Costa Rica

So after we left Nicaragua we had a group of 8 of us travelling. Two Australians, two English, two Canadians and me and Cath . Was great cause every hostel westarted going had good kitchens and we cooked up these amazing mealsthat would absolutely stuff us. Everything from Pad Thai to ChickenFajitas, Spaghetti Bolognese and the most amazing Thai Green Curry I´veever eaten. And there was always enough portions to go around plus havesome spare. Costa Rica has the most amazing bakeries ever so thisfilled us up during the day. Lots of Donuts, sweet pastries, Calzonesand pastries stuffed with chicken or cheese or meat. Also the nightlife started getting a lot better. I guess because in Costa Rica thingsare way more expensive the backpackers usually get through it quickenough and don´t do as many activities as in the other countriesleaving a lot more time for drinking and partying. Plus all the hostels have had a party atmosphere as well.

We stopped in a place called Monteverde high up in the hills to dosome zip lining. We had done this already in Nicaragua and it was goodbut I decided to go again since there was so many people going on it.Was unbelievable. So for anyone who isn't familiar with it picture aload of platforms built high up in the trees of the jungle or rainforest. All connected over a few kilometres by metal wires. You thenstrap yourself onto a harness and zip along these. Some of the linesare up to 1km long. Over all there are over 12 or 13 of them i think. Some of them are over 200 metres high so literally your flying acrossthe jungle at this height only connected by a harness at crazy speeds.Its absolutely unreal. There was times we were literally flying through clouds.

From here we were back to the Caribbean coast and Caribbean culture again. Over the last three months we seem to be skipping back and forth. We´l do a Caribbean stop and then skip back to the Pacificand vice versa. The weather has usually been better on the Caribbean side but surf better at Pacific. All along the Caribbean the culturevaries but is African Caribbean in a lot of places and a lot of them speak very Jamaican like. Plus its hard to know whether to speakSpanish or English to people. Half the time its hard enough to understand the English accent! Bob Marley always playing. Peopleoffering smoke everywhere and it smells like its constantly 4:20 all over the streets! The hostel we stayed at here in Puerto Viejo is ahuge party hostel with all sorts of hammocks to sleep on, tents, dormsetc. Loads of different buildings filled with mosaics of broken tiles,marbles etc done in a really nice way. And we got a really good crowd going here. Actually barely even left the hostel. And just spent mostof the days chilling out on hammocks. One night there was a giant partywhere by the end of it all the staff were drunk, all the drink wasdrunk and it was 830 in the morning. I went for a nap in the hammockfor most of the day and when I woke up I couldn't find Cath!! Figuredshe hadn´t gone without saying goodbye. But turned out in a rush shefound out she wouldn´t make it to Panama city in one day couldn´t findme in the hammock tried to change her flight which didn´t work so hadto rush down to Panama to try get the flight. So I woke up not knowinganyone!!! Well the rest of the group had gone on a day trip. So once again when someone I´m travelling with leaves I was feeling lonely forthe day but got through it and spent the day making new friends who have since followed onto Panama!!

Click here for the photo album

Nicaragua - Land of Volcanos and Lakes and baseball

Leon

Our first stop in Nicaragua. Already so many volcanoes covering the place. Leon was all about boarding down an active volcano. Called Volcano boarding, similar to snowboarding but no snow. Just millions of small little volcanic pebbles. Climbed up the backside of the volcano to the top of the crater, 726 metres. Smoke coming out of certain vents, amazing scenery around contrasting from black hardened lava to flat green plains in the distance that went on for miles. Was quite like Tongariro crossing in NZ. We have boards that are like snowboards and a sled. I choose the sled because it was quicker. Stick on some protective gear, jumped on the board and went flying down the mountain. Literally sitting on this sled can get speeds of up to 80kmph with tonnes of little rocks flying into my face and bashing the protective goggles. Well that's the record speed to be honest but on the day we were there most first timers got between 30kmph to 40 kmph. They actually had a speed gun to test it.



Granada

On the lake, the biggest lake in central America. Another colonial city, with nice old buildings and cool hostels but quite expensive. Food here is crazy expensive at times and hard to find big portions so I´m constantly hungry all the time. Although saying that the food we do get is amazing its just Id have to order double to satisfy by belly! Really miss the food stalls of SE.Asia or Mexico! Its Dave's last few days so spent a few days here to finish off his trip. Went zip lining which is great. About 2 km of strapping yourself to metal wires and zipping through the forest in all sorts of positions at great heights and great speeds!! Some of the lines are up to 300 metres long. They are all built from platforms in the trees. Photos will explain it all.





