Casa Viva Beach Houses Puerto Viejo

... into Costa Rica. After another bus ride and a lucky ride from an American couple that were driving by and living in the area, we rocked into Bob Marley town, Puerto Viejo. The smell of weed in the air made me smile as the Reggae beats soothed my aching tired bones.

Owch! Costa Rica! The rich coast. You're not wrong there, accomodation was expensive and beer had jumped up to $2.50 a pop in the bars. We opted for a quirky little place just out of town called Rocking J's ...

... that are already accustomed to human interaction, which would be beneficial to the zoos in that the sloths wouldn't remain furtive balls of fur stuck up at the top of a tree where the visitors can't even see them properly, and which would benefit the sloths in that the zoos would no longer hire hunters to go out and trap wild animals for their exhibits. At present, however, the Costa Rican government is refusing to allow such a scheme to progress as it is ...

... a month earlier during Easter, the streets were crowded with people from San Jose, resulting in late night stabbings and drunken brawls. Lucky for us, we didn't find this out until we were somewhere else. Anyways, the beaches here are extremely beautiful, not to mention they had some pretty big surf. The only problem with the surf was, like ...

... there's a crisis, we still need to ask for help. Being a very small, "third world" country with no army (since 1948), asking for help from more developed countries is sometimes our only option. When we all hear ...

... different life, a life of only a few weeks, but, for sure, that counts more than many months made up of the same day "tainted" by a frenetic rhythm that often brings nothing. I took a few photographs, I imprinted the best memories in my mind so that I can just take them out from a little tin-plated box and they will not be faded ...

... what I had to deal with was nothing compared to Caitlyn's trials after we hastily parted. Apparently, she left her purse in the taxi when she went to her hostel in San Jose, and the next passenger picked it up and took it to a brothel, where he used its contents to pay for various, er, services. Caitlyn, being ever resourceful, managed to track down her cabbie, who in turn tracked down at least her passport, though her camera was long gone. You just can't blink in San Jose.

... Really cool!! I'm probably not going to leave the turtle project until I come across one on night patrol, but I think that my chances are good in the next few days. It just has to be the right place and the right time! After that, I think I'm going to head into Panama since I'm so close to the border, and check out Bocas del Toro - maybe learn to scuba dive and surf! From there, hopefully Panama City, and then back to Costa or maybe all the way to Nicaragua. I'll keep you posted!!

... and mass media warning in the 1970s about global cooling), I was subjected to a discourse on banning plastic bags in New York, as San Francisco has done, but I executed the very difficult manuever (for me at least) called tact and did not remind the speakers how people just like them had concluded a mere 10 years ago that plastic was better than paper, see e.g. http://www.angelfire.com/wi/PaperVsPlas tic ...

... roadtrip. That night we went to the local karaoke bar where the locals would sing sitting down whilst keeping a low profile. I got up and sang "I want you to want me" bouncing around like a goose and singing way too loud. We ended up having a ball. For the final encore we made up a number and asked for that song, luckily it was an English one, "Night Fever" by the Bee gees. Monteverde was my next stop. It was a small mountain town that is the gateway to many of Costa Rica's ...

Puerto Viejo was a really cool place, very Caribbean feeling, really beautiful beach and lovely people but quite busy. On our second day there Nat and Julia arrived and, only because we were on the internet at the same time, managed to meet up, we got a cabin together for two nights, prices are doubled during semana santa which is really annoying but it is so nice to be all together, our cabin has a little terrace with chairs and a ...