Stopping in Grenada for just a night, I continued on by ferry to Ometepe Island after having lots of travellers and a few friends back home recommend it. It is an island formed by two volcanos, which still stand, one to the North and the other on the Southern half of the island. The ferry ride was 4 hours long during which I met a guy and girl named Hansa and Jana from the Czech Republic and travelled with them for the next week or so. We found the most chilled out little hostel for just $5 per night. It was perfect except for the ´rental´ bikes or scraps of metal rather... we tried taking them out on the bumpy roads there but I had to return mine after the seat collapsed going down a steep hill over one particularly lethal pothole!
The food was also a little expensive at the hostel but luckily we found a restaurant just a 50 or so meters away that was in the back of a family´s house. It was perfect as we felt like we were experiencing authentic Nicaraguan cuisine by ordering home cooked meals for just $2-3 each including all kinds of side dishes. The lady who ran the restaurant had a sign on the wall that said the food was ´Organic´but i didn´t realise how much truth there was to this until I spoke to another neighbour over the next couple days. Apparently she not only raises her own chickens, ducks and pigs but also grows all her vegetables, rice and beans on a nearby farm! No wonder it was so delicious.
The spot we were staying at near the centre of the island but just to the South, was not part of a town let alone a villag adding to it´s peacefulness. It is also just a few minutes walk from the island´s only long, sandy beach.
There are even a few Bull Sharks in the lake even though it is freshwater as they are the only sharks that can swim upstream from a fresh water river to the lake! Apparently, they have plenty of fish to choose from, so they are not dangerous to humans if they should decide to swim in the lake.
After spending a couple nights here, we took the ferry back to the shore via the small town of Riva and then a bus to San Juan del Sur. It is a little beach town on the Pacific Coast. You could see that it had been very touristy during other times but while we were there it was very quiet, which was great for enjoying the big, beautiful beach and $5 or so each for a big room in a hostel.
Next, we took the long 10 hour or so public bus ride to San Jose, Costa Rica. If I could go back, I would pay a little extra to take the more touristy albeit much more comfortable Tica bus as this bus ride was painful. The seats were small and since they´d oversold the bus (luckily we got seats even though they told us there were none left!), there were lots of people standing in the aisle. The bus had 2 seats aside with a narrow aisle down the middle. I was sitting next to a lady sharing a seat with her young son who was on her lap. Her very(VERY) large husband was standing in the aisle next to us and leaning over me to talk to her for most of the trip. Looking back, I should have offered her the aisle seat so they could chat more comfortably but my right knee was a bit sore, probably from all the bus rides, so I needed at least that little bit of aisle to stretch it out in.
The bus ride was supposed to only be around 6 hours but stretched out into 8 or 9 as we had to stop around 100 times along the way either to pick up/drop off passengers or to have the police come on regularly to check our passports- it seemed they were looking for someone! At least we got there safely and were almost immediately whisked away from the dark bus shelter by an eager taxi driver who took us to a hostel. He would no doubt would get commission and he did quote us a less expensive price than we had to pay on arrival but as it was worth it since we were tired and it was already after 10pm. We were like walking zombis after our loooong bus trip and didn´t know our way around so once more were just happy to find somewhere quickly that was in our budget.
Costa Rica
My plan after Nicaragua was to travel directly through Costa Rica without stopping for more than a night or so on my way to Panama since I´d heard Costa Rica lacks culture, is expensive and overwhelmingly touristy. That was 2 weeks ago and I have now just crossed the border into Panama. I ended up being convinced to stay longer than planned by other travellers I met in San Jose, the nation´s capital. Their eyes literally misted over when describing the great beauty of where they´d just been on the Pacific Coast of the Nicoya Peninsula.
This was slightly too far out of my way as it is North West of San Jose so instead, as recommended by my friend Rose, I chose to visit Manuel Antonio National Park. Through my many bus rides thus far all the way from Mexico to Costa Rica I am beginning to learn the ropes of riding the buses- for example, when the driver tells you he´s sorry but the bus is full you can offer to stand and both times I´ve done so there has ended up being several spare seats available. Ironically, in the buses that are actually full they don´t tell you this and pack you in like sardines. But in the buses with extra seats they will sometimes refuse to let you on. I haven´t worked out why they do this as they don´t seem to pick up additional passengers along the way. Logically you'd think they´d want to fill up all the seats in order to make more money.