Ometepe

After Dave left we picked up the rest of our group and headed for an island in the middle of the lake. Its actually two volcano's over 1000 metres high, attached to each other and set in the middle of the biggest lake in Central. The Bible (Lonely Planet) describes it as a fantasy land, full of spectacular beaches and jungles. Unfortunately I didn't form that impression. Rain tends to follow me to places and even though it didn't rain much it was humid, cloudy and grey. I wasn't too impressed. Plus in one way even though Cath and a number of other friends are still with us I was missing having Dave around for a few days!! After two months travelling with him its weird that hes not there all the time anymore! Although that always happens me when I travel with a group for a long period of time and it changes. Really looking forward to Sept when Veale comes to join me in Columbia on a one way ticket!! So I had originally planned on chilling out on the beaches in Ometepe, kayaking the lake, climbing the volcano(8 hour hike) but just ended up doing SFA in hammocks for most of the day and searching for enough food to stop me going hungry!! At night in one way it was like a bit of a fantasy land from a fairy tail. We were in a hostel built and owned by an Irish guy from South Dublin. It was a number of different huts and tree houses all made from massive logs of trees. Right on the side of the lake with the forest surrounding it, at night the sounds of the surroundings livened up and we could hear all sorts of insects and animals. I decided to sleep out on the hammocks for the two nights and all around me, were fireflies lighting up the sky, the plants and the ground. So I can imagine what the lonely planet guy must have thought, was a bit like Tinkerbell from Peter Pan flying around the area!! There was a really bright moon out lighting up the whole rest of the area so was quite a nice place to fall asleep. We decided against the volcano hike, and against another day so that we could move on to the beach and possibly get some good surf!



San Juan Del Sur

Started out in a hostel with a kitchen. And found a supermarket which is also hard to find at times so I was delighted. So sick of eating out all the time. Even though the food is good I love to be able to make my own and make huge portions. So six of us got together and made a massive chicken pasta dish with loads of veg!! Was finally full after a meal and hope to be able to do that for the next few days. First night out here and we met some really friendly Nicaraguan and Chileans in the bar. Very interesting people who had travelled quite a bit and went from bar to bar with them until sunrise. Even got an invitation to come back to one of the guys houses in Leon for the weekend! Struggled to get up the following day and head out to the beach for some surf. Usually I'm not a fan of black volcanic sand but this turned out to be one of my favourite pacific coast beaches so far. Great surf. Was actually nearly as good as Ireland. Have tried surfing all over the world and the only place I thought was better than Ireland was Indonesia so I was well impressed with this. Some guys surfing in barrels as well. Sun had come out so after a few days of been bored, sweaty and swatting away insects I was back to my happy self again.

Maderas

So we decided to get a place out on the beach at Maderas for a couple of days. Just the six of us, two Irish, two English and two Ozzie's and a few large bottles of rum. Brought a bit of food and got some rooms literally on the beach. Nothing too fancy at all besides the view. Very basic unlike this amazing place up the hill that happened to be booked out. Surfing out on the water as the sun goes down turning the sky all sorts of reds, golden and oranges on this deserted beach was just amazing. Massive waves crashing in, pummelling me as I watched a few other lone surfers out beyond the white water riding barrels and others standing on body boards. Probably one of my most fun days at the beach on this trip. A number of houses are up in the cliffs in the rain forest and as the bus came at 5 to bring all the other surfers back to town it feels like we are the only ones left for the night. Funny thing is that the only people in our group that actually half knew how to surf was the Irish. But in true Ozzie style within a few days they were as good as us. At night we sat out by a bonfire we built and drank our rum concoction(Big bottle of rum about 1.75 litres, shit loads of limes that cost nothing, some sugar and some soda water. It was no Mojito or Barcelona punch but was still pretty amazing and costs half nothing). It was dark with lots of stars and a load of crabs shuffling around for some reason heading towards the fire! Then all of a sudden we saw the crest of the waves light up in a luminous green. It would start where the wave was breaking and continue on along in a continuous luminous green line as it broke. This is the effect of the algae or plankton in the water. Its amazing.You might have seen it in the movie The Beach. So one of the guys figured that pissing in the water lit if up in crazy patterns so everyone tried this including the girls!! Besides the luminous sea lighting up the rain forest in the background was also glistening with flashes of green light. This was the return of a thousand Tinkerbell's the firefly again! In the place we are staying there is a security guard and a few watch dogs just in case. Although Nicaragua is apparently the safest country in Central its always good to know theres security around. Funnily enough the dogs will go up licking and been friendly to any Gringos but any Nicaraguans that they don´t know they´l bark the place down. However we got a visitor in our room that night that the dogs didn´t stop. Anna woke up to him sitting on her hands. When we looked at our food the next morning there was little nibbles out of the bread. At one point I peered up into the rafters to see one little mouse peeping its little head at me and then scurried away. That really made us paranoid for the second night. The second day we were up at 6am again and another beautiful scorching day. Surfed the day away. Heard that in the last 2 mths they´ve had more rain than in the whole of last year. Luckily for once I was escaping it. It usually follows me everywhere. Slapping on the sunscreen and spent most of the day in the waves either jumping around like kids to cool down or on the board. Was worried I was going to end up as red of those Belize lobsters! Then literally about ten minutes after I was writing this the sky changed from blue to black, the whole tide got sucked out Tsunami style and the rain literally crashed down as if the sky was falling in. I literally thought there was going to be a Tsunami the way the waves got dragged out like that but everyone else was happy to go swimming and dancing in the rain. Only lasted about an hour though so by the time it was dinner it was dry enough to walk up the hill to this amazing hostel overlooking the beach's owned by some Americans and sit down to a huge family style dinner of salads, lemon chicken and rice. Right now back in San Juan, to have one more night of partying before we hit Costa Rica manaña! Two Canadians that we keep meeting for the last 5 weeks have finally caught up with us and are joining are group of 6!

Photos up at Nicaragua Photos

Map of route up at Pan-am Map