That evening in bocas del toro we went out for a really cheap meal. $3 including a drink... we didnt get ill so it cant have been that bad! Then out for some drinks... All the bars overlook the sea and have seating areas on the dock. From this point we saw the two biggest starfish i have ever seen in my life(not that i have seen that many though!) The next day in bocas was slightly disappointing (some might even call it a hell day...). It rained all morning and only at about 3pm did it start to clear up. We decided that we had to do something constructive with our last day in bocas so we took a trip over to Bastimentos town on the no car island of bastimentos. The little town was a maze of concrete paths surrounded by colourful rickety houses, hotels and places to eat. From there we decided to walk to this deserted beach called Wizard beach which was supposed to be amazing. It was an interesting trek there, to say the least... OK so i freaked out a bit from the bare feet and bugs situation but i think that was justified when on the way back I saw the biggest spider i have ever seen.... and it was black and yellow! Wizard beach was nice but not the best we have seen so far and so was mildly disappointing. When we got back to the hotel, because we were so muddy, it was suggested to dive into the sea off the dock at the back (and have a go on the water trampoline too!). Jules and I promptly jumped into the water. The only problem being that I, being a bit of a loser, still had my money belt thing on under my shorts with my passport in it. Gutted. The next day we got the boat back to the mainland and crossed the rickety bridge (see photo) across the border back to costa rica. Having rehearsed how to say my bag got wet and my passport was damaged over and over again in my head, there was actually no problems at all. It had only run a bit i guess and my visa stamp was still there...they didnt seem too bothered about it all. We went to Puerto viejo de talamanca from the border where we decided to stay in a place called rocking js in a hammock the first night... An interesting experience leading to slight sleep deprivation. For my part it wasnt the sleeping but the falling asleep in the noisy hostel that posed the problem but i think the others were in more pain!

The next day we moved into a cabin....In puerto viejo we took a bike ride (in the rain), ate numerous amounts of times at this cute cafe called bread and chocolate, drank a couple of cocktails and on our one sunny day, we watched a surf competition. On our one sunny day we managed approximately 3 hours in the sun before even the factor 50 wasnt working and we started to go pink again (except for Jules who escaped unscathed!).

We also met up with a girl we met in Tamarindo (Jenna) and spent that day with her, sunbathing, watching surfind, shopping and then having a traditional caribbean meal in a soda...yum yum rice and beans! Actually one night we did attempt our own caribbean cooking efforts and while the meat and plantains tasted good... the rice and beans (which you shouldnt mix together!) turned into a mixture resembling concrete!

That evening we had to move our stuff to a different hotel because rockin Js was full and we couldnt handle another night in a hammock but we did go back there for the party. It was supposed to be a bonfire on the beach, which did happen when the rain eventually eased off.... but it was mostly inside. When someone offers you a cup with unlimited refils of jungle juice for 1000 colones... it is an offer you would probably be better off to refuse.

The next day we lazed around for the day and then left at 4 oclock for San Jose where we would stay the night again before heading on to Tortuguero. They had overbooked the bus... so when it came there were about 3 times too many people. I was surprised when the other buses they promised turned up, even if a bit later than we had hoped! We arrived in San Jose and decided to stay in a hostel that we were given a flyer for the week before...it was actually brand new... and we were the first people to stay there. They didnt really know what to do with us but were excited none the less to have their first guests!

We woke up and left for Tortuguero. We had pretty much no money and thought we would just pop into a bank to change some travellers cheques between the buses (we had an hour!) but 2 hours later we realised once again that here no one is in a hurry and a long queue is a long queue that is probably going to move extra slowly because they can see you are in a hurry! We got to Tortuguero at about 5pm...it was raining. We went on a Night Turtle tour from 10 until 12 and yes we have now seen turtles!! YIPPEE! We saw about 4 green turtles in total and watched one for a long time until it laid its eggs. That was pretty cool and worth the hell journey and the rain! It even got Jules excited who hadnt been overly bothered about the Turtles!

OK well we are heading down to peninsula de Osa tomorrow...an 8 hours journey which better be worth it! There are some pretty nifty Scarlet macaws down there apparently!


