Last night

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Tonight's the last night I'll spend in Central America. I've spent the last couple of days in Costa Rica.

My day and night in Granada was pretty interesting. I walked about the town a bit, had some vigoron, a local specialty, saw the lake, and checked out some of the churches. At night, I had a few drinks at my hostel, the Bearded Monkey, met a few people, and went out to the bars and had quite a good time. So, other than losing my camera, Nicaragua's a pretty nice place in my opinion.

The next day, I took a bus to Costa Rica. The Nicaragua/Costa Rica border crossing was by far the most troublesome one that I've gone through on this trip. It must have taken two hours, where the vast majority of it was simply waiting. I don't know if it was because I was taking an international bus, or what. It's possible that this particular border crossing is more strict because of the reluctance of Costa Rica to accept immigrants from Nicaragua. Apparently there is a lot of bias against Nicaraguans in Costa Rica, similar to the attitudes of some Americans against Mexicans and other Hispanics. The standard of living and unemployment rate in Costa Rica is apparently much better than in Nicaragua.

I spent the night in San Jose, which seems to be a much better and less crime-ridden town than the other Central American capitals I've had the pleasure of traveling to on this trip. I even walked the streets at night all alone, with only a little worry. I checked into the Tranquilo Backpacker's Hostel, a pretty chill place, had a good night's sleep, and then headed to La Fortuna, a village at the foot of Volcan Arenal, one of the must-see sights in Costa Rica.

I checked into a place called Gringo Pete's (only $3 a night) and signed up for a tour to the volcano. The tour was ok, we hiked around the jungle for awhile, and eventually got to a lookout point where we could see some lava being spewed from the crater. Unfortunately, though, it wasn't that spectacular because of the number of clouds that obscured the summit of the volcano. After, we went to a hot springs resort, which was actually quite nice. It's a set of pools that uses water from a hot spring, and has a swim-up bar and everything. This was a great thing after having been completely soaked to the bone on the hike, during which there was a torrential downpour.

Today, I checked out a waterfall a few miles outside of Fortuna, which was also pretty cool. It's about 70m tall, and located in a pretty ideal location, a lush, jungle-lined canyon. I'd run into some girls I'd met on the bus to La Fortuna on the walk over, so I hung out with them and swam at the foot of the waterfall for a little while, then took a cab back to town. I sat in a restaurant and watched a little bit of the soccer game, then took a bus back to San Jose and checked into Costa Rica Backpacker's Hostel, where I now am. Tomorrow I fly back home.

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