Hello once again and sorry for not updating the site for quite a while! During the last couple of days I´ve been pretty far away from any PC with a (decent) internet connection so it had to wait ;) On the other hand, it´s not like I didn´t do anything either of course!

First went to Monteverde / Santa Elena to visit its cloud forest reserves. Also ended up doing a canopy zipline trip … sure, this has nothing to do with wildlife watching (everything looks like broccoli and matchsticks from that far up anyway) but racing down a 750m steel cable over a valley is fun (pics are yet to be received, sorry!). Also walked the hanging bridges over the cloud forest, did a little hiking during both day- and nighttime (quite a difference) and eventually ended up in a bar with some friends I made locally (Hola Oscar, Chris, Otto, Chancho, Mayor!).

Next up was another thing on my to-do list… rafting Rio Pacuare, supposedly one of the best rafting spots on the planet or so… whatever, it was fun once again! If you´re browsing through the pics… I´m on the right-front position in the boat ;) Also explored some waterfalls around Turrialba and subsequently went down to Cerro Chirripo, a 3820m-high mountain. Still being disappointed with my Volcan Baru experience I just had to climb something else, preferably higher ;) Anyway, MISSION COMPLETED! It took a full day to reach the base camp and another (very long) day to reach the summit and get back down. We finally ended up walking a steep 3km through cloud forest in the dark… quite an experience! Oh and by the way… all European visitors can now stop complaining about the weather from now on, as it was freezing on the summit so I´ve probably been colder than most of you… HA!

Now taking a little break to recover - tomorrow I´ll try to get to Nicaragua and go down the Rio San Juan to the Caribbean coast. The area is pretty unexplored (which means there´s no electricity in some places, as I heard) so you might not hear from me for a while again. Enjoy the pics however!

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Cloud forest vista (Santa Elena)

Hanging bridge (Santa Elena)

Something different during a night-walk (Monteverde)

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So here´s a little ´exit-post´ - tomorrow (that is today by the time you guys in Europe read this ;)) Mayo will be making a final part of her trip, back to NL, back to the joy of cold weather and grey skies. Ain´t it wonderful!?

Once again we´ll update you on what we did, though most of it consisted of a chill-out (she can´t come back all burnt out!) . On our final day in Puerto Jimenez we decided to make a little walk and came across a small ´eco-path´… curious as we were we went down there. The sign said ´max 15 mins presence´ - and we soon figured out why; a large, happy family of crocodiles seemed to be living on and next to the path. Sounds like fun - and it was! See the pics for some happy shots - fortunately these crocodiles felt just as lazy as we did so we could walk out without any stress.

The day after consisted of a huge plan, which however didn´t come to execution due to … right … inclement weather! We regret writing our last post now… No kayaking, dolphin/whale watching etc. The beach was still fun though and we managed to get airplane tickets back to San Jose, thus making it easier for us to get out of this corner. After flying not-so-high we ended up in rainy San Jose, after which we decided to head (back) to Peninsula de Nicoya for a final few days of chill-out. The only flight available went to Benidorm Salou Chersonissos Tamarindo. Just stayed there for a day and off we went to laid-back Samara for a few days of real chilling. No big stories, it was just that.

The planned return trip by air had a fun twist to it as well; due to circumstances we wish not to comment on the weather, our flight got cancelled so we made a fun road trip, along with two Americans and a rented car. Alright, so we ended up where we wanted though it took longer than the planned 35 mins - but hey! it was a lot cheaper ;)

So Mayo is flying back off to you guys tomorrow and will be 100% available to all requests ;) Talk to you then!

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One Happy Crocodile

Our (almost) private airplane

Proof we were actually up there

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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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