Places Visited :- Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, Panama border crossing and Boco del Toro, Panama After San Jose it was back to more beach time but this time on the opposite coast and the Caribbean side. We were looking forward to seeing more nice beaches. Unfortunately as we arrived the weather took at turn for the worse and it pissed it down for the 2 days we were there, so no beach time for us. We decided to use this time to catch up with e-mails my blog and phone home. It´s surprising how many people were happy it was raining [View Full Entry]

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After Volcan Arenal we had another long bus journey of 9 hours to get to Manuel Antonio National Park, on the Pacific coast. We had heard some great things about this place and wanted to be some where nice for Valentines and also our 10th Aniversary. We couldn´t of picked a better place, it was gorgeous. Its 3 beaches with rainforest on one side and bright blue Ocean on the other, we would be walking through the forest and gradually see glimpses of the sea and eventually the white sandy beaches, just beautiful and the nicest secluded beaches of our travels. [View Full Entry]

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After Monte Verde we travelled to La Fortuna for volcan arenal another active volcano, we have seen some amazing pictures of this place so was lookng forward to it. On the way we saw yet more stunning scenery, a lot of it very similar to the greenery of New Zealand. We booked a tour to visit the volcano at night and all we saw was a glimpse of the lava at the bottom of the thick cloud, the peak was covered in thick cloud and no where as near impressive as the photos we have seen, just typical! Another example of [View Full Entry]

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After Samara we headed to Monte Verde for the opposite of our recent beach life. This town was in the hlls about 1500m high. It was a nice and cool breezy place which I prefer to the heat of a beach and it was nice to walk around without dripping in sweat for a change! We have come here to do more hiking around the National Park and also because it a good place to see Resplendent Quetzal bird which we have been trying to see since Guatemala, which is their national symbol. They have bright red, green and white feathers [View Full Entry]

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After Liberia we headed to the west coast for some more picturesque beaches. First stop was Tamarindo, very nice beach and another place with amazing sunsets. The only problem was it was very touristy, with lots of American holiday makers which in turn made the place expensive. You can tell how much this place has changed in the last 2 years as the info in the lonely planet was very oudated and it looks like the place has at least tripled in size since the book was written. Going from the number of estate agents people are buying land up here [View Full Entry]

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Getting to Costa Rica was easy enough no hassle at the border crossing and for a change the border area was closed off to the public so only people crossing was aloud inside, this made it a lot easier as you didn’t get the usually people pestering you to buy this, that and everything and money exchangers pestering you to change your old currency with them, it was all nice an orderly and reminded me a lot of when your in an airport. A storey for you. As we were waiting for the bus to Liberia in Costa Rica. An American [View Full Entry]

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Isla De Ometepe. From San Juan we made our way to Isla de Ometepe. To get here was a bit of a nightmare, it took 3 buses, a taxi and a ferry and 7 hours of travel in total. The last bus on the island was the worse as I don’t think it went over 10 mph. The island is made up of 2 volcanoes merged together by eruptions in the past and surrounded by Lago Nicaragua. The lake is so huge, Central America largest that it feels more like a sea than a lake, so much so that it even [View Full Entry]

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After the lake we went looking for a beach as we have not seen one for a few weeks! We were recomended San Juan Del Sur by Lisa a Canadian girl we met at the lake, she has been living there for a year as a massage therapist. The place was nice enough, but very quiet. The beach was huge but it got quite windy which was nice to cool down, but I hated it as I felt like a peice of sandpaper, so I spent most of my time in the water anmd left Michelle to lounge about. Our favorite [View Full Entry]

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One of the local attractions close to Granada was Laguna de Apoyo, which is an extinct volcano crater which has filled with water over the years. This place was beautiful and we stayed at craters edge Hostel (www.craters-edge.com) check the website out. It was such a carm and relaxing place and right on the waters edge so you could swim, kayak, sun bath on the floating dock or just sit back and relax in the hammocks or swinging chairs. We spent hours just lounging around and chilling out. In the evening we would spend our time chatting to other travellers or [View Full Entry]

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Places visited - Leon and Granada. We have heard some nice things about Leon so were looking forward to it, unfortunately we were very disapointed. There was nothing to do and the place we was not very nice so we stayed just one night and headed to Granada. The only thing we enjoyed in Leon was the Museum. It was very modern and wouldn’t off looked out of place in London. Lots of great art from famous artist of Central America and some more modern art which looked really good. I should be a critic! Granada was totally different and lived [View Full Entry]

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