We arrived in San Jose now over a week ago to be greeted by prostitutes on the drive from the airport to the hostel! Nice! Was not all bad though as the hostel was nice and fed us delicious pancakes for breakfast! Nyum nyum! We didnt stay long in San Jose as essentially it has little to offer apart from the crazy food market where we had Casados (a traditional dish) and lovely national theatre where we found out how Costa Ricans used to dress to go to the theatre.....really educational!!!! :-S

We soon moved onto Alajuela where we went to a Butterfly farm where we both turned into little children squealing "ooo look at this one, look at this one!" A newly hatched butterfly actually climbed on our hands as it seemed dazed and confused...it was very exciting!!! We also went to a national park to look at Volcan Poas (a non active volcano crater) however when we got there we were greeted by a sea of white clouds and therefore could see sweet FA! This gave us rage until after waiting patiently for ages it slightly cleared and we managed to get a glimpse (ish!) but we did see another crater lagoon which was beautiful and had turquoise water!!

On our travels on some questionable bus journeys (including some super narrow deathly mountain roads!) we have been able to admire some of the amazing Costa Rican scenery - lush green hills, gushing rivers, rows upon rows of coffee plantations and brightly coloured houses alongside corrugated iron roofed shacks!

We thought we needed to embrace the outdoors by embarking on a small hike from La Fortuna, our next destination. We enquired about the standard tourist packages, but thought "oh no no no" we can use our own initiative and do it alone! It turns out the 6km "hike" up and down (!!!) the extinct volcano Cerro Chatto was something of a nightmare! After the first 5 minutes in the midday sun we soon realised this was not going to be so much fun! We thought upon entering the rainforest the shade would make the experience somewhat more enjoyable, however when we began to climb over tree roots on the near vertical path (if you can call it that) the banterous team spirit started to dwindle! This was marginally interrupted by Lauras over-excited sighting of a monkey/sloths tail swinging from a tree...as cameras were quickly grabbed from bags some stinky Germans waltzed up and shattered the illusion by announcing it was a merely a leaf and then just bogged off, leaving us very disheartened! The jungle seemed to go on forever with no sight of the top and we started to lose the will when our clothes were soaked, beads were rolling down our faces and mud covered our hands and knees! After what seemed like hours we reached the top only to be greeted by a pants view point and feeling a little sick. We then had a further climb down to the lagoon in the crater, being rained on and going down on our bums made us question "Why god! WHHHY!" We returned to our hostel feeling like Zombies and aware that the aching limbs were going to come thick and fast!

The blow was softened by a fun evening with some new hostel friends from the Cayman Islands (no we didn´t know where they were either!) and a game of guess the song (don´t ask!) We also made a visit to a super tall (we curently cannot remember exact measurements) waterfall and attempted to swim in the breath-takingly cold pool at the bottom! This only lasted a few minutes as we kept getting pushed back towards the rocks. So instead we found a nice calm spot where we chilled on the rocks in the sunshine and could dip our toes.

We then journeyed on lots of pubic buses to Liberia (attempts of speaking spanish ensued with Laura realising she remembered shockingly little of her gcse spanish lessons with Miss.Hernandez and Letty coming to the rescue as some sort of bilingual saviour!) The hostel was a little questionable, but the friendly peruvian owner (and the big comfy hammocks) made up for it! Strict demands were made when considering our next visit to a national park, that it must be "flat". So we headed off on a nature trail at Parque Nacional Rincon de la Vieja. We took this very slowly as any sudden movements were proving too much as we still ached. We spent the entire circuit with necks strained looking up at the trees for a sight of any of the array of wildlife we had been told so much about. Our excitement was clear when we first saw some Coatis (racoon type cute animal) and some weird giant orange rat look-a-likes that we found out were called "agouti"! We saw some natural hot springs, mud pots, waterfalls and what they called a mini volcano (!?!) After some fellow walkers told us they had seen some monkeys we were very disappointed we had missed out. But whilst quietly eating lunch Letty spied some monkeying around out the corner of her eye! We were VERY excited and our cameras have now been filled!

Unfortunately we are now sitting with some horrendously itchy "mountain-mosquito" bites! Aaaaagh! (we are hoping they dont carry any sort of diseases we don´t know about!!!)

Costa Rica - DONE!

Today we arrived in Granada, Nicaragua...more to follow on the next episode...!

xxxx

written by  coopsandbets on September 18, 2010 from Granada, Nicaragua
from the travel blog: We are off to find the wizard!
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Hi Laura & Letty
This all sounds very fun, compared to the routine of being at home in England. Am looking forward to the next update
Linz xxx

written by  Linda Cooper on September 20, 2010

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Tron - the image of you crawling up through jungleous rainforests, dripping in sweat, is an image I am glad I only have to imagine. The thought of the rage this must have ensued fills me with dread. I am glad Letty lived through the ordeal!!
Bets, I hope you faired better with this ordeal, and the subsequent animal sightings lifted spirits. (FYI, I google imaged agoutis and they are totally weird. I would have been freaked!!).
Well done also to becoming bilingual so quickly Bets!
Miss you both, and travelling!!!
Big hugs.
xxx

written by  Lejjy on September 20, 2010

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Glad you've already seen monkeys - you can come home now right?! Glad you're having fun, miss you! x

written by  KellyFrankland on September 20, 2010

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mmmmm those 'pubic buses' sound a bit rude. Missing you already PDizzle and can already tell that reading each entry is going to be like a smack in the face. Why aren't I travelling.....whhhhhyyyyyyy! Can't wait to see pictures. big Love from Basingstoke! xxxxxxxxxx

written by  Hezzley on September 22, 2010

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OMG WTF!!! Hitchhiking with some alchy & obviously his 'huge hunting dog' you giving me heart failure!!!! This is defo not an activity to be repeated. Have fun in the sun, big love xxx

written by  mum on December 5, 2010

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