Costa Rica
My plan after Nicaragua was to travel directly through Costa Rica without stopping for more than a night or so on my way to Panama since I´d heard Costa Rica lacks culture, is expensive and overwhelmingly touristy. That was 2 weeks ago and I have now just crossed the border into Panama. I ended up being convinced to stay longer than planned by other travellers I met in San Jose, the nation´s capital. Their eyes literally misted over when describing the great beauty of where they´d just been on the Pacific Coast of the Nicoya Peninsula.
This was slightly too far out of my way as it is North West of San Jose so instead, as recommended by my friend Rose, I chose to visit Manuel Antonio National Park. Through my many bus rides thus far all the way from Mexico to Costa Rica I am beginning to learn the ropes of riding the buses- for example, when the driver tells you he´s sorry but the bus is full you can offer to stand and both times I´ve done so there has ended up being several spare seats available. Ironically, in the buses that are actually full they don´t tell you this and pack you in like sardines. But in the buses with extra seats they will sometimes refuse to let you on. I haven´t worked out why they do this as they don´t seem to pick up additional passengers along the way. Logically you'd think they´d want to fill up all the seats in order to make more money.
Maybe they are trying to start a fun game of ´bus twister´ where we test out our agility but my best guess for the ´full´ buses which aren´t really full is they have some sort of deal with the taxi drivers who are then waiting to try and take you to your destination for around 20 x´s more than the bus fare!
So it was that by smiling sweetly at the guy selling tickets and offering to stand, I got on the 3 hour or so bus bound for Manuel Antonio. The town itself is up a hill from the long stretch of beautiful, white sand beach and entrance to the park with the same name. I ended up staying here for 3 nights as I found a great hostel called Sol y Mar. Here I met some interesting backpackers including a really nice couple from the USA named Bob and Clara.
We spent our time swimming, surfing and just relaxing on the beach or wandering along side it checking out wildlife such as a sleeping sloth or monkeys in the trees.
So it was that by smiling sweetly at the guy selling tickets and offering to stand, I got on the 3 hour or so bus bound for Manuel Antonio. The town itself is up a hill from the long stretch of beautiful, white sand beach and entrance to the park with the same name. I ended up staying here for 3 nights as I found a great hostel called Sol y Mar. Here I met some interesting backpackers including a really nice couple from the USA named Bob and Clara.
During the evenings, we cooked at the hostel and drank inexpensive and delicious Chilean red wine. During our last evening, we went out to a restaurant over looking the ocean where I had the best Snapper I´ve ever tasted, which is impressive as it´s fresh and delicious in Melbourne also although mucho mas caro- waay more expensive!
So it was that I crashed Bob and Clara´s dinner date around a beautiful, candlelit outdoor table overlooking the ocean on their last night in Costa Rica but they said they said I should join them and they DO live together back home so I guess it was cool. The 3 of us got along really well anyway, so it was a fun evening of reminiscing about all our adventures thus far.
That day we had explored the park, spotting lots of variety of local trees, plants and flowers. At one point there were some monkeys playing in the trees. One of them grabbed a plastic bag out of a guy´s hand containing a sandwich and ran up a tree. From here, he scaled a branch directly over the guy´s head, ate the sandwich while the guy moaned that it contained turkey and cheese- a delicacy in the backpacker´s circuit, and then dropped the
After Manuel Antonio, I travelled by bus to Puerto Jimenez via Palma Norte where I spent a night on the way and chatted with a guy named Felipe who is from Corn Island and ran a little cafe called 'Pizza Yulius'. He convinced me to skip Bahia Drake where I had planned to travel next as it was apparently quite expensive to get to by boat and also to stay there. Back to the food, he made the best wood fired pizza and ate one with me- we chatted in English and Spanish for just a half hour or so but in that time I learned about the area and enjoyed his kind, light hearted energy.
Once in Puerto Himenez, I walked around the small town, which was previously a gold mining hub and has retained a lot of character with very local, old fashioned qualities such as the small, wood sided stores or 'tiendas' as they are called in Spanish.
