Stuck or Living it up? {San Jose, Costa Rica}

Where you from? Where you been? Where you going? And, for how long? These are typical backpacker introductory questions, commonalities and social norms, per se.  It can get exhausting at times to make new friends all the time. But every now and again, it is well worth the endeavour...

I stand here in my swanky hostel in San Jose, on the rooftop lounge and restaurant, a common area for the guests, with internet stations, hammocks, a pool below us, and wide open air streaming through. However, at this time, rain has just started to pour and the wind chills my arms.

So, my sister is the one who taught me how to travel as a backpacker more than 10 years ago in the UK. I distinctly remember her once saying, "don't get stuck in one place Dean, always keep moving because you will never get to see all the places that you'd like to", as she pointed to this one girl who had been at the same hostel for 3 or more weeks.

Many people come to San Jose, Costa Rica's polluted and expensive capital city, only to pass through to their next adventure in Costa Rica's green environment.  As I have stated in my last post, I have made some friends here, and I have made a couple more now that I am actually IN San Jose.  Last night I reunited with Cesar and his buddies, and it was so nice to walk into a pub and join a large table and go around and greet everyone I knew with a hug.  Getting there, now that was a different story. Not having a cell phone can be problematic. I think it's fine when I'm hanging with other travelers because none of us have one, but when I've got plans with various people within this expansive city, where the roads really don't have any names, it can be difficult. I plan on buying a cell phone today actually, just a cheapie so I can text here and there.  It will be useful throughout Latin America I'm hoping.

So, my question is, am I stuck? Or, am I living it up?  I'm happy, I'm enjoying the company.  I am not going on the numerous, and very expensive mind you, volcano tours, bungee jumping excapades, hot spring swims, and every other nature tour there is around here, but I am having a blast nonetheless.  I am learning more and more, as I miss my friends and famiy back home at times, that adventures and journeys are not about where you necessarily are, but it is perhaps about the good people you meet along the way.  Do I make great friends and leave them behind so quickly with a yearning for more?  I will have fond memories therefore. I will always remember the cool times we had and will never get to the point in which we got fed up of one another, in which we discover each others' flaws and annoying habits. TV series often do the same thing, end them while they are ahead, rather than with a subtle, whimpering death.  However, friendships often grow stronger over time.

Last night, in Cesar's drunken, emotional birthday state, he told me that he was so happy to see me again and that there is one reason why he hates Couchsurfing, because great people come in and out of your lives with a bittersweetness.  I told him, that is just like traveling, as he already knows.  A nomadic lifestyle, always on the go, never planting roots.  FYI, for anyone thinking that Cesar and I have some kind of romantic relationship, you're wrong.

And now, my new travel buddy from San Jose, Califormia {ironic, isn't it} and I have decided to leave San Jose on Sunday morning.  We have already pushed it back by one day, to stay for a party on Saturday night.  I write this with a sense of anticipation... no that's not the right word.... with a sense of contemplation and doubt perhaps.  What's around the corner? More friends?

"Where you from? Where you been? Where you going? And, most importantly... for HOW LONG?"