Blogs from Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean

Costa Rica 2013: Day 7:Monteverde Day 3: This morning we'd booked the Hanging Bridges tour at Selvatura. The minivan picked us up, and about 12 others. After a rather long ride, mostly due to rough, winding roads, we arrived at Selvatura. This place has the Hanging Bridges tour, at least one canopy tour, canyonerring, a Tarzan swing, and Butterfly, Insect, and Serpent houses. We were really looking forward to seeing some wildlife, so we got our tickets and headed onto the footpaths towards the first of eight bridges. To make a long story short, we saw almost nothing but plants, a couple of birds, and one centipede! Granted, the trek was enjoyable, there were some pretty cool plants, and the hanging bridges were pretty neat, but that doesn't add up to $30 each worth of enjoyment. ... read more

Costa Rica 2013: Day 6:Monteverde Day 2: This morning we ate our first breakfast in the hostel. Manoli had fresh fruit, coffee, and juice, all good and so fresh. I had some fruit and a decent pancake along with coffee and juice. While Manoli got ready for the day, I went to the ATM to get some cash for the day. Although the machine at Banco Nacional said it gave dollars, all it allowed me to get was Colones. Oh well, next time we'll use the Banco Costa Rica ATM. Our minivan showed up right on time for the trip to the El Trapiche tour we'd booked for 8:45am. Eventhough the tour cost $30 each, it was well worth it! Our excellent guide was one of the owner's sons and he was very informative and sociable. ... read more

Cosat Rica 2013: Day 3:Tortuguero Day 2: After our late night of unsuccessfully looking for turtles, we woke up a bit later than usual... at 7:30am. Today is our 39th wedding anniversary, so we plan on doing and eating whatever we want to. We'd already told the lodge staff we wouldn't be eating dinner in the lodge. Around 8:30 or so, one of the lodge staff knocked on our door and asked if we would be eating breakfast today, I assume because it was nearing the end of the breakfast service. We told him thank you, but no, we don't usually eat breakfast. I should mention that the room includes breakfast. Oh well. We had a water taxi pick us up around 9am to go into the village for the day, and evening. Tortuguero village is ... read more

Sorry folks, you've still got to put up with my (Ben's) rambling as I have the advantage of being able to type away whilst on the bus and we're currently snaking our way up into the Panamian mountains...but that's for a blog in a few days time. We woke up a little disgruntled given we had to leave our beach paradise and travel back to the dirty capital. We could've have easily spent another couple of days relaxing but alas, the tour must go on. It wasn't all bad though, as our public bus back to San Jose wasn't leaving until noon so we had the morning to 'chill-out'. I rose around 8.30am, chucked my running gear on and went for a jog along the beach. As soon as I opened the front door I was ... read more

We allowed ourselves a bit of a sleep in this morning given our frantic week of bussing all around the country. We wandered 3 doors up from our hotel to a hostel that did $4 'big breakfasts' – fruit platter, scrambled eggs, toast, coffee and of course, Central America's favourite dish, rice and beans. The sun was already beating down on us and it felt like 100% humidity, as even sitting down and eating would raise a sweat. We wandered up to the entrance of Manuel Antonio National Park, paid our $10 entrance fee for foreigners (if I was Costa Rican, the entrance price was about 50c), shrugged off the would-be guides who were trying to obtain our business and strolled into the park, confident of seeing the elusive sloth. The Manuel Antonio National Park is ... read more