Pura Vida

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Hola amigos y amigas,

Que tal? Hope you are enjoying an excellent extended summer back home ! We also took a summer break.... regarding updating the travelblog. Great for us, not for our (still) worried relatives & friends, especially now with upcoming hurricane Felix (no pasa nada so far...). But now we are back on track !

After a long stay (5 weeks) in fascinating Venezuela we left South America behind us mid- August and continued our way into Central America, with Mexico City as our final destination mid October (snif snif, time is flying ! ). We already spent 2 weeks in easy, friendly & GREEN Costa Rica and currently we are enjoying the beautiful colonial cities of Nicaragua & Honduras.

The long time in Venezuela enabled us to take a breath after the full program of the last couple of months and to properly 'digest' loads of great experiences. And to discover Venezuela in depth ! Matt joined us for 3 weeks. Too much exciting stuff happened to write down here, so below a concise summary of our highlights.....

From the Caribbean coast we went to Merida, a popular backpacker city in the south-west part of the country, surrounded by breath-taking Andean mountain valleys and the tourist capital of Venezuela. Besides excellent outdoor possibilities (paragliding, mountainbiking, canyoning, horseriding etc..), it has the highest and longest (12 km) teleferico (cable-car) in the world.

Once reaching the summit - Pico Espejo - we hiked in 6 hours to Los Nevados, a pittoresque mountain village, full with Lucky Lukes on horses ! During our hike we were merely accompanied by a couple of mules, carrying tired children. We stayed the night at the house of a friendly, local family who served us delicious food and whose little son was happy to entertain us. We were taken back to Merida by means of a 4x4 jeep, a ´cliff-hugging´, spectacular & scenic ride !

Not too be missed in Merida was the ice-cream shop mentioned in the Guinness book of Records for having over 800 flavors (chicken and Lonely Planet flavor etc...)! About 60 of them can be enjoyed at the spot.

From Merida we took another trip, this time to Los Llanos. These are the wild, open plains of Venezuela. Just rolling grassland, trees and wildlife. And wildlife we saw ! Caymans, anacondas (finally!), turtles, capybara (giant guinea pig, typical for Venezuela), dolphins to name a few ! And many bird-species ! Bio-diversity is incredibly high in Venezuela and neighbouring Colombia. Los Llanos is also the place for Piranha-fishing. We weren't very lucky when it came to catching them for dinner (maybe a good thing though... a few days afterwards we met a Belgian guy who had the top of his finger bitten off whilst removing the hook...)

And then there was the ant-eater in the toilet of the campsite where we slept in hammocks... drunk from our beer left-overs ! An unforgettable experience !

Leaving Venezuela behind, 2 weeks ago, we met up with our Dutch & Belgian friends An & Centa in San Jose, capital of Costa Rica. Costa Rica (CR-Rich Coast, named by the Spanish conquistadores who were convinced the country had golden treasures - not...) was definitively a big change compared to some of the previous countries visited. So easy to travel and explore !

Not fed up with sun, sand & beaches we travelled along CR´s eastern, caribbean coast, starting with vibrant Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, followed by Cahuita and last but not least the National Park of Tortuguero, famous for its turtle-nesting spots. We were lucky enough to arrive in the season of the "green turtle"-nesting and during a night excursion on the beach we saw turtles digging their nests, laying 80-100 eggs within one hour, before returning back to the sea ... pretty amazing and for sure a highlight!

We really enjoyed those days on the Carribbean coast, walking along the beaches, renting bikes, doing some diving or just nothing but relaxing at the sea. The nature and wildlife (e.g. we saw howler monkeys, blue-/red-/skin-colored crabs, blue butterflies, slots, washbears, ... just to name a few) in Costa Rica is really unique!

Leaving the coast behind, we headed back to San Jose to meet with our new group with whom we will spend the next weeks travelling until Mexico. This time we are 15 people and so far, no drop outs (!) and nice fellow travellers from all around the world. Also Patricia from Austria joined and brought some yummie snacks from back home - thanks!!

We continued with two stops in Costa Rica. First we visited the backpackers-town La Fortuna in order to get close to the active volcano "Arenal" where we were lucky enough to see some Lava flowing down the crater by night. Pretty amazing, again! The next stop was Monteverde, a little town in the cloud forest and a good spot to do some sky trek and walk - which is actually crossing the forest either by hanging with the body on a zip line or walking over hanging bridges. Nice experience!

And then it was already time to say good-bye to Costa Rica and hello to Nicaragua, change was apparent immediately ... living standards, poverty levels, tourist welcoming etc. We headed to Ometepe, which is the biggest lake island and an ideal spot to explore some more volcanos (yes, right - now we are on the "volcano trail"). In brutal heat & humidity we hiked the 4 hours ascent of the volcano "Madera", finally being rewarded by diving into a very nice lagoon inside the crater - only problem was that the descent ahead of us was at least as exhausting - but we made it!

The next and last stops in Nicaragua where Granada and Leon, some of the oldest cities of Nicaragua and nice places to explore colonial style architecture - especially Granada positively surprised us as it was not the picture of a Nicaraguan city we originally thought to see. Today we spent a day on the Pacific coast, fighting the huge waves and the superstrong sun.

We are currently in Honduras, waiting what Felix is going to do to our planned itinerary.

All the best, or as you would hear locals say here "Pura Vida" ... what a nice slogan,

Hasta pronto
MarMar

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