Hotel Martino Alajuela

... when we did start talking, the girl and I discovered that we both went to CofC and she worked at Coast where my boyfriend DJ-ed every Sunday night! As soon as we figured all this out we both recognized each other! What a small, small world! She's down here working on her masters so hopefully we'll catch up again. That really blew my mind though.. mean, 4 Americans on a bus from PA to CR and I know one of them?! Crazy.

We checked into our hostel, which was about 3 ...

... today to go to another orphanage but that they would not have to leave after all. She had been very sad about the prospect of leaving. At one point during the morning, I found her sitting by herself outside and went to talk with her. She told me that she was feeling sad because she missed her mama and papa. She told me she does not know where her mama is. (It is my understanding that her mother did ...

... We were soaked and the horses didn’t like the rain so they trotted a lot. It was so uncomfortable and again, tough to stay on the saddles so we were in a lot of pain. We rode for probably another half hour. It was an extremely long ride and my body is still sore from it. Oh well, it was a lot of fun, nevertheless and I’m glad I did it, despite my allergies. Afterwards, we went back to our hotel, showered and changed and packed up. We ate lunch ...

... the kingfishers and creatures that feed on fish will have to go elsewhere in search of food, he said. "Crocodiles, otters and other larger animals will also likely move out of the main river," Coleman added. "The good news is that in the days following the quake, we looked at the Río Puerto Viejo and the Río Sardinal, two important tributaries of the Sarapiquí, and they both look perfectly fine," Coleman added. "In fact, we found breeding fish in both rivers days after ...

... apples) but I had to settle on Ontario apples. To balance things, I bought some Costa Rican bananas when I returned to Ottawa. The next day should have consisted of a fairly dull 5 hour plan ride from San Jose to Toronto followed by the red-eye flight to Ottawa. Of course, travel plans are merely suggestions, subject to the whims of weather. The winds were odd in San Jose, forcing the use of an alternate, slightly shorter runway. This, combined with San Jose's ...

... was? That's right, $250. This was a BIG relief. The last few days I had been thinking about what I would do if I actually had lost hearing. If a doctor advised me that my hearing was at risk, I would have stopped riding. Then what? Find a nice town and settle in? Or keep going by bus? Or maybe go somewhere completely different, like southeast Asia, which is better seen not on a bike? But this diagnosis meant that the trip would continue. Yeah!

... supermarket last evening and it was on a par with anything in the States or Europe. My eyes were on stalks. I was hoping to visit the caribbean coast of Costa Rica but haven´t left myself enough time. I think I have packed quite a lot into these 3 months but of course only scratched the surface of Central America and Mexico. You often get people posting questions on the lonely planet thorn tree forum asking if 2 weeks is ...

... de poten van schildpadden op terwijl ze hun eigeren leggen (de schildpadden bedoel ik, niet de gidsen), en wij zagen een gids een rood kikkertje in zijn vuist hard heen en weer schudden; het beestje moet daarna even bijkomen, zodat de toeristen rustig een foto kunnen maken... (onze foto's zijn uiteraard puur natuur, alleen die aap hebben we even flink door elkaar moeten rammelen). Pizza Als je ons vraagt wat voor ons het hoogtepunt was (als je zin en ...

... dje ... think Español Español Español. So, with my 4750li-backpack on me (whew, thanks to those external frames! I wouldn't have known how to carry this stuff along!), I started walking through the streets of downtown San Jose. This place is bustling as early as 8:30am! Stores are all open, streets packed with people - and seemingly not in so much rush to go anywhere. I am the only one I saw that looks like a ...

... s friend. He thought we would welcome his company and tried to invade our space, even though he resembled a howler monkey with fewer teeth. So we summoned up our frostiest “go wither” look and sent him off. Finally returned to our hotel and hit the hay.

Wednesday 25 May

Headed out after a hasty breakfast to get our bus to La Fortuna. After another long, bumpy bus trip, we realized that galloping on a horse was more comfortable than vehicular transport via ...