TravelStream™ news feed for member sarahs_travels on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/sarahs_travels en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Thu, 01 May 2008 11:45:48 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1209655860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1209655860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1209655860/tpod.html Thu, 01 May 2008 11:45:48 -0400 Thailand and beyond.

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Montezuma, Province of Puntarenas, Costa Rica

Here are some pictures!!! Enjoy!
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Montezuma, Province of Puntarenas, Costa Rica

Ugg... the internet here drives me crazy!!! I just had finished writting a long entry and go to submitt it and guess what... gone!!!! So now I´m starting again but its not going to be as detailed or exciting!!

I´m now in Mal Pais which is known for its surfing. I´m going to give it another shot most likely tomorrow and hopefully no more jelly fish take a liking to me! We arrived here this morning after spending 3 nights in Montezuma, which besides Samara is up there on my favorite beach list. Beautiful picture perfect white sand beaches.. love it! The first day there was just spend wandering around. Its a very tiny touristy town there is one bar and only a handful of resturants and tourist stores. On our second day there we did a snorkling tour to Tortuga island... WOW all I have to say.. it was an hour speed boat ride to the first snorkling spot.. the snorkling was awful and I didn´t see any fish that I haven´t seen before and there weren´t that many. After the snorkling we went to the island for a bbq lunch and it is honestly the most beautiful beach i´ve ever seen with the whitest and softest sand and I think it was nicer than the beaches in Thailand if that is possible! After lunch we were suposed to go back for round two of snorkling but I stayed on the beach instead with another guy Dave that I met at our hostel.

That night Vinny and I mannaged to somehow get locked out of our room.. we left the key at the front desk like we always had done and went for dinner then when we returned at 730pm they had locked up reception!!!!! So we spent the next oh 4 or so plus hours waiting on the terrace.. luckly there were 3 other Candaians we met there so we kept well entertained until we could get our key back.

Yeasterday I spent the morning on the beach then in the afternoon hiked to the Montezuma waterfalls which you are apparently able to jump into.. one being 90 feet. another 15 feet. I didn´t wear the right shoes so didn´t end up going to the higher waterfalls.. we´ll have another day in Montezuma before returning to San Jose so I´ll make sure to wear the right shoes next time.

That´s all from me for now.. I´m going to go take full advantage of our hotel pool!!!

Cheers
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1209250140/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1209250140/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1209250140/tpod.html Sat, 26 Apr 2008 19:20:19 -0400 Thailand and beyond.

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San Jose, Costa Rica

So I´ve returned back to San Jose after being at Playa del Coco, which was my least favorite beach of all. It reminds me of Toronto Habour and has Toronto beach sand so it wasn´t very exciting. Our hostel had a pool so we all hung around that for the two days we were there. Our group headed back to San Jose yeasterday afternoon on a long 6 hour bus ride for one more night out on the town. We all went out for a Thai dinner... yummy!!! It was really good and was my best meal so far on this trip, I splurged big time with the food budget last night but it was worth it. We celebrated one of the girls Birthday and headed out with most of the people at the hostel to a few different bars. The first one was really sketchy and we didn´t stay there too long and ended up at a live Salsa bar and spent the night dancing.. lots of fun. Today was a kind of sad morning saying bye to everyone I´ve spent the last 15 days with. 3 other girls from the trip are staying one more day in San Jose, and really there isn´t much to see here so we went to the mall and went to watch a movie in the theatre... ha ha ha... and rented one to watch for later. After we went on a mission, we took a taxi cab to Coca Cola bus station, which really isn´t a bus station just more of a market area so I could go buy tickets to Montezuma for tomorrow. Its probably known as the worst area in San Jose and is known for theift. So after walking around a bit and clenching our bags really tightly I found out that they don´t even sell advance tickets to Montezuma and you just pay the bus driver at the time of departure.. So tomorrow at 7am I´ll try again and hopefully I don´t have to stand on the bus for 5 hours since they usually pack as many people in there as possible. While walking around the market there we went into one of the pet stores, I´ve never sceen so many different animals that don´t seem to belong in once place.. there was your usual puppies, rats, birds and fish but also chicks and roosters in cages.. seemed kind of odd. But the area is not for tourists at all its really busy and the locals would say ¨gringo´in your ear while you passed.. which mean foriener but in a deogratory way. So we got out of there pretty quickly.

