Hotel El Bramadero Liberia

... blankets and pillows, and he also served us breakfast! We had no idea that meals were included, granted it was french toast sticks from the BK lounge and neither of us ate them, it was still a nice unexpected bonus. The first leg of the trip took us across the Nicaragua/Costa Rican boarder. While we were waiting for our passports, we stood outside of the bus along with about 5 other bus loads of people. Vendors were constantly trying to sell us hammocks ...

... instruments.<br>They stopped traffic and formed a parade line, led by a 3 fire<br>throwers, and walked around the entire central park. We followed, along<br>with everyone else, until they reached a rec hall where they were set<br>to perform a little later; we figured that their mini-parade was to get<br>people to ...

... with us the whole time, excited to guide us back to the campsite.<br><br>Later on that day, we jumped in Wesley and headed down to the natural hot springs for a swim. The hottest one was around 40 degrees Celsius and there where 3 others that were a little cooler. Plus there was another river that we used to cool ourselves off in when it got to hot.<br><br>We all had a great time in this area and were able to see things that are very rare.

... Costa Rica from the air, and it was great to finally make it after all of the planning.<br><br>Liberia was a fairly large town, but we did not spend any time in the city. Some how we got all of our luggage into Oscar's van. There was plenty of room for everyone, and we were very glad the van had such good air conditioning ...

... the country. No arguing with that so we had to buy the extra insurance both for Kirsty and the moped. Once that was done all the papers had to be photocopied, it was not possible to do it in advance since you need the date stamp in the passport. The Customs officer then came to the vehicle to see the moped and check inside the vehicle that was a quick 5 minutes. Next stop was to go to the Customs building to get the rest of the documents gathered and signed. That ...

... realized that the sun was too oppressive for exploring, and quickly detoured to a bar. At the bar I tried my first Costa Rican beer (Imperial), and it was pretty good. While waiting for our beers, we were greeted by Monty--a large black dog who looked rather hot. We got to chatting with Monty's traveling companions Eric and Howard, who are sailing a boat from California to New Jersey. Their journey started in ...

... the river!!! Of course, most of you know that I have a habit of losing sunglasses, so this one was at least added to the list in an honorable way!!!! Shirin has promised not to tease me about this one!!! :-) We´re driving towards San Jose (Costa Rica) Saturday morning to catch the evening flight. We´re scheduled to arrive in San Francisco around midnight. We´ll talk to you all then. Love, Shirin &amp; Babak

... is easy to get lost... in less than an hour I passed the very pretty and deserted beaches of Penca, Prieta, Pan de Azucar and a coupole others. Pan de Azucar is dominated by an all-inclusive hotel (you have to walk through the hotel to get to the beach), but it still has that laid-back friendly (pura vida) feel to it, and it is still quiet and deserted and the hotel does not loom OVER the beach, it 's sort of in the background.

I am writting this whilst taking a break from the sun lounger by the pool in Costa Rica. It is so hot here, in the 30s so hiding in the shade and pool most days. Tough life! Think my last entry was from Granada, after that I headed down to the Lake Nicaragua and out to a volcanic island called Ometepe. It was ok there although the food was average at best and we were a little stuck in the middle ...