Salxxx

Ok, so it is time for another entry to the blog to pacify the worring parents and temporarily relieve the bordom of you guys at work!
We stayed in Montezuma for an extra day....sadly Sally´s iron stomach gave up on her and she was ill for a bit, but was better by the afternoon when we made an expedition to a waterfall. As the guide book described it as "a 30 minute walk" we decided (in our great wisdom) to go it alone and not use a guide... 45 minutes of intense bouldering later and after much scrambling over slippy rocks we realised we had probably chosen the wrong path. However this only made the waterfall all the more spectacular when we reached it, and who wants to go the conventional route anyway!
After Montezuma we headed to the Caribbean coast and the town of Cahuita where we were greeted by rasta hats and regae music- fantastic! Our hostal there had a hammock outside (and yes we did manage to get all three of us in it at once, it had to be done) The first night there we went out to some bars, and Jules and I soon found ourselves dancing merengue with the locals. However, although most of the Latino guys put English guys to shame with their dancing ablilties, we did find an exception to the rule in Oscar...poor Oscar and his two left feet lol, I dont know if my toes will ever be the same again!
The following day we went to Cahuita National Park, by far the most picturesque beach we have been to yet, and spent the morning strolling through the nature reserve photographing sloths. lizards, butterflys and crabs before heading back to town for the manditory world cup final. The afternoon we spent on Playa Negro. As the name suggests, Playa Negro is a black sand beach where the sand had a strange oily consistancy. Incidently does anyone have any idea where black sand beaches come from? A prize will be given for the most inovative answer posted on the blog!!! Anyway it was on this beach that we found the coconut..... Jules and I both had this perfect image in our heads of cracking open a coconut on an exotic beach, however we did not bargain for the amount of effort it takes to get into one. Unortunately, the husk on the coconut proved too resilliant for both rock and Swiss Army knife. Refusing to be beaten, we carried the coconut back to the hostel but after cracking the paving outside our room (apologies to Cabinas Safari!) we had to accept defeat. Round two between us and a coconut will take place later when we are armed with a machetti or similar!
On Monday we left Costa Rica for Panama so we could collect another passport stamp and visit the islands off the northern coast, where "Survivor" was set. The journey was not long but Jules nearly did not make it across the border. As we were getting off the bus at Sixola, the automatic doors closed on her bag trapping her half in and half out of the bus! It took me a while to persuade the driver that my my friend really was "stuck in the door" and that I wasnt just speaking bad Spanish, but eventually Jules was released along with much laughter from the driver and we continued on our way.
We stayed the night in Bocas del Toro on Isle Colon, and spent the next day having a tour of the islands by water taxi. We saw dolphins swimming, snorkled over coral reefs and searched for some rare red frogs on Playa Red Frog...pictures to follow, but as the frogs are tiny (only a couple of cms long) it might be a case of "spot the frog" on the picture!
Sadly we have to leave you hanging at this point as we have bikes to return and I for one dont want to face the rath of an angry Costa Rican!!!!! (not sure my Spanish is up to it!)
Fear not though as Sally will be updating you with our latest adventures soon.
To be continued...
Emily xxx

Highs and Lows

Sally woke up on Monday morning with adventure in her eyes. Playa Grande was to be the destination and we were going to walk there. Somehow. Apparently there was a boat that would take us there but we are simple folk and decided to be at one with the crabs instead. After sauntering along the length of Playa Tamarindo in what we hoped was the right direction, we came upon an estuary. This presented a problem. We had heard rumours of crocodiles and there was a boat just sitting there waiting.....we swallowed our pride, handed the guy a dollar each and announced grandly "Playa Grande por favor!". The boat journey lasted all of 30 seconds. Apparently Playa Grande is just the other side of the 10 metre estuary. Never mind, we thought. Playa Grande was sure to contain fun and, most importantly, somewhere to have lunch. A little information we may have found useful before setting off: Playa Grande is as good as it's name -big. Having arrived at about noonish we discovered that there was no shade. At all! Oh yeah, and there's nothing there but big fancy hotels who don't let scruffy travellers such as ourselves sully their pristine appearance. Hungry and desperate for some relief from the baking sun we headed back to Tamarindo. Upon reaching the estuary we grew brave, braver than the crocodiles who I suspect don't actually exist in that particular section of water. With our new found invincibility we waded through the waste high waters, bags above our heads, and emerged feeling triumphant. We were consequently laughed at by the locals who splashed past on an unseen ankle depth path. Hmm....
After eating our body weight in mangos and watermelon we decided to give surfing another try. After Trent and Ron's legendary lesson (me- "What do I do?!" Trent- "Just stand up" *shoves me into a wave*) we felt confident we could make it on our own. Oh how cool we felt as we strolled to the beach with our GIANT foam beginner boards. By this point the sun was going down. I honestly don't think I've even seen so many different colours in the one sky before. Seeing it all from a surf board floating in the Pacific made it all the more special, definately a highlight of the holiday so far.
The next day we took a bus to Montezuma. It was a 5 hour trip and was one of the worst journeys I've ever taken. To say the roads were bumpy is an understatement! We were weaving in and out of pot holes, stopping occasionally to saw up and move fallen trees in the road. By the time we reached Montezuma I was unable to move for fear of throwing up. I had the Spanish phrase for "Stop the bus I need to be sick!" on the tip of my tongue but I suspected that talking would only make things worse. Emily was in a similar state behind me and only Sally 'iron stomach' Deverill emerged from the journey unscathed. We booked into the nearest hostel which turned out to be pretty grotty but by that point we just wanted to go to bed and forget about how awful we were feeling!
But today's a new day and it's amazing what sleep can fix. The first thing we did today was move to a different hostel which is nicer and cheaper too. It's on the beach and has a nice balcony overlooking the sea. After wandering around the town in the morning we decided to do a horseriding trip to the nearby waterfall. We were introduced to our horses and set off along the beach. I've never really ridden a horse before so I was given the dunce of the group. He was prone to stopping randomly and refusing to budge. After a little while I started to suspect my horse had taken a dislike to me and was trying to kill me. He would lead me under low branches and try to head butt me (I'm not paranoid!). However he wasn't a patch on Sally's psycho horse! This fiesty creature would take off at a canter (I think that's horsey speak for running), usually in the wrong direction. Despite all this we had a good giggle and even I managed a bit of cantering (clinging on for dear life of course).
This pretty much brings us up to date. We had fish for dinner. It was nice.

