Back to the beach today for a bit more subathing. A few hours of sunning at 'las Rocas' (Sunning for Sonia, but a bit of shadebathing for me - a bit too red from the day before.) We explored las piscinas a little more and swam with some of the small fish that get trapped in these rockpools. Beautiful multicoloured things flitting around our legs. Nothing more exciting than that. We spent a very lazy day, all day, on the beach and just chilllllled out. (With breaks in between for lunch etc...)

Another morning with warm welcoming sun and slightly shelled beaches with plenty of opportunity to just lie out. Ah... Well it's time to move on so we check out and the owner of the Pension Marazul gave us a bit of a discount, which was nice. We decided to grab something to eat locally before hitting the road. The guide book reccomends the Mal Pais Surf Club. We, however, do not. First of all we entered the restaurant which seemed nicely decored and with a parakeet to boot. By all accounts it seems like we'd made a good choice. We were some of the first customers in there and it looked as if we wouldn't have to wait too long. How wrong could we be. We played a game of pool and still it hadn't come. When customers who arrived after us were getting their meals
	before us we decided to remind the waitress of our order. It arrived. Charred. Sonia's was fine, but there was no way I could eat charred black fish so I sent it back. The waitress looked apologetic as she took it back to the kitchen. So, again, we waited, and	waited, and waited. We finally figured out that they just wanted us to leave so they wouldn't have to cook it again so we told the girl we weren't going to wait any longer. She said words to the effect of 'well, okay then you don't have to pay for the drinks and Sonia's meal.'

Not at all happy about this we consulted the guide again and we decided to go to Frank's Club. I had a good feeling about this place as Frank was the name of one of the kindest bosses I've ever worked for. We waited a little, but not too much, and the meals arrived. Cool, you may think - but aha the story is not	yet told. The mouthful before last of fries and I had to fish something from my teeth. I didn't immediately recognise it so I called the waiter over to ask what it was. He nonchelantly informed me that it was part of a scouring pad used for washing up. No apology or anything - even told me I should have told	him about it before finishing my meal but not understanding that yes, I found it as I was finishing my meal. Duh! Because of his 'sh*t happens' attitude we asked to seee 'Frank'. The waiter's attitude was 'hey, if you don't want to pay, just leave. But that wasn't our intention. We intended to pay but damnit we'd also like to express our view that if you treat customers without any respect your going to get a bad name. Frank, when at last he came out, sadly, was also no help. He too had the same attitude. Being Costa Rican, Sonia was furious and embarrassed that this was happening to tourists in her own country. She wasn't happy at all. So, with a queasy stomach and having wasted nearly three hours we set off to get out of Mal 'Dicho' Pais (maldicho - damned, saying bad of.)

Before we left Sonia wanted to show me the waterfalls 'las Cascadas'at Montezuma. On the way there we saw 'Carablancas', White faed monkeys swinging in the trees above. There's no road to the waterfall so it's climbing river banks and mud trekking up to the first waterfalls. Once there, we took some photos and I swam in the lake for a while. The water was refreshingly cold after our time on the beach. The area around the waterfall is deep enough to dive in, even from a height. Not being able to see to the bottom I took things a little more cautiously though. We met Nelson, a guy from Colombia who Sonia also took photos of, as he was plunging headlong into the depths.
	I teased her about not taking any photos of a Costa Rican girl there who preferred to swim topless in the far corner. Go figure that!Spending an hour or so at the cascadas	(which includes a short trek up the hillside to get to the first waterfall - and the return trek down) we headed back to the beach to watch the sun go down again.

		The photo here shows my attempts at building a shelter with dead palm leaves. Live ones would have been better for building but I didn't want to pull anything down just for my own amusement. Hanging out on a beach for me is good to relax but I still feel I have to be doing something. Too used to being busy I guess.

We shipped out to Paquera. We inteded to spend the night there and get up really early to catch the ferry over to Puntarenas. Once back in Paquera we went to the Cabinas Ginana, which is where we'd eaten the first time we passed through Paquera on Tuesday after picking up Dave and his girlfriend. The cabins there are nice and the meals are good. What's more important is that the service was much better than that afternoon's in Mal Pais. We ate and then went out to walk off our meal in the warm night air. Paquera is such a small place, a one horse town even. What do people do for relaxation and entertainment? Well we saw a few of the few people who were out just hanging out outside shops and generally out on the street. We found a very small amusement arcade with a couple of video games
	and two 'futbolines', Football tables. We played a couple of games and I was beating Sonia in both games for a while but my defenders were kind of warped and rusty so, okay I admit it, Sonia won. Not that she let it go to her head (much.) She only sang "we are the champions" for the next fifteen minutes. We also stopped in on a small bingo room were the bingo	cards were wooden and the numbers were marked using dried corn niblets. I thought of my Mum and Dad, every Sunday down at the social club, playing bingo (just without the corn.) Well, it doesn't get more exciting than this it appears, so before we had an excitement overload we made our way back to the cabinas and asked for an early morning wake up.

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