Thursday 6/23 No More Pirates Please!

Crazy busy today.  Woke up early to eat breakfast, finish packing, make reservations, and then headed to the bank so I would have money for this weekend.  Brought everything to school and left directly from class at 1pm to go to San Jose to catch our bus.  The bus we were supposed to take though would have apparently arrived in Tamarindo at midnight, so we had to go to a different station and take a different bus (double decker!) So by 3 we were on the bus and on our way to Guanacaste.  We were staying at a Best Western and all of us were kind of unsure where we were going so when Casey saw a Best Western she was like oh! lets get off the bus! and it sounds stupid that we listened to her, but everything happens so fast because you literally have 15 seconds to decide or the bus just keeps moving.  I didn't even have all my stuff and they were out the door so I ran after them and had a terrible feeling about it, but no choice, you can't really separate the group (Casey, Alicia and I).  So its about 6:30/7pm and its dark out and we are dropped off about 100meters from this Best Western which is NOT our hotel. ok so how bad could it be?  We asked some guy how far Tamarindo was from there and he said oh not far just down the road that way about 20 km.. ok so we'll just grab a taxi and be fine.  He gets us a taxi, but the problem is, in Tamarindo there aren't any taxi stations and almost every single taxi isn't a real taxi.. SO first pirate taxi ride. great. So we asked him how to get to Tamarindo from there and he brought us to a bus station and then said for $50 he could bring us there. uh no thanks, I think we'll pass on the overly expensive unlicensed taxi.  Now we're at the bus station and the buses to Tamarindo are shut down for the night.. its only 7:30pm but ok, so we talked to another person that said we're 40km from there and we can take this bus that will take us within 15km and from there just grab a taxi. Not so bad, thats great news.  So we take this bus and get off exactly where they tell us to, and its at a gas station.  There are a few cars parked outside and no taxis to be seen, so we go into the gas station and ask how far we are from Tamarindo: 36km! WHAT? how did that happen?! We just rode a shabby crowded bus for over an hour and we're no closer?  Apparently the bus station was 80km away not 40, and now we were stuck at this gas station in the middle of no where. AWESOME.  The cars parked outside the station are more pirate taxis but that was the last thing we wanted to do.. so we called around for a real taxi but every line was busy or unavailable. after bargaining for a while, with no choice we jumped in another pirate and for $30 he brought us to our hotel.  we were SO happy to be there and when we met our other friends we were so happy to see them, hugs all around!! no dinner, because the kitchen was closed (it was 10pm at this point)  so we just ate a few crackers and went to bed.  such a long day!