Yet another update to our surprisingly weird trail through Costa Rica, the main reason being rainy circumstances ;) First of all, let´s respond to the many folks that asked questions about the weather… yes, apparently it really is bad, but fortunately not in the places we visited :) If you have your doubts, check our tan in the pics! Weather did make us switch our travel plans though; Monteverde went off the list and instead we´ve been making a ´Pacific Trail´ during the last couple days.

After (finally) seeing live lava in La Fortuna, we figured out highlands were barely (read: not) accessible, so we switched back to Montezuma on Peninsula de Nicoya. Again, use Google Maps if you wonder where that is ;) First day merely consisted of a chill-out, the day after we visited Isla Tortuga, only slightly off the coast though the trip included a bumpy boat-ride which we consider a mere part of the fun we´re having!

Next day we left, full of intentions to make a second effort to get to the highlands, but stranded as apparently rain flushed away part of the Interamericana highway. Fortunately, a switch was easily made so we found ourselves on the way to Manuel Antonio one hour after. Although famous, we posted some pictures anyway :) Our Pacific trail subsequently led through Dominical and Puerto Jimenez, where we´ve been spending the last three days. This provided the opportunity to go to a corner of Costa Rica and visit Corcovado National Park, which was once again really pretty! Swimming is fun at times too, if only the sea wouldn´t throw our 2.5m-high barrels :)

Right now, we´re making considerations on where to go next. Any tips are welcome as long as they don´t include the words ´home´ or ´Netherlands´ ;)

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'Souvenirs' all the way!

Montezuma beach (long walk though...)

Isla Tortuga Beach (find difference with previous pic)

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Time to gear up a bit after a few days of relaxing on the beach… Again, here´s a brief summary of the stuff we did. We might just be kidding ourselves but our assumption is that you prefer looking at pics over reading text anyway ;)

So after staring at palm trees, now and then with monkeys flying over our heads, we decided to do take a more active approach and go to Manzanillo by bicycle. Easy ride, nice stuff to see and the ´hike´ in its park was quite something different, though we did blend our walk with a lot of breaks on the beach (hey - what would you do if beach and road were parallel!?)

After Manzanillo it was time to have a fun traveling day, going a bit up north to Tortuguero. What´s in a name, the place is all about sea turtles topped off with some other wildlife as well. Again, see the pics to get an idea on the place. Here´s a brief description; no roads, hardly any people (believe it or not), lots of canals and an empty beach. We did see nesting turtles on the beach though it was a bit outside the season :) along with this experience we got soaked but the good part is Mayo has now overcome her fear of severe thunderstorms ;)

24 hours of Tortuguero is enough to cause claustrophobia, so we went on to Turrialba. Primary target: rafting Rio Pacuare (class IV-V). Unfortunately elements weren´t working in our favour but we did see some nice ruins instead. Due to time constraints we left Turrialba the day after, but plan to come back here to execute the rafting plan :) After Turrialba (and yet another day of bus rides) we arrived in La Fortuna, next to the infamous Arenal Volcano. It´s that things that is supposed to spray ash and lava all the time, and we´ll see about that tomorrow. So far we visited a waterfall (La Catarata de La Fortuna) and some hot springs, which were so incredibly fake we didn´t even bother taking pictures of them (couldn´t avoid visiting, stuff was included in our deal with our guy at our cabina…). Again, see pics for further impressions!

If you´ve come all the way down here by reading - congratulations! If you didn´t… thanks for visiting and have fun viewing another batch of photos!

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Mayo on beach...

Secluded beach - there´s something behind the trees which we managed to hide away :D

Yet another friend

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More news from CR - more random stuff! After living with the Tico´s for 3 days (muchas gracias familia Chaves Murillo y mi profesora de baile, Español y rancheros!) and visiting Volcan Poas it was time to pick up Mayo (yu-huuu!) and go to a more relaxing place, simply because SOMEONE needed a rest ;) Anyway, time to go back to the Caribbean coast, visiting a small town named Cahuita. The town is just big enough to host a national park, which causes the beach not to be too crowded as well as the opportunity to spot all kinds of wildlife on and around the beach. Wacth your belongings - there’s monkeys out and about there! After some relaxation (and a midnight hike with no flashlight!) we decided to go down south to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, which is slightly bigger but still not very crowded. Over here we’ve finally had the opportunity to provide some ‘living proof’ of Rene on a surfboard - see below! The following days should be more meaningful (in terms of experience) and the plan is to gear up to Manzanillo (national park) and Tortuguero. We’ll keep you posted, have fun watching some new pics!

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Volcan Poas, summit (2700m+)

Yet another beach (Cahuita)

Welcome Mayo!

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OK, so this post is going to be quite random, covering the stuff I did in the last few days! First of all, hello from Costa Rica! Yes, I did manage to leave Panama behind me though it was hard ;)

Here´s a story about “lucky losers” - So I´ve made an effort to climb Volcan Baru (3478m), however this time Mother Nature was not in our favour as much as she was before. We climbed up at night (for those that dont´t know, over here 8pm equals pitch black ;)) hoping we could see the sunrise and as such, Panama´s both neighbouring seas. This might sound stupid but given the climate over in Boquete at this time of year it does make more sense, trust me :) However, it started to rain during the walk up and this didn´t stop until 11 the next morning - great! Well, camping in a small tent was fun but this caused us not to be able to get to the summit! However, the spot we camped in was quite a pretty one so we did get some good views (2600m altitude and enough sheep to provide snacks for a small town). Later on it turned out that the summit had been covered in clouds all day, meaning we were the only ones that did see something. Thank you once again Mother Nature! ;)

Next day consisted of some relaxing and reconnecting with some friends from Bocas (hello Bernadette, Nadine, Karen, Annelieke, Mathilde, Ins :)) and a fun visit to hot springs, in dry weather this time ;) Also visited a school - thanks to which I´m now sure I´ll never have kids - and a wildlife refuge (for those of you that didn´t know - this is NOT the same as a zoo ;)) After this random stuff I decided to go to Costa Rica to visit some friends there… si Lucia, vengo mañana! Te llamo en una hora! ;) As I´m sort of in transit to San Jose / Poas, I decided to crash down in a place that is more or less on the road - and why not pick a pretty one like Golfito! Warm regards from the Pacific side!

Speak soon again!!

-Rene

Update 02-Oct: Photos now available!

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Volcan Baru - grrr....

We meet again!

Pozos Caldera - in good weather!

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