The town is kind of funny in an ironic sense as they seem to have satellite television throughout most of the town. As a result the teenagers here in general seem to be a little over the top in their ´cool´ factor with their trendy clothes, sexy music videos playing in the local Cantina and low rider cars with the thumping, albeit not quality speakers pumping out the base. The cute part is the culture is also mingled in with really old school qualities that are also cool but from a different time- such as the Backstreet Boys playing from a boom-box down by the docks or other cool teen things just not from previous decades.
At one point, I was walking down by the water where an outdoor restaurant and bar was playing 60´s retro music such as the Beach Boys with locals swimming in the ocean or eating at the little Coca-Cola branded plastic tables set up around the water. An elderly guy on the street just next to the bar was wearing a stetson hat and had a shaved ice cart where he was serving syrupy drinks. The occasional teenager would ride by on an old fashioned cruiser bicycle complete with banana seat and wide, long handle bars. This setting perhaps combined with my blurred vision from the intense heat of the early afternoon sun, struck me as being exactly the way it might have looked a half century ago or more.
On my way back to my nice hostel, I gave an American guy in his mid-20´s directions into town as I was passing by the little airstrip which serves as the town´s airport and where he had just come from directly off a plane via San Jose from Oregon where he lives.
As he hadn´t reserved a place to stay yet he also booked into the peaceful little hostel where private rooms were just $12 per night- not bad for Costa Rica.
Thomas from Austin, Texas originally is a photographer in the off season when he isn´t fighting forest fires in the United States during summer time. He had already booked a couple weeks of camping in the nearby Corcdova Nat Park in order to take pictures for a wildlife comptetition.
I had only planned to see the beach area outside the park for a day or so as I didn´t have a reservation, which needs to be booked at least several days in advance since there are a limited number of people allowed into the park each day. After talking to Thomas and another guy from France at the hostel, I was convinced it would be worth trying to go since Corcodovo has the most plentiful and diverse wildlife in Costa Rica as well as some of the most diverse in the world!
So as agreed to by Thomas, the next morning I stopped at the park´s office and got approval to enter the park on his pass. So, thanks to him I was able to spend the next 3 nights hiking approx 50km to, from and around the areas between La Leona and Serena ranger stations.
We saw all kinds of trees, flowers, plants, insects, animals and birds. Since Thomas only had a 1 man tent and I don´t have one at all, I was planning to sleep under my silk sheet in the grass under the stars. I had a change of plans though, when the ranger told me that snakes- many of them poisonous such as the black viper(!), might try to snuggle up to me in search of warmth! So, instead he said I could sleep on the floor in one of the park buildings, which had mosquito netting on the windows and a reasonably comfortable foam mattress. The mosquito netting was massively appreciated since the rest of the time outside in the park, I was involuntarily a blood donor for several of the thousands of insects around. While I was nicely tanned from the beautiful, hot weather, on the down side, I became speckled with insect bites!
I have to mention that walking through the forest here is like something out of the movie 'The Jungle Book'. Whether the broad leafy ferns, the sweeping palm trees with ripe coconuts falling in the black lavic sand below or the bunches of unfortunately un-ripe bananas hanging from the trees by a vine with their long red buds, to sum it up the Corcodova scenery is not a Sloth´s breath short of spectacular! Monkeys were even swinging between the trees much of the time as we walked past them.
We were fortunate enough to see many of the park´s native animals including the endangered Teper, which is a slow moving grey mammal related to the elephant.
Unlike walking with the park ranger, exploring the jungle with Thomas was very entertaining. He had researched a lot about the park and had been here once before so could name most of the animals and some of the trees or plants we saw. The funny part is that he tended to point out the various animals in relation to their qualities which would make them really good to eat! Maybe it had something to do with him being from Texas, which is a state well known for it´s fondness of eating steak amongst there other carniverous ways but in any case he cracked me up- partly because I knew it was (umm, hopefully) all talk! One example was when he pointed to the Teper saying, ¨No wonder they are endangered, the rump on this beast appears to be rather meaty! Why, if I were a jaguar....¨, or something along those lines.
When we weren´t spotting wildlife such as the cute little masked Kuwatis, we could hear the hundreds or possibly thousands of jungle sounds even more pronounced at dawn and dusk.
There was the underlying hum of chicada´s- little chirping insects which provided a backdrop for many of the other creatures including the whinnying cry of what sounded like a ghost horse. Of course, that´s probably not what it was but the long, echoing whinny of a creature calling from the bottom of a barrel or perhaps a long tunnel, definately resembled something to that effect!
