My gap year aged 16, turned into a gap 7 years! Following my travel adventures and happy go lucky life I met, fell for and married my soul mate who had never traveled. Now after 7 years of marriage he wants a go too and I'm not complaining!
We traveled from Manuel Antonio to San Jose and spent a couple of nights in the capital. The highlight was the pre-columbian gold museum. The exhibition was huge and displayed in a purpose built bank basements safe, so it was interesting just walking through the giant doors (imagining we were in the Thomas Crown Affair or Oceans 11 or 12). The gold was so intricate in its design from tiny pieces to huge ornaments and all produced from pouring molten gold into molds. They had examples of jewellery, ornaments, ceremonial pieces and an explanation of how they melted the gold with just wood for fuel. We enjoyed our short stay in the capital, it doesn't have the beautiful old buildings or character of some of the other places we have visited, but it is fairly easy ... read more
The journey from Monteverde to Potrero was slow but uneventful and we arrived just in time to watch the electrician installing a security alarm on our house. The previous tennent had just had a break in and the people renting the place to us gave us a long security talk which left us nervous rather than reasured. It was a lovely place though with a swimming pool and only a 5 minute walk to the beach. The town of Potrero is tiny, you can walk from one end to the other in half an hour, and it was quiet as most buisnesses close in October for the rainy season. It is located on the Pacific coast in the northern region of Guanacaste, the whole coast line of this region is very popular for beach holidays, and ... read more
The end of our stay arrived and we caught the bumpiest truck back into San Juan del Sur for our bus connection to Rivas. We checked into a small Hotel on the panamerican highway in preparation for our bus to Costa Rica the next day, then headed into town. Rivas is very small and very hot, one day to explore was enough for us. We stocked up on snacks at the supermarket and forgot (again) just how expensive apples are here, it is the equivalent of buying mangos at home! The crossing back into Costa Rica went smoothly and we stopped one night in Liberia before heading on to Monteverde. The road up to Monteverde from the highway is dramatic, twisty turning, incredibly steep and rough. The views are fabulous, you can see the pacific coast ... read more
A short shuttle bus from Granada (1.5 hours) and we arrived in San Juan del Sur, a surfers meca on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua. The town is small, only a couple of blocks deep spread along the beach. We arrived in time for the Nicaraguan independance day which the town decided to celebrate by erecting a stage with a big screen T.V. to show the Mayweather vs Alvarez fight. An unusual choice, we were expecting some music, but as our Hostel patio was right infront of the stage we grabed a beer and watched the contest. Quite a novelty having not watched any TV for weeks. We spent most of our days taking a pic nic and heading out to find suitable fishing grounds, it is a beautiful bay overlooked by the usual Jesus statue, ... read more
We left Ometepe on a beautiful calm day watching the twin peaks of Concepcion and Maderas all the way to the port town of San Jorge back on the mainland of Nicaragua. Our plan was to catch a bus to Rivas then another bus onto Granada but a rather enthusiastic taxi driver offered us a deal we couldn't refuse, so we had a very comfortable 1 1/2 hour ride all the way to our hostel, start as you mean to go on I say, always looking for the easy path. Having spent the past few weeks in fairly remote locations some of which didn't even have cars it was a bit of an assault on our ears when we first ventured out to visit the nearby market. Packed in tighter than any other market we've been ... read more
We left Solentiname by boat to San Carlos to meet up with our next boat crossing lake Nicaragua for Ometepe Island. 10.5 hours from 2pm to 12.30am, it is a pretty big lake after all. We spent some of our time out on deck looking at the scenery and trying to spot fresh water sharks and crocodiles. Ometepe is an island shaped like a figure of 8 with the active cone shaped volcano Concepcion towering out of the lake on one side and the inactive volcano Maderas with its crater now a lagoon at the other. The two volcanoes are joined by an isthmus of old lava flow making them one island about 31km long. The lower slopes of the volcanoes are filled with plantations, banana, tabaco, orange, etc, then above there is primary forest filled ... read more
The lodge owner from San Carlos very kindly agreed to let us take one of his kayaks with us to our next destination, the Solentiname Archipelago. This proved to be a great asset and we went out on it every day, even transporting it to the islands was no problem, the boat owners proving to be very friendly and helpful with everything we needed to organise. So after leaving the lodge at 1.30pm we arrived at our new lodge at 3.30pm, kayak and all, durring the crossing we discussed with the captain a full days fishing for the following day on his panang. He picked us up at 7am as agreed and took us all around the islands to the most beautiful fishing spots. It was the perfect way to spend Marks birthday, and the captain ... read more
We left La Fortuna on the 6am bus to Ciudad Quesada (1.20h) for our connecting bus to the border town of Los Chiles (2.5h) where we brought our boat ticket and got our exit stamp for the border crossing. The boat journey down the Rio Frio was beautiful seeing many of the same animals that we had seen in Tortuguero along the way. The boat dropped us off at the immigration post in San Carlos Nicaragua, after which we were picked up for our boat transport to the Jungle Lodge La Esquina del Lago, named because it sits on the corner where the Rio Frio and Rio San Juan meet the lake. The lodge was built 10 years ago by a French fishing enthusiast and that is the primary reason for people to come and stay ... read more
We had another lovely river journey leaving Tortuguero for about an hour and a half up a narrow river to Pavona where we met our mini bus for the journey to La Fortuna (about 3 hours). We passed some beautiful scenery a combination of jungle, valleys of green fields either with cattle or banana, sugar cane or coffee. The sky was black and moody but we didn´t have too much rain, just enough cloud to cover the volcanoes. La Fortuna is a fairly small town (about 5000 people) close to Volcan Arenal which erupted violently in 1968 killing 88 people. Until this eruption local people living here didn´t know it was a volcano and thought it was a mountain, it was called mount Arenal at the time and had never been scientifically studied. The sides of ... read more
We left Cahuita early to catch the bus to Limon (1 hour), then took a short taxi to the port of Moin to take our 4 hour boat to Tortuguero. The boat ride was wonderful, more like an excursion than just transport as the waterways through the jungle were really pretty and we saw lots of wildlife along the way. Tortuguero is even hotter than Cahuita with the same level of humidity, I'm not sure I could ever acclimatize to this. The village itself is within the national park of the same name and is completely cut off from the rest of Costa Rica by the many waterways through the jungle, so no cars here which is wonderful and the only way to get in and out is by small boat. The village (population 1200) is ... read more