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Hello again!
Well we´re one week into our travels now and it´s so far, so good! When we last wrote we were planning our trip out to the volcano at Arenal. We booked onto a tour that drove us up to Arenal to see the volcano and to visit the hot springs as well as throwing in some food along the way. Luckily we got a really nice air conditioned bus, but it didn´t really help during the five hour journey on unpaved twisty mountain roads! (wasn´t feeling good)
When we finally got up there the scenery was amazing, Costa Rica is really lush and green especially the higher you get. The hot springs we visited were almost like a water park, with lots of pools to swim in set in landscaped gardens that were overlooked by the volcano. It was the best place to chill out for a few hours and we enjoyed the view with a few cocktails.
We had dinner in a nearby restaurant and got chatting to lots of people doing similar trips to us or on their holidays, mostly americans... Then as the bus left to go back to San Jose we left our
tour group, as we´d booked a hostel for the night in La Fortuna, a village close to the volcano. So far the accommodation has been much nicer than expected as well! Although Costa Rica is pretty pricey, it´s like going on holiday to America, so we won´t be spending too much time here!
The next day we decided to head over to MonteVerde, where Costa Rica´s best examples of cloudforest are. Instead of enduring the five hour public bus journey (not good on these roads!) we paid a little extra to take a jeep-boat-jeep combo which took a few hours less and included a brilliant boat ride over the Arenal lakes (photos to follow)
When we finally got to Monteverde (the roads are pretty scary, driving on dirt tracks with a sheer drop each side - you wouldn´t want to hire a car and try it for yourself!) Wé booked into a B&B called Historias Lodge, which was run by a really nice costa rican family. Spent three nights here, and it was the nicest place we stayed yet, mostly as the people were so friendly, plus the added bonus of a pet sloth in their garden (called
Willy) and plenty of hummingbirds.
While we were in Monteverde James eventually persuaded/forced me to agree to our first "adrenaline fueled" experience, by going on the canopy tour of the cloudforest. This pretty much entails flying along fourteen zip wires from tree to tree, and to put it into perspective the last one we went on was 90metres high and 1kilometre long over a valley, which doesn´t sound high, but believe me it really is! The views were fantastic, but as we were clinging on for dear life we don´t have any action photos!
So that I didn´t have a coronary before lunchtime, we also went on a bridge tour of the forest (basically a two hour trail of bridges with a guide). Our guide was brilliant and it made for the educational part of our day (even James liked it) and we got lucky when we spotted some tropical birds and owls as well.
After all that excitement, the next day we just relaxed in Monteverde and planned our route for the following days, and two days, twelve hours on buses, and one overnight stop back in San Jose later, we´ve made it to the Caribbean
coast! We´re in Cahuita at the moment, which is on the south east coast of the country, and we plan to stay here a few days and get into the laid back attitude of the locals. Unfortunately the weather isn´t being too kind at the moment, as it´s been raining constantly all day! But we´re hoping it will clear tomorrow so we can hit the beach and start off our tans.
Anyway, that´s all for now, we´re now going to attempt to upload some photos, but seeing as we´re using a computer that may have been made in 1930 we may experience some difficulties. Fingers crossed!
Lots of love xxx
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luke
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hey guys ound slike your having fun! you hear what happened here you must be gutted you missed it was amazing! keep reporting back! love lukexxx