Bienvenidos a Costa Rica! I'm already back in Edmonton, Alberta, freezing my butt off, after spending an action-packed, fun-filled week of R & R, at the Allegro Papagayo resort, Guanacaste province, Costa Rica. Mother Nature provided a record-breaking welcome back to Canada, of the cruellest kind, on the night of Saturday, December 12, 2009. The second leg of our journey home from Liberia, was interrupted over Winnipeg, Manitoba, when the Captain informed passengers that we were turning back to Toronto, due to the extreme cold conditions in Edmonton that exceeded the aircrafts minimum ope [View Full Entry]

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We boarded our bus at the Costa Rican border at about 3 pm on Monday, October 26. We were lucky to get seats as many people had to stand for the 3 hour plus ride to Liberia, although we were not lucky enough to sit together. I was already worn out by the time we got on the bus. The bus was air-conditioned, and my clothes were damp and smelly from rain, sweat, and futile handwashing attempts. I began to feel a chill, which got worse with every minute. Halfway through the ride I was pretty certain this chill wasn´t going [View Full Entry]

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Sunday morning finally brought a respectable wake up time. A delicate and fresh breakfast awaited us in the villa restaurant. Noel, the local tour guide, picked us up for our ten hour excursion to Buena Vista (tourist trap) in the heart of Guanacaste. The first stretch of the tour consisted of a vigorous trot on horseback with an eighteen year old cowboy professional, Oscar. As we headed to the rainforest, I quickly learned that my horse had a mind of it's own and preferred leadership rather than following Oscar's instructions. This led to shrills of "Ay Senor" as I tried to [View Full Entry]

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I start this blog with a very big “Thank You” to all you nice and friendly locals out there that go out of your way to help lost and confused tourists like myself. It makes travelling so much more worthwhile whenever you get an experience like this. I caught the early morning local bus to ‘La Frontera’ (Or the ‘border’). To do this I needed too first catch the bus to the intersection between San Juan del Sur and the town of Rivas, known as ‘La Virgen’. Then according to my guide, I would be able to pick up another [View Full Entry]

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I dont even know where I last left off with the blogs...I think in Granada? Anyways, from Granada we headed to San Juan del Sur which is on the pacific coast of Nicaragua. It was fairly nice there, a real surfer town with looots of tourists. We stayed in a nice enough place overlooking to beach and met some aussies and canadians on the beach who we later met up with at the local sports bar to watch the Super Bowl. Wooooo! Before leaving San Juan, we went to Playa Maderas which is about a 45min drive from there. It was [View Full Entry]

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up early after another crap nite of sleeping. was awake at 430 to gert the 530 bus to paquera. met another traveler on the ferry that gave me lots of good info on where to go in nicarauga. met a guy named pasquel from canada on the bus to liberia and he helped me find a room at la posado del tope for 10 $ which was pretty high. ate out at a few places and ran some errands. got gas for my stove so i can save more money by making my own coffee. no where to send my xtra [View Full Entry]

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Our dip into Costa Rica had taken a higher level of significant beyond our visa extension and a nice few days away. With both sets of parents San Jose (the capital of Costa Rica) bound in mid-January we needed to develop a month watering itinerary that wasn’t going to upset the parental modus operandi of squeaky clean hotel rooms and comfortable tourist buses. This brief trip would be the only time we were to spend any time in Costa Rica ahead of the two weeks with parents so sussing out the lie of the land had become a key side mission. [View Full Entry]

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Still not in Nicaragua due to a lot of travel issues. We made it to Montezuma after dark last night and it was another mad dash to find a place to stay. We were turned down at our first choice and then just went to the closest place available. Macayla did not want to walk to the one I would have chosen as the next best because it was a little further away. So we stayed at Pencion Jenny which was terrible. The beds were awful and I had the creeps. It was a terrible night but it was only $8 [View Full Entry]

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Somy time in Costa Rica is coming to an end and I left Jaco this morning and arrived in Liberia this afternoon. Its a quiet city, not that many people around but looks very relaxed. I havent really seen much here, its just a hub to my way into Nicaragua tomorrow. I recruited an American girl from the Washington state to come along too which was nice to have a bit of company on the bus here. Im hoping to get some spanish lessons next week in Nicaragua. Im really getting into trying to speak with locals in Spanish now even [View Full Entry]

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So after updating my blogs yesterday i took a walk around Liberia and its official the is bugger all to do here and if you ever come here use as a tranist stop and keep heading somewhere else. I went back to the hotel to find out how much it would cost to go to the local volcano, 30 dollars and its like im strapped for cash need to get to Nica and have already spent too much here in Costa and in Panama. So i could not see anyone around the transinica ticket place and so i booked the bus [View Full Entry]

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