Blogs from San José, San José, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean

Not a great blog for me to write today as I havent been very well at all! We woke up at about 9.30 which was a really good sleep as we were asleep by 11pm also. But we really needed it especially me as we had now worked out that I have a chest infection (no need to explain why we knew!) so needed some bed time afer being awake at 4am yesterday and a long day of travelling! Ben got up and went on the short walk that Jacob did with the group around the centre of San Jose pointing out things we may need in the next day, and I went back to sleep for an hour. He came back with breakfast, antibiotics, cough medicine and throat tablets! What a keeper! So, all drugged ... read more

It was an early start this morning for our big travel day down to San Jose in Costa Rica. We got up and wearily made our way to our waiting mini-bus at 4.45am. The sun was just rising as we pulled up at the Ometepe Island ferry station and hopped on for the 1.5 hour journey back across Lake Nicaragua. We arrived back on the mainland, said hello to our mini-bus driver who was the same guy who had driven us from Leon to Grenada, and then Grenada to the ferry for Ometepe. He was such a nice driver, and he reminded me of a Nicaraguan version of Mario from the Nintendo game. We took off from the ferry station at about 8.30am, our guide ensuring us that it wasn't far to the border and we'd ... read more

Whew ! Made it through the holidays. Hope everyone else did too. Christmas was a quiet day mostly spent laying about on the hammocks and skyping with family and friends. Christmas Eve we were invited to the owners place for a lovely dinner with a few of the other guests. Her place was located almost at the top of a local mountain and the view was spectacular. As I think we have mentioned before, the Tico's love their fireworks and the entire 19 days we were there we enjoyed fireworks every night. Christmas Eve was no exception and it was very cool to look down into the valley, watching fireworks throughout. New Year's Eve day was spent exploring in our rental car so when we returned that evening we were quite exhausted. We had a beer ... read more

Ola! Vandaag hebben we een relaxt dagje gehad. In de morgend hebben we onze was binnen gedaan die gratis door het hotel werd gewassen en gedroogd. Heel handig. Daarna zijn we naar de winkel gegaan voor nog wat basisinkopen omdat we morgen arriveren in Manuel Antonio en daar de winkels dat niet open zijn. In de namiddag zijn we naar een parkje gegaan om te gaan picknicken. Blijkbaar was het vandaag een soort feest, we vermoeden het feest van de jeugd waardoor er veel activiteiten in het park waren. Bovendien kwam het zonnetje fel opsteken en werd het dus een hele leuke namiddag in de zon. Er is een marionette-speler met Nore komen spelen, een clown deed trucjes met zijn hond, en op de koop toe deed ook de kerstman zijn intrede! Het orkest speelde ook ... read more

I finally figured out how to get to San Jose, Costa Rica that is. A couple of years ago I made plans to fly there for a 10 day holiday. I made all the arrangements by internet; airline reservation, hotel everything. My flight took me through Dallas to San Jose, or so I thought. When I arrived in Dallas to change planes I started to sense something was amiss. I had not yet been asked to present my passport. So I went up to the nearest departure desk and inquired about the final leg of my flight and pulled out my passport. The agent looked at it and at my ticket and said, “Sir, you don’t need a passport to go to Puerto Rico, it is a territory of the United States.” I explained that I ... read more

What's up friends? So I reckon a few of you want to know about the earthquake that apparently made international headlines? It struck early in the morning, around 8:45ish? I was in class, on the second floor. Everything began to shake, violently, and we (eventually) evacuated the building. Not having 'earthquake evacuation training' us gringos must've looked like bewildered idiots. Regardless, everything was fine and we made it out without much damage. The coast, where it struck had some structural damage, but nothing brutal. It's a tribute to the planning of buildings here that there wasn't more damage. The earthquake was at 7.6 - the second largest in recorded history of Costa Rica. However, it occured very deep in the earth, if it was more shallow, the damage would've been much more catastrophic. Over 1200 aftershocks ... read more