Another interesting sound was that of a bird call echoing throughout the park sounding similar albeit much louder, to the steady hum of a wet finger moving around the rim of a glass- except longer as though the rim stretched out in a long line instead of a circle.
Not my favourite but definately the most memorable sound from the park was that of the Howler Monkeys. From up close they stop you in their tracks not because of their large brown and black bodies with the strong, jutting out of their forehead bones but due to their loud shriek. It sounds something like 2 animals screaming, shouting and fighting violently next to a loud car crash!
Umm yes, not the most pleasant sound but hard to not listen to it as it´s unlike anything else you´ve ever heard. So, I stood there for a good while, even a little scared of what a creature makiing that kind of sound could actually do to me. It seemed amazing that all these awful sounds could come from just one animal, and even crazier knowing they were probably just relaxing on a limb while enjoying the view or grabbing a bite to eat and saying g'day to each other as they passed by one anothers´ trees!
On our longest day in the park, we hiked 20km over a long 7 hours due to the intense heat of around 40C or 90F. Also, the rough and sometimes rocky trail we navigated with our heavy packs filled with supplies caused my feet to get blisters, which managed to take my mind off the itchy insect bites for at least part of the time. I think it was actually my little socks with a flower pattern cut into them, which did the damage through the friction but anyway... they weren´t too bad.
Also, these were small prices to pay for such an intensely beautiful place with so few people. We probably saw less than 50 others both on the trails and at the campsites during the 3 days thanks to the strict park regulations.
The funniest moment on our trip for me was when I asked one of the park rangers in my limited Spanish for some soap on our 2nd day to hand wash my clothes since most of them were already dirty or sweaty. He told me to give him 5 minutes and came back saying he didn´t have soap but he did have tuna and crackers if I wanted them. I was trying to picture how I might wash my clothes with tuna let alone crackers. Luckily he managed to read my confused expression and found a bilingual guide to help translate. We all busted up into laughter when it turned out we´d had a slight miscommunication.
In trying to use my usual trick of adding a ¨y¨ or an ¨a¨ to the end of an English word when I can´t remember the Spanish translation, I´d asked the ranger for ´sopa´, which means soup in Spanish instead of ´jabon´which means soap. Oops:)! In the end, he did have soap, so there was a happy ending especially since handwashing my clothes in the big outdoor sink was very cool and refreshing in the heat.
My most terrifying moment in the park took place when I was invited along with a German guy and his private guide on a sunset wildlife spotting tour while Thomas was taking photos in the jungle. We went to a river inlet with 2 large American crocodiles in it! The guide told us the ones in Costa Rica don´t attack humans for some reason even though they do in the United States and other nearby countries. Still, it was scary knowing this serene, water hole would have appeared to be ideal for swimming had I not known better! Apparently Bull Sharks sometimes swim into the mouth of the inlet from the ocean also to feed although I didn´t see one.
After my days in the park, I said goodbye to Thomas who was planning to continue exiting and re-entering the park- leaving for a night here and there to get additional camping supplies, including food and camp stove fuel since it was too heavy for him to carry an entire 3 weeks worth of supplies. Hopefully, he will have a good chance in the contest as he will need to take 5 pictures of Corcodovo and/or other wildlife scenery and submit them in a portfolio by October. He is one of the few photographers who uses all manual equipment also as none of his equipment is digital.
I arrived today via bus to the island archipelago of Bocas del Toro, in North East Panama. I stopped in the city of David briefly and the quaint little town of Boqueto for 2 nights on the way. Bocas del Toro seems really nice as it´s not too developed yet and seems really safe and friendly- although fairly touristy! Tomorrow, I will begin exploring through the islands based on recommendations I have gotten from friends and other travellers along the way. I will post more pictures and highlights of Central America over the next couple of weeks as I travel through Panama and figure out how to get to Colombia- probably via sailboat as it is difficult if not impossible, not to mention very dangerous to cross the border overland!
That day we had explored the park, spotting lots of variety of local trees, plants and flowers. At one point there were some monkeys playing in the trees. One of them grabbed a plastic bag out of a guy´s hand containing a sandwich and ran up a tree. From here, he scaled a branch directly over the guy´s head, ate the sandwich while the guy moaned that it contained turkey and cheese- a delicacy in the backpacker´s circuit, and then dropped the
empty bag on the poor guy´s head!
