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Costa Rica
A typical place to eat and greet!San Jose was our first stop on our 2 weeks tour of Costa Rica. Compared to its South American counterparts, San Jose is a lot smaller and has a feel of a large town rather than a capital city. We had also heard reports of it being quite dangerous but the time we spent there, we met some very friendly locals who made us feel really welcome. We stayed in a local Tico (Costa Ricans) couple´s hostel, which was basic but had all the necessities. We also met up with a friend of ours from back home, Sophie. It was lovely to see her again and know that we were starting her grand adventure with her! It is true though that there isn´t a whole lot to do in San Jose; we used it mainly as a base in order to plan our route around the country and to try our first ¨Casado¨. This traditional meal has a Carribean element to it, they tend to eat it for breakfast lunch and dinner. It consists of rice, beans, fried plantain and a meat of your choice! Yum! Though I am NOT joking when I say BREAKFAST, LUNCH AND DINNER! The highlight of
San Jose had to be coming across the world reknowned Art Cows which I had seen before in Moscow. There are hundreds of plastic cows, decorated in variety of costumes!!
After 2 days, we headed West out to the peninsula of Nicoya, to a little town called Montezuma. This used to be the first and only place tourists, or rather hippies used to come to. The place itself consists of a few tourist shops, cafes and restaurants and lots of funky little places to stay. We had a slight mishap in getting to Montezuma in the first place. You would think you would be pretty safe if the bus you had got on said "Direct to Montezuma". Haha... that's where we were fooled! In fact you have to change; we found that out as we were sitting in a village an hour past it! Nevertheless finally we found it and stayed in a treehouse up on the mountain overlooking the village. A really beautiful place which was full of wildlife; beit monkeys at breakfast or hummingbirds at dinner; this place was magical. We spent a couple of days here and managed to find the waterfalls which are tucked behind the
Montezuma
The pools at the top of the falls. village. It was a bit of a trek to find them but once there they are quite impressive. They range in size which the smallest at the top flowing into the next pool and so forth. All three of us climbed up the side of them, through our first taste of thick jungle and out to the top pool. The humdity here is literally unbearable; so as soon as we arrived we jumped into the top pool! Our next stop was to the beach town of Playa Samara, we had planned to do it all by public bus but I have to admit for this part we cheated and became a proper tourist, travelling in a lovely airconditioned minibus! It didn't save our wallet but it definitely saved our time!
Samara was beautiful, just how I envisaged parts of Cambodia and Thailand. It was literally like someone had taken a still of the film "The Beach" and had planted it infront of me. Again we only stayed here a couple of days, but tried to throw ourselves completely into local life...I managed to hone my surfing skills by renting my own board and taking to the waters...lets just say I
Samara
Me and my board! didn't find it as easy as I did with my instructor and one on one instruction! However it was still awesome. Our second day was spent in the local school. We spent the morning watching Maths and PE classes. It was a real eye opener. The discipline is very amusing there; if the pupil is sent to the naughty corner...this actually means just take time off kid, go out and play and when I want to teach you, you can come back in! There was a real mix of cultures at the school itself, a real blend of Costa Ricans and many European and American children.
Our last stop in peninsula Nicoya was Nosara. We travelled here in the hope of seeing more wildlife and a different style of beach. Infact all we did get to see were a lot of Americans who had set up shops etc and the whole place just felt like an American town. Not at all what we had hoped for so we jumped in a bus the next day. The buses here are an adventure in themselves; the roads are pretty much non existent and the time it takes to travel is too funny.
Samara
The streets of Samara. Take our next journey for example....we wanted to travel no more than 50 miles....
Bus 1 travelled 15 miles and took 2 hours.
Bus 2 wouldn't go direct and told us to get off on the junction of a motorway to wait for another bus; however it took us another 10 miles in the grand time of an hour and 40 minutes. Enough time for me to get embarrassingly tangled with a Costa Rican and nearly taken home with him!
Bus 3 came from San Jose, which meant we had to wait for another hour before said bus arrived. Due to us waiting so long, we ended up accepting egg white drink from nice gentleman in hut. I refused such drink, Sophie made me pretend to drink hers and Sarah downed it in one go! Bus number 3 arrives, squeezes us on and continues on his route. WE TRAVEL 15 MILES IN NEW RECORD TIME OF 2 HOURS AND 30 MINUTES! However I must admit they are quite fun!!!!
Monterverde and Santa Elena were next, they are up in the mountain range about 150km behind San Jose. The towns are famous for their cloud reserves and canopy tours....the reserves were
Samara
Maths lesson number 1! just beautiful.
We managed to get a glimpse of various famous Central American birds, including members of the Toucan family, stunning array of hummingbirds and a Quetzel. We spent about 4 hours treking through the dense vegetation; I wont mind admitting I was a little worried due to the reported puma sightings and the fact that bugs and me are not friends. I therefore took all necessary precautions wearing a very fetching "jungle outfit" in order to make sure a spider episode ala Blue Mountains was not to be repeated!! There are also opportunities here for you to see the weird and wacky frogs Costa Rica has to offer. There are a lot of them, some more like toads but many are dazzling. We also got to see the poisonous dart frogs which look like they are wearing jeans! On the final day in Monterverde we took to the canopy zip wires. Which were good, but not as adrenaline orientated as I had hoped! Basically the concept is that you are attached to wires and then thrown across the top and through various parts of the jungle! The views were exquisite but you do spend more time checking you are
Monterverde
The lovely jungle outfit! still attached and trying to brake than you do appreciating the view!!
Our last leg was across to the town of La Fortuna. In order to get here you have two options. A relatively cheap journey which includes a jeep, a boat and an awaiting jeep the other side, or an extremely cheap 7 hour journey around the lake and on the dustiest, bumpiest raod imaginable. I''ll let you guess which one we opted for. Eventually we made it to the town of La Fortuna. It is 3km from the foot of one of Costa Rica's active volcano. The only volcano in the country infact that lava is visable. We spent two nights here in the company of a lovely man who calls himself "Mr Lava Lava". What a genius. If you are on a budget this is the man for you. He takes you around the foot of the volcano and shows you where to swim in the hot streams for free, how you can get around without the need for private taxis and most importantly he takes you at night to watch the lava come down the volcano at a distance of 1km. That believe me is close
Monterverde
Suspension bridges in the reserve. enough. The village which used to be at the opposite side to La Fortuna was completely demolished in the 1968 eruption and was buried underneath lava and water. Mr Lava Lava is also kind enough to let you know that when the water levels are low, you can actually see the old town's ceremetery. Nice! We also managed to visit another part of the rainforest here; which was actually better than Monterverde and Santa Elena. It was called El Silenco; we saw even more wildlife here, the ground even sounded like it was moving with us. Lots more birds and monkeys here and we finally got to see a real Toucan.
It was finally time to travel back to San Jose; with only a section of the country seen it was a real shame we didn't have longer. Coast Rica despite the number of tourists on "vacation" is really beautifully and on the whole people there are really friendly and helpful. It was a really lovely place to finish up in terms of developing countries, made all the more fitting when on our last bus we helped a lady off the bus with her bags...guess what was is the last
The Quetzel
He was too far away to get a good picture but he looked like this! one... yes a real live chicken!
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