Quepos, Part II - aka...you've got to be kidding.

Sunday in Quepos. The sun is high, the sun is hot, and I'm in summer gear! At noon we get to go pick up our keys to our Garden apartment, and I get to meet my roommates! So, we pack up our things get a quick bite to eat and show up at the school. Carrie has a hotel (?... we've got a cute apartment with a garden and she gets a hotel with a kitchen... pshaw! Garden all the way!) and we share a cab to make a stop to get my keys, where I meet Tiff.

Tiff is English (from Devon) and is apparently my roomie. She's totally good looking and has an English accent... and she surfs. Great... and I thought losing 5 lbs before I left would be enough. But, we get our keys and we're off to our accomodations. We drop Carrie off and continue up the hill to right next to this lavanderia (laundry). It looks shady, but then so does everywhere else. It is Central America.

Tiff seems pretty cool, and we're joking around and laughing about where we're staying. There are steep stairs that lead down to a gate, then another set of stairs to another gate, then some cinder blocks to get us to our brightly colored apartments. They look alright, one is bright orange, and the other is just plain white. My key fits into the apartment that is bright orange. When I open the door, I'm looking at the bed to the right (double) as well as a double mattress on the floor. The bed has someone's things on it already, and the 'kitchen' consists of a sink and a glass.

I back out of the door, and turn around to see Tiff coming down the stairs. First words out of her mouth are "I don't have a mattress, " to which I reply, "Well, I have two, but I think there is someone in here already because there is someone's stuff inthere... " We both start nervous laughter...like. I can't believe we're paying $350 for this.

Enter Monty. Monty is the owner of the apartments, who tells us the story about all the people living in this complex... apparently there are 20 people split between 4 homes but one of the homes has three people, one home one person who is only there every other month, and the rest live between the two. We all share access to the compound. He also proceeds to tell us he's going to install our "kitchen" on Tuesday when he gets paid... which will be a mini fridge. The downstairs apartment doesn' t have a working fan (this would be my place) and the upstairs apartment doesn't have a light... but you can use the light from the bathroom to put some light in there.

I think within 10 minutes we were in the school office telling them...no way. But, Jason, our head guy, was gone til Monday, so we stayed there one night... and we stayed up til 3 because we were nervous, especially since our keys didn't even work in the padlocks on the gates. We then ran into Darlene and Amanda, who took us to their place... Papaya House. Its absolutely adorable... bright orange, big gate on the front, huge sitting area, kitchen, dining room, and 4 bedrooms. And they are paying the same amount as us. No way.