The cab ride back was really funny we got in the cab and the taxi driver had no idea where our hostel was so we made him do circles in San Jose until something looked familiar and struggled with our Spanish between go left... turn around go back, go right. The guy was laughing at us the entire time.

I´m just back at the hostel for the night and waiting for Vinny to fly in from Toronto, he´ll meet me tonight and we´ll head off for the beaches again in the morning. Less than two weeks now... and for those of you thinking that my travel bug would be gone after this I think it is quite the opposite. One of the girls I met here really wants to travel and we´re looking into going to Europe for August can´t wait!!! David you need to come too!!!
Hope all is well, until Montezuma!!!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1208899200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1208899200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1208899200/tpod.html Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:56:00 -0400 Thailand and beyond.

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Samara, Costa Rica

Right now I´m back at the beach and regaining the tan that I lost during the 5 days spent in the rain and clouds. After leaving La Fortuna we went to Monteverde up in the mountains (ok not real mountains just hilly area). The first afternoon we went to the cheese factory and were a bunch of classy people showing up with our own wine and drinking right out of the bottle during the samples..lol then we bought a ton of cheese and continued the party back on the terrace of the hotel. The next day we went on the Canopy tour and zip lined through the rainforest sooo much fun. They had a tarzan swing which you are harnessed to a rope and are maybe 3 stories up on a platform and you jump off kind of like bungee jumping but feet first then you end up swinging up to the top of the trees... I won´t lie I was terrified I had to be pushed off because once I got to the edge I started backing up and almost chickened out but I did it anyways.. It was a lot of fun, although the expession on my face caught on film would tell you otherwise hahaha..

Yeasterday I arrived in Samara our hotel is right on the beach.. its sooo beautiful this is my favorite beach so far on the trip. Spend yeasterday in the sun, swimming and boogie boarding. The night was spent with a yummy pizza dinner and dinks back at the hotel by the beach. I am really getting tired of the food here... its pretty easy to get bored fast... Its rice and beans for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So Í´m starting to eat a lot more food from home.. pizza, sandwiches and fries ect. Today I got up early and was in the sun for a while. I had a surfing lesson early afternoon.. its a lot of fun... its really hard but I actually got up on my first wave... I ended up getting quite a few waves.. but I fell a ton as well... I didn´t end up finishing my surfing lesson because I was attacked by a Jellyfish!!! So I´m done with the Ocean for the day!! I was standing up waist deep and I saw it then it stung my right knee then swam behind me and stung the back of my left knee.... soooo painful!!! I was screaming the instuctor then said oh its not that bad it doesn´t hurt much lets keep going... I didn´t keep going I was done!! And no for those of you who are going to ask me... no one peeded on me.. although some people did offer.. haha I just stood under the shower for a good 10 mins until it stopped hurting. I´m fine now so no worries just my knees are a little swollen. I´m just going to relax for the rest of the day maybe in the hammock with a book and then go to dinner with the group latter. Tomorrow we´re off to another beach Playa de Coco which is about 3 hours north of here... hopefully by tomorrow the ocean doesn´t put me off any more.

Hope all is well at home

Cheers
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La Fortuna, Costa Rica

Some excitment at last!!! Well for me the entire experience so far has been pretty amazing but for those of you reading I guess I haven´t done much yet other than beach, wildlife, drowing in the biggest waves I´ve ever seen and more beach time... well that´s until today!! So we left the beach early yeasterday morning at 530am.. and it was an aweful travel day. The roads in Costa Rica are aweful and I will never get car sick anywhere else ever again after being in Costa Rica. They are so bumpy, pot holes everywhere many roads are not paved and they are super windy. Not to mention yeasterday I was plauged by the aweful travelers illness that seems to be more prevelent here than when I was in Thailand.. and I don´t think there is any escaping it! In the group I´m traveling with about 5 of us have been hit with it already!

