groups are upset, especially the groups that aren't already receiving the favor of the government (again, it's complicated). Young people, for example, were upset that the education minister had squandered the education budget (sounds like Florida). The tax law was scheduled to go into effect on July 1. So this stop in traffic was the beginning (for us). A group of students had created a barricade across the bridge. The one bridge you must cross in Uvita to go north.

We weren't upset about the protest. On the contrary, we support peaceful protest of government corruption. It's especially encouraging to see young people so actively engaged. The only concern was that Anna had a bus to catch. However, the bus was coming from the south too, so as long as the bus wasn't already at the station, the bus would be stuck in this same stoppage. In fact, we could see a pink Tracopa bus about 15 cars behind us. Cristina walked down and talked to the bus driver, and sure enough that was Anna's bus. So now it was just a matter of how long this would take.

Chatting with some American, on his honeymoon, stuck in traffic

It took about an hour.

When we finally crossed the bridge, we cheered with the group of students who were holding signs and chanting.

At the bus station, the bus driver said they'd be leaving in 20 minutes. It was closer to an hour, but...it's Costa Rica.

We said our final goodbyes to Anna, our sweet Swede, and watched her bus pull away towards San Jose. It was supposed to be a four-hour ride. Alas, there were protests along the entire route and she didn't get to her hotel till nearly midnight.

We headed south towards Ventanas beach, Bella in our car, Alex and Sofia in Ramon's car. Cristina was interested in checking out another of Carolina's recommendations: Tortuga beach. I had my doubts about recommendations from Carolina after getting stuck in the mud at Arco, but I didn't want to be a spoilsport, so I drove past Ventanas until we saw the sign for Tortuga. I told Cristina if the road looked easily passable, we'd give it a shot, but if not, we were bailing and going to Ventanas.

The dirt road had a few muddy holes, but nothing too treacherous. When we got to the "beach," the place we stopped looked desolate as hell. There were the remnants of a stand where ceviche or pipa may have once been sold, but there were no people, and no cars. The beach also looked...not user-friendly. It was more of an inlet than a true beach. The sky was a bit grey. It just felt off. Despite that, we walked down the sand a little ways. Alex considered crossing the water to the other patch of sand, but decided against it. I wondered aloud if I had locked the car. I couldn't remember. And I'd left my wallet and phone in between the front seats.

We were away from the cars for maybe 10 minutes before we headed back. As we neared, I saw a third car had arrived. I made a joke like "Aw, we don't have the beach to ourselves anymore. I want a refund." Then we noticed that two guys were awfully close to our cars, like standing in between them. Then they noticed us walking back and they ran back to their car and drove off lightning fast. At this point, Ramon yelled and angrily ran to his car. I felt for my car key, but I didn't immediately hit the unlock button on the fob, because Bella was ahead of me, and I wanted to see if I had locked the car or not. I waited till Bella tried the passenger door. It was locked. My phone and wallet were still where I'd left them. Ramon's car, however, was not so lucky. Whether he failed to lock his car, or the thieves somehow got in without breaking a window, they had snatched Sofia's bag and Ramon's bag. Sofia's bag had her phone, her cedula, all pairs of her prescription glasses and sunglasses, earrings that she'd just bought at a souvenir shop, and various other beachy things like sunscreen. Unfortunately, Ramon's losses were even worse: his U.S. passport and a significant amount of cash. Thankfully, Alex had not left his stuff in the car; he had it on him.

Ramon, Alex, and Sofia jumped in Ramon's car and tore off down the road to look for the little blue SUV that stole from us. We followed.

We spent the next couple of hours filing a report with the police outside a little liquor store/gift shop. One police car went down to the beach to check it out while the other stayed with us and wrote up the report. We tried to track Sofia's phone thru various apps, but no success. Without the blue car's license tag number, there wasn't much the police could do. The report was important, though, because Ramon would likely need a copy of the report to get a replacement passport at the Embassy. I kept thinking about how thefts at the beach must happen every day, and how we never thought it would be us. No one probably ever does.

In hindsite, here's what I think happened. Somewhere near the entrance to Tortuga, or maybe even at the houses that we passed on the dirt road, the thieves were watching for tourists to head to the beach. After our two cars went by, they waited a bit, and then followed. Seeing our cars unattended, they made their move. They likely tried the doors for both cars, and since Ramon's car was unlocked, they grabbed the bags from it. (Note: Ramon was convinced that he had locked his car, but... it's human to forget. It's much more likely that he simply forgot to lock it, or even that he hit the button but it didn't lock, than the thieves had the uncanny ability to enter his car in such a short time with no damage, even if it's doubly painful to acknowledge that.) They likely would have next broken my window to get to our stuff, but they saw us coming back, and they bolted.

Obviously, this put a complete damper on the day. Ramon was in a foul mood, rightfully so. We found a restaurant and ate. Ramon wanted to walk the beach to clear his head, or calm down, or whatever, so after dinner the rest of us went back up to the house and left him to get his head right.

Hearing later that night that it had taken Anna all day to get to San Jose was just the final confirmation that this day sucked.