Howler monkeys, racoons and the works

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Our first night in Costa Rica we stayed in Cacts Hotel. The guidebook (which has been on the money so far) said it was in the range $15-25. Turned out the cheapest room was $40 and it was mightily shabby. On top of that they recommended the most revolting chinese to us. We could eat practically none of the food yet they still charged us. No more chinese for us in latin america!

We spent a couple of nights in Cahuita. Its a little enclave surrounded by national park.The place is full of German expats and we found eating out very expensive. We took the short bus ride to Puerto Viejo which was much more to our liking. Our room in "La Dolce Vita" was nice and it had a good kitchen. We rented bikes and cycled down the coast to Manzanilla. On the way we stopped at a butterfly farm. This is easily the most underwhelming place we´ve been. $6 each (a lot round these parts) and they had 2 different species of butterfly!! We should have asked for our money back.

After a couple of days we headed onto Panama and the easiest border crossing yet.

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