Pasty On The Pacific

OK so quite a lot has happened since the last entry... We had another two nights in La Fortuna which was good fun but sadly continued to rain lots. The guide on our volcano tour said it was the worst rain for two years! Just our luck! So we didn't get to see any lava because the volcano was covered in cloud :( but we did go on a 2 hour walk before through the rainforest and saw a couple of sloths, some toucans and a couple of monkeys! Then we went to the Hot Springs and that was when it started to feel properly like we were on holiday! There was a bar in the hot springs so you could sit and have cocktails whilst relaxing in the water surrounded by palm trees etc... We did manage to get invited dancing by the barmen who also insisted on having their photos taken with us but after that we managed to sneak away to the jacussi pool unscathed!
The next day...it was still raining... so Jules and I decided it would be a good idea to go on a 7 hour hike with 3 americans we met in our hostel. We hiked up the secondary peak of the arenal volcano to another crater which had a lake in it... It was beautiful but i nearly lost the will to live after an hour of nearly vertical climbing up muddy tree roots... We kept going and it got much better once we reached the top and started descending into the crater... perhaps even fun :p
We climbed out to the crater and hiked to a waterfall... by which time it wasn't raining anymore and we had a bit of swim in the river and we were definitely starting to get the holiday vibe by this point!

This photo is of the lake in the crater of the volcano.

We arrived back at the hostel in time for dinner... But we had to do a bit of cleaning up first. Rainforest mud is apparently not easy to get off. You need more than normal soap!!

About ten of us from our hostel went out to dinner together... We were aiming at a nice low cost rice and chicken kind of destination... which a lot of people did get but Jule, Jacob and I were tempted by a special... And special it was... They brought out this flaming parcel wrapped in tinfoil for each of us and inside was this fish stuffed with tomato, cheese and potato. It was absolutely delicious and the only problem was that when we asked the waiter how much it cost the first time we heard it wrong and it turned out to be $17 each which is more than we had spent on 3 nights at the hostel! Doh! Still not bad for what it was in english prices though!

We left La Fortuna on Friday morning on the 8am bus. It was a very hectic journey involving 3 changes of bus. On the first bus, the tire burst and it took them an hour to fix the bus! The second bus, an old american yellow school bus, was so full that none of us could sit together and we had to have our big rucksacks on top of us to make room for the people standing! The third bus was better but still your typical costa rican bus journey...full up, hot and bumpy! It was all totally worth it though when we arrived here. We are at Playa Tamarindo on the north Pacific coast of Costa Rica... and this is what we saw the first time we went down to the beach on the evening we arrived...

The next day was saturday so we spent the morning watching the England game on the big screen tv in the hostel with a bunch of other people staying there. We lost and it had taken up our entire morning so we didn't really achieve much else yesterday except for shopping and walking along the beach, and watching the sunset again. The sunsets here are amazing. They just make you happy to sit and watch! Seriously I am so relaxed at the moment it is untrue.

Last night we went out with the others from the hostel to a bar with LADIES NIGHT! Now this is a great thing... Ladies drink for free.... why there is not more nights like this in england I do not know! We were rescued from some dodgy ticos a couple of times by Ron from our hostel, an israeli surfer, to whom we are eternally grateful :) I must confess that with the free drinks i may have been a little on the tipsy side :p Apparently I managed to annoy a major league baseball player too (i just didn't understand what he was saying!!!)

Today we got up and attempted to surf. A couple of guys from our hostel took us out and taught us a bit (because they said a surf lesson was a waste of money...) and we all managed to stand up a bit. I had one moment of fluke where I actually looked like i knew what i was doing but that didn't last long until I fell off! It was fun though! We are going to rent some boards tomorrow and have another go...watch this space!

This one has been long...

