Blogs from San Pedro, San José, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 4

Last Friday night, about half 7, while I was sitting on my bed minding my own business the earth started to move. As I understand it there are several things that can bring this about, being in love, being drunk, standing up too quickly and beating Manchester United on penalties at Wembley, to name just a few. This was none of those, however. This was an earthquake, and quite a big one at that. I will assume that most people reading this have never been in one so I'll do my best to explain how it feels. Initially, being the quick witted cat that I am, I had no idea what was going on. I heard a loud noise that I assumed was thunder and then became aware that I was rocking slightly from side to ... read more

Hello everybody. First blog entry and I'm already about two weeks late with it, promising start, eh? The plan was to start this about after a week of being here (I'm now in my fourth week) but a combination of many power cuts (we haven't had any water in the house for two days due to a big storm), disorganisation on my part and basic laziness, there will be three posts going up within a day or so of each other. Being English, I guess the first place to start is with the weather here in San Jose. I have been leaving the house at about 8 everyday when it is usually sunny with a few clouds. These clouds increase in number and density through until about 2oclock when it goes incredibly dark, there is a ... read more

A brisk five hour coach journey South East from San Jose is the town of Puerto Viejo. It is on the Caribbean coast and we timed our visit to coincide with the arrival of Hurricane Billy (something like that anyway) a little bit up the coast, meaning the weather probably wasn't at it's best but the waves were massive! I don't say that in any kind of cool surfer dude "The waves were unreal, man. I was boarding all weekend" way, but in a more childish voice - "I want to spend so much time getting knocked off my feet by these things that I can taste nothing but salt for the rest of the day." And that's exactly what happened. I grew up five minutes from Crosby beach near Liverpool so I see myself as ... read more

Oh my god i'm tired. I went out with a few new friends to some bars last night. First to a local place with live music and i fell in love with a forty year old costa rican man named manuel. He spoke very little english hhaha. He gave us these crazy blue shots that you light on fire and drink through a straw. And to think i wasn;t planing on getting drunk... hahaha We also had LOTS of shots of the costa rican liquor guaro, it tastes like vodka but watered down and the after burn was different. We had a great time, got home after 3, had trouble finding my way to my family stay house because streets have no names here haha. seriously. the addresses will say the color of the house and ... read more

So this weekend was amazing! We went on a rafting trip to Pacuari on the Caribbean side on saturday. Max class IV, it was nice and relaxing. There were so many beautiful views and waterfalls! I got lots of comments like "Rastafari!" and "Rasta, rasta!"....always fun. Anyways, afterward five of us decided that we wanted to take an impromptu trip to Cahuita for the night and next day, so our bus driver dropped us off about 300 meters from a bus stop and we jumped on the next bus to Puerto Limon. That city, by the way, is really gross and the pollution is absolutely horrendous, probably because it is a a major port city. After we arrived we walked another couple hundred meters and jumped on a bus to Cahuita. We got to Cahuita after ... read more