I arrived in La Fortuna yeasterday at 11am and after sleeping half the day away once I felt somewhat better I went to the travel agent and booked some tours for the next few days. This morning a few of us got picked up at the hotel and went Canayoning!!! 8 waterfalls and 5 repells down the waterfalls!!!! It was AMAZING so much fun! 2 of the Repels were quite high one was 140 feet and one was 200 feet it was such a rush. The rest were smaller and it was a lot of hiking and jumping into pools of water and just getting absolutely dirty and soaking wet! It was pouring today anyways so it was a fantastic way to spend the day. Tomorrow some of us are thinking of taking a taxi to Lake Arenal in the morning and maybe doing some kayaking. La fontuna is a small touristy town at the base of an active volcano we´re doing a hike around the volcano tomorrow afternoon then hitting up the hotsprings after... should be great.. I´m hoping that the weather clears up because its cloudy and we can´t see the volcano right now but on clear days and nights you are suposed to be able to see lava spitting out from it.. but as I´ve heard the chances of it not being cloudy in La Fortuna are slim to none. I´ll try to post up some pictures I´m just waiting around until dinner when the group usually meets up. Its really difficult to post pictures here but I´ve found a fairly speedy internet place so it should work.

Cheers
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1208211360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1208211360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1208211360/tpod.html Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:42:54 -0400 Thailand and beyond.

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Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica

Hey all!!! I´ve been on the carribean coast of Costa Rica in a small town name Puerto Viejo which is near the Panama boarder! I love it here and wish I could stay so much longer. It has a huge african carribean population and is a really relaxed place with lots of hippies and some amazing beaches. They don´t speak pure Spanish here a mix between English and Spanish. Yeasterday we got here mid afternoon and went for a late lunch. Things in Costa Rica run at a slower more relaxed pàce so lunch took about 2 hours so we missed the tanning time on the beach. A few of us went to walk around the beach right in front of our hotel its named playa negra meaning black beach... the sand is literally black!!!! Its really cool to see but it gets all over you and its not really a sitting around beach its from volcanic ash I believe.. last night after dinner we spent the night at the local bar-club dancing to reggae and salsa..well some of us danced... ok only the girls danced. the boys sat at the bar with the beers. Today I rented a bike and most of us on our group headed down the main road that follows the ocean and we went beach hopping... it was a great day and crazy bike ride... its soooo hot here we had to stop at every beach along the maybe 12km ride one way to jump in the ocean when we got to the last beach we went into the supper market and bought some food for a picnic. On the way back we stoped at one beach not reccommended for swimming as the waves are insane... I´ve never seen waves so big in my life they were 15 to 20 feet easy.. there was a life gaurd there and we could go in to one area... I´ll tell you I´ve never been scared of water in my life.. but wow thats some powerfull water.. I have been caught in some rip tides while I´ve been here.. costa rica is not actually good for swimming.. and as I hear the Carabean side here is the worst.

Sorry if my entries are not as good this time around I haven´t really done much other than beaching and wildlife..plus the internet is soooo aweful here. Its really slow and costa rica has a tendency to loose its power oh a few times a day .. it comes back within 30mins but it makes using the internet difficult. Just wanted to let everyone know that all is well here with me. Our group is having a BBQ tonight with fish and all sorts of good food should be good. Tomorrow I´ll be in a small town just about 30mins north of here the beaches and snorkling are suposed to be fantastic plus they have a national park that is suposed to have some good hiking which I may do.. I think I´ll be really sore from the bike ride today so well see. After that I´m off to La Fontuna where the Arenal Volcano is which is active by the way. That area is suposed to be packed with action tours.. I can´t wait to go repelling and cannoning.. its suposed to be really amazing and very scary as I´ve been told!! Thats all I have for now so until next time I can find a working internet!

Ciao

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1207836000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1207836000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1207836000/tpod.html Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:09:45 -0400 Thailand and beyond.

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Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica

So I am still in the same area as when I arrived to Costa Rica I was going to only spend 3 or 4 days here and then move on to Jaco just a little more North on the coast but I have been talked out of it by many people as apparently it is just full of drugs and prostitutes and not the safest of places. So I have decided to stay put for the week. I must say its nice not to have to pick up your stuff and pack every day or two and stay in one place, unfortuntly the moving around is going to begin soon so I might as well enjoy one location while I can.