Sallyx

La Fortuna

Ok.... well we decided that San Jose was a bit of a dump so we left its cockroach infested streets in search of somewhere nicer to stay. We left the hostal (Sally taking out an innocent tourist with her rucksack on route) and hailed a taxi to the bus station. Our taxi ride was....interesting to say the least....as our driver spent much of it making gorrilla impersonations and telling us that "big monkey" would carry us off tarzan style because of our white skin! The journey-4 1/2 hours on a bus packed with locals and chickens was not that eventful. Sally made friends with lots of the locals and one guy raising money for charity gave us all heart shaped keyrings and declared his love for jules before accidentally elbowing her in the head! (I think he loved us all a little less when we failed to donate large sums to his charity tho.) I on the other hand got attatched to a guy by my rucksack and dragged him half way up the aisle of the bus before he got free -ooops.
Anyway, we successfully made it to La Fortuna by the afternoon and checked into Gringo Petes, our hostel for the next two days. Unfortunately we didn´t get to see much of La Fortuna that evening (small town overshadowed by a very active volcano) as we found out first hand exactly why it is called the rainy season! Confined to the hostel by a thunderstorm directly above us, it was a contest between our fear of getting struck by lightning v.s. our hunger as to whether we would venture outside. As the evening drew on, hunger won out so we donned our waterproofs and made a run for it to the supermarket. As sods law would have it however, no sooner had we reached the supermarket, completely soaked through, the rain stopped. Typical.
There is little else to report for today as it has rained solidly, although it has let up a little this afternoon so we are off to some hotsprings this evening, and will hopefully see the volcano properly if the clouds disperse-fingers crossed for clear skies.
Oh yes and Tommy and Leo- Jules managed to bore herself by her own conversation. At lunch yesterday she just switched off mid flow and wondered why Sally and I were still looking at her!

We`ve Arrived!

Firstly, apologies. The Costa Rican keyboard is rather different to the English or American ones so I´ll probably make lots of typos!
Well we´ve finally made it to San Jose. The flights weren´t too bumpy although in the one to Madrid we hit a rough patch and I accidentaly missed the armrest and grabbed the leg of the random guy sitting next to me....he looked pretty scared (of me). After a bit of confusion with seat numbers at Madrid airport, leading me to board the plane by a different entrance to Emily and Sally, we settled down for the 10 hour flight to San Jose. Having scanned the plane`s radio stations we found a rather nice Dick Wittington story followed by a totally surreal ganster style rap about Tigger the Tiger. During a rather nice Disney film about huskeys Sally was rather startled by a big seal (no really) and let out an almighty scream. I think that was when we first became popular with the people around us. However, the guy sitting in front of Emily stayed stubbonly asleep. So she hit him on the head for good measure (accidentaly she assures!) 10 hours is a long time to sit in one place and we each entertained ourselves in different ways. I met my intellectual equal in the toddler sitting in front of me and spent a portion of the journey having a face pulling contest. I won. (Yes!) Sally hit the guide books and started learning the lingo and Emily attempted sleeping(inbetween frequent questions from Sally) and did some pretty intense staring. The seat tray in front now has burn marks.
Upon landing in San Jose we easily caught a cab to our hostel and booked in with no problems. Until we tried to follow the check in lady´s directions to the hostel bar. Apparently it's 2 blocks up the road but depending on which one of us asked, it was either up the hill, down the hill or along the road. Lovely. But we´re here now (despite the efforts of the many road users who did their best to mow us down. Good effort lads but no road kill this time).
It´s only quarter to 7 now but it´s already been dark for about half an hour. This of course means that we´ll have to be making the most of the mornings (Leo-that´s the time before noon that you´re not familiar with). Tomorrow we plan to hit the tourist information office, phrase book in hand and smiles a-beaming, to plot our next move.
Thanks for all your comments, keep them coming! Until our next post, adios!

Last minute preparations!

Hello everybody, welcome to our blog! This is the online journal of Jules, Sally and Emily: 3 friends who met in Glen Eyre Halls at Southampton University. We've decided to spend a month in Costa Rica (no real reason, just sounded like fun!) and here is where you can keep up to date with everything that happens to us.
After a couple of stressful days of preparations (lost passports, wrong flight confirmation numbers...) we're just about ready to go. With all the exams, library courses, etc. at the end of term we haven't really had a chance to do a fixed itinerary yet but I think we're going to base ourselves in San Jose for the first few days at least. We've got a 10 hour flight to get through so I'm sure we'll have a chance to scour through the guide book and come up with something! We'll also be using that time for another purpose- learning Spanish. So far I can ask for an orange, Emily can tell someone off for forgetting their exercise book and Sally can smile politely in any language. We'll be fine! Personally, my biggest worry is finding somewhere showing the England football matches...
I'll be updating this as much as possible over the next 4 weeks and putting up photos where I can, so check back soon for more from us!