After Manuel Antonio, I travelled by bus to Puerto Jimenez via Palma Norte where I spent a night on the way and chatted with a guy named Felipe who is from Corn Island and ran a little cafe called 'Pizza Yulius'. He convinced me to skip Bahia Drake where I had planned to travel next as it was apparently quite expensive to get to by boat and also to stay there. Back to the food, he made the best wood fired pizza and ate one with me- we chatted in English and Spanish for just a half hour or so but in that time I learned about the area and enjoyed his kind, light hearted energy.
Once in Puerto Himenez, I walked around the small town, which was previously a gold mining hub and has retained a lot of character with very local, old fashioned qualities such as the small, wood sided stores or 'tiendas' as they are called in Spanish.
The town is kind of funny in an ironic sense as they seem to have satellite television throughout most of the town. As a result the teenagers here in general seem to be a little over the top in their ´cool´ factor with their trendy clothes, sexy music videos playing in the local Cantina and low rider cars with the thumping, albeit not quality speakers pumping out the base. The cute part is the culture is also mingled in with really old school qualities that are also cool but from a different time- such as the Backstreet Boys playing from a boom-box down by the docks or other cool teen things just not from previous decades.
At one point, I was walking down by the water where an outdoor restaurant and bar was playing 60´s retro music such as the Beach Boys with locals swimming in the ocean or eating at the little Coca-Cola branded plastic tables set up around the water. An elderly guy on the street just next to the bar was wearing a stetson hat and had a shaved ice cart where he was serving syrupy drinks. The occasional teenager would ride by on an old fashioned cruiser bicycle complete with banana seat and wide, long handle bars. This setting perhaps combined with my blurred vision from the intense heat of the early afternoon sun, struck me as being exactly the way it might have looked a half century ago or more.
On my way back to my nice hostel, I gave an American guy in his mid-20´s directions into town as I was passing by the little airstrip which serves as the town´s airport and where he had just come from directly off a plane via San Jose from Oregon where he lives.
As he hadn´t reserved a place to stay yet he also booked into the peaceful little hostel where private rooms were just $12 per night- not bad for Costa Rica.
Thomas from Austin, Texas originally is a photographer in the off season when he isn´t fighting forest fires in the United States during summer time. He had already booked a couple weeks of camping in the nearby Corcdova Nat Park in order to take pictures for a wildlife comptetition.
I had only planned to see the beach area outside the park for a day or so as I didn´t have a reservation, which needs to be booked at least several days in advance since there are a limited number of people allowed into the park each day. After talking to Thomas and another guy from France at the hostel, I was convinced it would be worth trying to go since Corcodovo has the most plentiful and diverse wildlife in Costa Rica as well as some of the most diverse in the world!
So as agreed to by Thomas, the next morning I stopped at the park´s office and got approval to enter the park on his pass. So, thanks to him I was able to spend the next 3 nights hiking approx 50km to, from and around the areas between La Leona and Serena ranger stations.
We saw all kinds of trees, flowers, plants, insects, animals and birds. Since Thomas only had a 1 man tent and I don´t have one at all, I was planning to sleep under my silk sheet in the grass under the stars. I had a change of plans though, when the ranger told me that snakes- many of them poisonous such as the black viper(!), might try to snuggle up to me in search of warmth! So, instead he said I could sleep on the floor in one of the park buildings, which had mosquito netting on the windows and a reasonably comfortable foam mattress. The mosquito netting was massively appreciated since the rest of the time outside in the park, I was involuntarily a blood donor for several of the thousands of insects around. While I was nicely tanned from the beautiful, hot weather, on the down side, I became speckled with insect bites!
Unlike walking with the park ranger, exploring the jungle with Thomas was very entertaining. He had researched a lot about the park and had been here once before so could name most of the animals and some of the trees or plants we saw. The funny part is that he tended to point out the various animals in relation to their qualities which would make them really good to eat! Maybe it had something to do with him being from Texas, which is a state well known for it´s fondness of eating steak amongst there other carniverous ways but in any case he cracked me up- partly because I knew it was (umm, hopefully) all talk! One example was when he pointed to the Teper saying, ¨No wonder they are endangered, the rump on this beast appears to be rather meaty! Why, if I were a jaguar....¨, or something along those lines.
