Hotel Internacional JM Alajuela

... gettin' ready to zip through the cloud forest<br> <br> <br>go farrah!<br> <br> <br>the hotness<br> <br> <br>serious business<br> <br> <br>abrupt stop on the tarzan swing<br> <br ...

We leave Sarapiqui in the morning. Louise thinks a very last time of her Chili beautiful raft guide and off we go to Nicaragua. We have planned to enter Nicaraqua throught the water. That means that we have to drive to the little town Los Chiles. Lenin will take our van back to San Jose.<br><br>The road to Los Chiles is interesting but not very beautiful. We see a lot of fruit factories. Del MOnte is surely present in Costa Rica ...

... hoch. Ich kann nicht, weil ich kein Kamerakabel habe und seine Kamera macht eh die besseren Bilder. Auf dem Bus zurueck waren der Fahrer und eine Mitreisende auch wieder wirklich freundlich und haben uns die besten Tipps fuer Costa Rica gegeben. Wenn bemerkt wird dass man etwas spanisch spricht oder es zumindest versucht, dann freut sich hier jeder. Wenn man dann noch sagt dass man aus Deutschland kommt, dann freuen ...

... had an incredible view of the clouds and rain. As we were still determined to see the lake formed in the calderon, we descended 125 metres to the shores. There we saw the water and ate our peanut butter sandwiches (soggy again). We could see some 60 feet out into the water and mist, and the scene was eerily magnificent, for such a remote lake with such a violent past. We enjoyed the feel of the lake for a few minutes, regrouped ...

... spot to hear the lava rocks falling down the hill. It was rather loud almost like a a building being bulldozed. We took a couple mile walk to a waterfall near town and in hindsight saw more wildlife than we did in all of Costa Rica. Probably one of the most amazing things I ever saw was thousands of ants carrying small leaves into their ant hill. They were coming from a far distance and just watching the stream of them was really cool.

So, after a week or more in the middle of nowhere, we´re back in somehwere you could call a town. We´ve been into the rainforest, on boats in crocodile and shark infested waters and conquered a castle. The last place that had a cash machine is a ...

It's SO much cooler crossing a border by riverboat than by bus. I don't know why, it just is. San Carlos takes a lot of rap in all the different guidebooks, but I like it. There are lots of mosquitos and you have a feeling of being stranded in the middle of nowhere. There are boats out of there just twice a week (we missed ours by half an hour!) and the bus ride out of there is...well, you'll see....

... as they wanted to fill the "panga" with as many passengers and cargo as possible. Some passengers had been waiting there since a few hours earlier so after 12.30 there was quite some show of protest and waving of arms, but no action from the vessel owners who were only thinking about some extra dollars in their pockets. Once we did finally take off the trip to Nicaragua was fabulous...a full hour on a fast river boat watching all sorts of ...

... down the river San Carlos to the old spanish fortress of El Castillo. That will be another 3 or 4 hours, so we will stay there the night and then make the tourist part tomorrow. There probably is internet there by now as it is a tourist hotspot (one of the top ones in Nicaragua) but just in case it might be a few days until we update...or at least put some text. Good week everyone!

... line and got in trouble rigtht away cause I was standing on the line not to be crossed. I was excused thank goodness, my bag was searched and I made it back on the bus. woo hoo. Everyone was chatty back in the bus and it seems we were all feeling similar. Anxiety always makes people bond. No language, age or cultural difference sets you apart from feeling vulnerable in the border crossing. After a few more hours we stopped for lunch at a typical soda stop where I had beans and ...