Blogs from Santa Elena, Puntarenas, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean

Advertisement

eyaaaaaaaahhhhhh icon
eyaaaaaaaahhhhhh
February 1st 2013

Our journey to Costa Rica was long. Leana, Dan & I met up with a British couple we had become acquainted with on the island and took a boat back to Rivas in the morning. We then met a couple girls from Germany and so we all shared two taxis to the border because it was pretty cheap since we had a group and obviously quicker than taking the bus. I believe the drive only took about half an hour. On the way we saw tons of wind turbines and I was impressed that Nicaragua had so many here. When we inquired about them to the driver he told us some of them had been there a few years and some were just a year old. We got to the border and went thru several lines ... read more




Zoe en Gyanendra icon
Zoe en Gyanendra
January 26th 2013

"Pura Vida" (pure life) is the slogan of the Costa Rican people and that's what you hear a lot and how they live their life: relax and enjoy, everything will be ok! As we told you, we were planning to visit the Marino Ballena national park last sunday. After we woke up with the shouting of the howler monkeys (brulapen, our hotel was close to the forest), we took a boat trip. The guide told us we would see dolphins, but no whales, unless we would be very lucky. After about half an hour, the guide received a phonecall: another boat spotted a whale (yeah that's how it works a few kilometres away from the coast on the Pacific Ocean...). So we turned to another direction and went full speed to the place to be. And ... read more




Matt R Clevenger icon
Matt R Clevenger
September 25th 2010

Once again there will be an English version after the Spanish! Don't fret. Tengo mucho escribir. Hoy, el domingo, fue un día ocupada. Salí de Monteverde a las ocho de la mañana y encontré la familia que voy a vivir con por las próximas dos semanas. Y no pude dormir anoche porqué tuve miedo que voy a perder mi paseo de Monteverde a San José. Pero antes de hablo sobre hoy, necesito escribir sobre miércoles, jueves, viernes y sábado, 4 días en Monteverde. Miércoles: No recuerdo mucho de miércoles. Tuve clases y después de clase, pudimos cocinar almuerzo con la cocinera de la escuela. No recuerdo que se llama el plato pero fue delicioso y tuvo arroz, carne (estofado), ensalada, y plátanos fritos. Creo que después de este, regresé a casa e hice nada excepto mi ... read more




Matt R Clevenger icon
Matt R Clevenger
September 21st 2010

Disclaimer: The Spanish may not be correct but I tried hard! After the Spanish is a more detailed account in English of the past 4 days! Enjoy. Hint: You can enlarge the photos! I suggest doing this with the ones of the monkeys so you can actually see them! Tengo mucho para escribir y no tengo mucho tiempo. Después de escribiendo mi blog, necesito hacer mi tarea y ya son las nueve y media de la noche. Clase empiece a las ocho de la mañana y si quiero comer, necesito levantarme a las seis y media de la mañana por lo menos. Han sido cuatro días desde la última vez que escribió por mi blog. Tengo que hablar sobre sábado, domingo, lunes, y hoy, martes. Primero sábado. Sábado miré el partido de fútbol americano de los ... read more




Claire and Colin icon
Claire and Colin
September 6th 2010

We headed north across the Arenal lake where we had the full spectacular view of the, very much still active, Arenal Volcano. The volcano erupted a couple of times while we were there and sounded like nothing more than thunder with some clouds of black smoke and rocks coming from the top but we were informed that quite often the lava will run red down the side. After trekking for 3 hours to get as close as we could to the volcano (still only one mile) we were disappointed not to see any red lava. However our local tour guide kindly offered us some (almost a litre) of the local cocktail containing the local spirit of Cicique. It tasted very much like vodka but sweeter as it was made from sugar cane. The guide informed us ... read more




Advertisement



Yesterday we left the Arenal Observatory Lodge after a leisurly breakfast, looking at the volcano for the last time. The road from El Costillo to Santa Elena was even more windy than the ones we have already experienced. The roads were also in much worse shape, making for a very bumpy ride, but the view more than made up for it. Most of the drive was on roads on the edge of plunging cliffs with fantastic lush vallies. The distance from our hotel to Santa Elena is about 17 km as the crow flies but took us about three hours, covering 105 km because of the windy route we had to take around Lake Arenal. Santa Elena is a great little back-packing town. It is essentially a triange made of three main roads with tour operators, ... read more




Sheryl and Steve icon
Sheryl and Steve
June 4th 2010

After leaving Omepete we headed straight to the border to go to Costa Rica. It took us 3hrs standing in queues in sweltering heat. It is the worst so far, even Miami was a breeze compared to this one. Costa Rica is much more developed and has a real American feel to it. The quality of things are nearly on par with home, which is reflected in the prices. Driving through to Liberia, our first stop, you could see that the standard of living is improved, some of the houses are large ranch style, not surprising considering there's a lot of cowboys here. Two nights in Liberia was more than enough, it's a great place to travel through, but apart from an interesting church we didn't really see much apart from lots of shops selling all ... read more




Paco  Diaz icon
Paco Diaz
April 29th 2010

(...) Tocaba abandonar la Fortuna, próxima parada Monteverde... DIA 4 Esta vez el traslado era Van/Boat/Van, es decir en furgo, lancha y de nuevo furgo. Nos salía 18$ por cabeza; una furgoneta nos recogía en el albergue y tras 1/2 hora de trayecto llegabas a un embarcadero y te montabas en una lancha. Recuerdo que llegamos los últimos y ya estaba completa exceptuando unos asientos al final. En la parte delantera había unas chicas adolescentes de unos 25 años, y una de ellas se quedó mirando fijamente a Rafa, éste se dió cuenta y no evitó su mirada mientras caminaba por el pasillo hacia la popa de la embarcación estableciéndose una comunicación silenciosa donde ninguno apartaba la vista y que duró hasta que el cuello del colega no pudo torcerse más. Rafa nunca se negaba a ... read more




Courtney Jo icon
Courtney Jo
February 16th 2010

We got up at our leisure again and went in to the lodge for another fantastic breakfast. Day four in a row of having the best scrambled eggs! Oh, and coffee!!! This morning, I had another special encounter. The monkeys were back and it was pretty quite in the room. I walked over to the big windows to get a little closer to our morning friends. One of the younger ones jumped onto the roof and then onto the ledge next to the window. I put my hand flat on the window and he reached out and touched the window too...right where my hand was! It was pretty cool! Mom went back to the room to get ready for the day's adventure. I stayed in the main building to send some emails and then when I ... read more




LDio icon
LDio
February 10th 2010

I'm going to keep it short because I need to pack, shower, and sleep before I catch my 6:30 am bus to San Jose. As people reading my facebook may have seen I'm going to try to make it to Carnival in Panama City. It starts the night of the 12th, so that's a LOT of bus in a little time. Since Quepos: I spent a night in San Jose. It was the first time I met really friendly people at the hostel I've been staying at. They have my bag so it has been convenient, but I should switch hostels. I met a woman from NYC who was heading to Santa Elena also so we took a bus together, stayed at the same hostel, and hiked in Monteverde together. I'm staying at Pension Santa Elena. ... read more









Tot: 0.145s; Tpl: 0.005s; cc: 10; qc: 93; dbt: 0.0431s; 1; s:apollo w:www (50.28.60.10); sld: 2; ; mem: 6.5mb