When we weren´t spotting wildlife such as the cute little masked Kuwatis, we could hear the hundreds or possibly thousands of jungle sounds even more pronounced at dawn and dusk.
There was the underlying hum of chicada´s- little chirping insects which provided a backdrop for many of the other creatures including the whinnying cry of what sounded like a ghost horse. Of course, that´s probably not what it was but the long, echoing whinny of a creature calling from the bottom of a barrel or perhaps a long tunnel, definately resembled something to that effect!
Not my favourite but definately the most memorable sound from the park was that of the Howler Monkeys. From up close they stop you in their tracks not because of their large brown and black bodies with the strong, jutting out of their forehead bones but due to their loud shriek. It sounds something like 2 animals screaming, shouting and fighting violently next to a loud car crash!
Umm yes, not the most pleasant sound but hard to not listen to it as it´s unlike anything else you´ve ever heard. So, I stood there for a good while, even a little scared of what a creature makiing that kind of sound could actually do to me. It seemed amazing that all these awful sounds could come from just one animal, and even crazier knowing they were probably just relaxing on a limb while enjoying the view or grabbing a bite to eat and saying g'day to each other as they passed by one anothers´ trees!
On our longest day in the park, we hiked 20km over a long 7 hours due to the intense heat of around 40C or 90F. Also, the rough and sometimes rocky trail we navigated with our heavy packs filled with supplies caused my feet to get blisters, which managed to take my mind off the itchy insect bites for at least part of the time. I think it was actually my little socks with a flower pattern cut into them, which did the damage through the friction but anyway... they weren´t too bad.
Also, these were small prices to pay for such an intensely beautiful place with so few people. We probably saw less than 50 others both on the trails and at the campsites during the 3 days thanks to the strict park regulations.
The funniest moment on our trip for me was when I asked one of the park rangers in my limited Spanish for some soap on our 2nd day to hand wash my clothes since most of them were already dirty or sweaty. He told me to give him 5 minutes and came back saying he didn´t have soap but he did have tuna and crackers if I wanted them. I was trying to picture how I might wash my clothes with tuna let alone crackers. Luckily he managed to read my confused expression and found a bilingual guide to help translate. We all busted up into laughter when it turned out we´d had a slight miscommunication.
In trying to use my usual trick of adding a ¨y¨ or an ¨a¨ to the end of an English word when I can´t remember the Spanish translation, I´d asked the ranger for ´sopa´, which means soup in Spanish instead of ´jabon´which means soap. Oops:)! In the end, he did have soap, so there was a happy ending especially since handwashing my clothes in the big outdoor sink was very cool and refreshing in the heat.
My most terrifying moment in the park took place when I was invited along with a German guy and his private guide on a sunset wildlife spotting tour while Thomas was taking photos in the jungle. We went to a river inlet with 2 large American crocodiles in it! The guide told us the ones in Costa Rica don´t attack humans for some reason even though they do in the United States and other nearby countries. Still, it was scary knowing this serene, water hole would have appeared to be ideal for swimming had I not known better! Apparently Bull Sharks sometimes swim into the mouth of the inlet from the ocean also to feed although I didn´t see one.
After my days in the park, I said goodbye to Thomas who was planning to continue exiting and re-entering the park- leaving for a night here and there to get additional camping supplies, including food and camp stove fuel since it was too heavy for him to carry an entire 3 weeks worth of supplies. Hopefully, he will have a good chance in the contest as he will need to take 5 pictures of Corcodovo and/or other wildlife scenery and submit them in a portfolio by October. He is one of the few photographers who uses all manual equipment also as none of his equipment is digital.
I arrived today via bus to the island archipelago of Bocas del Toro, in North East Panama. I stopped in the city of David briefly and the quaint little town of Boqueto for 2 nights on the way. Bocas del Toro seems really nice as it´s not too developed yet and seems really safe and friendly- although fairly touristy! Tomorrow, I will begin exploring through the islands based on recommendations I have gotten from friends and other travellers along the way. I will post more pictures and highlights of Central America over the next couple of weeks as I travel through Panama and figure out how to get to Colombia- probably via sailboat as it is difficult if not impossible, not to mention very dangerous to cross the border overland!