Yeasterday I got up supper early and my dorm mates, one guy from Sweeden and another from the States plus myself when into the National Park to do some hiking and spot some animals. We could have hired a guide for $20 but decided against it and test out our own luck at spotting different animals... so I guess we should have hired the guide.. ha ha... We did find some monkeys on our own as well as lots of lizzards and and rodents that look like a Capabarra but smaller but we really wanted to find a sloth.. that is what everyone goes into that park to find. We did end up eventually seeing one but not on our own. There were 3 or 4 tour groups who had telescopes set up to view the animal in the tree they let us look through and take pictures even though we were not part of the tour. I don´t have any pictures it didn´t work unfortunutly. After I ended up staying the rest of the day on their really nice beaches.

Last night a few of us from the hostal went out into Quepos for some drinks.. the bar that we went to had ´ladies night´ which there means ladies drink for free all night... ha ha no complaints here. We then ended up going to a local spot where we were the only gringos in there for Karoke haha.. none of ended up singing we just watched the locals... then back to the hostal to finish off the night with a game of waterfalls.. so it has been a slow start today and I really haven´t accomplished much of anything today. I´ll be going into town after to buy my bus ticket back to San Jose where I have to meet my group on Sat afternoon, I´m not really excited about going back there but at least I´m traveling there with one of the guys I´ve met at the hostal so things should be better there this time around.
That´s about it for now. I tried to put up pictures but the internet is bad here so it will have to wait until another time.

Cheers
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1207598940/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1207598940/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1207598940/tpod.html Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:46:05 -0400 Thailand and beyond.

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Quepos, Costa Rica

Hola from Manuel Antonio! This is going to be short I just wanted to post some pictures of my trip so far for those of you who are curious. Having an awesome time, enjoying the sun and trying not to get too burnt... its difficult trust me. I've met tons of travelers at the Hostal and lots of single female travlers from Canada so we've been hanging out dinner, becah, drinks ect. I did a Mangrove boat tour today, it was awesome! We were mainly looking for monkeys and did we ever find a ton... they got right on to our boat and I fed them banannas by hand!!!!! I have a pic but I'm not going to post it because I look terrified lol.

So enjoy the pictures!!
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Quepos, Costa Rica

I made it out of San Jose no problems. I took the local bus from the coca cola station (more of a corner street in the middle of a market) and headed to Quepos which was about a four hour bus ride. It wasn´t bad at all it was in a comfortable coach bus except that there is no Air con and the roads are pretty windy and nauseating. Its a small touristy town its 7km from one of Costa Rica´s national parks Manuel Antonio. My first night I just grabbed a cheap box of a hotel if you can call it that the room barley fit a bed but had its own washroom, it was clean so who cares right? There isn´t much to do in Quepos has lots of bars and places to book tours has a "beach" front if you can call it that.. no actual beach and apparently its polluted so swimming is not reccomened. I crashed early again last night as I´m still sick... yes I know.. but today I have found the cure!!!! Lying on a beach in the sun all day will fix anything.

I transfered to my hostal now Vista Serena this morning after I checked out of my box... love it love it love it!! I has the greatest view of the Pacific ocean from up on top of a hill and the people there are fantasitic, so I have no complaints anymore. Its the first place I don´t have to stuggle with my Spanish... wow for such a tourist country you really need to know Spanish to get by... I´m doing ok and can actually somewhat have a converstaion in Spanish but every time I ask what something costs I have no ideas of numbers in spanish.. haha.. I think i can count to 20 and their prices usually start at 500 (500 colones is 1 dollar) so I have to carry a pad of paper and pen with me and ask them to write down the price.

I don´t think I have much else to say at the moment. Tomorrow I´m doing a Mangrove boat tour through the hostal apparently I save 45 dollars if I go through them because they use their own boat. Just thought I would update as my first travel entry didn´t start off so great.

Cheers
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1207336260/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1207336260/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahs_travels/thai_oz_journey/1207336260/tpod.html Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:04:03 -0400 Thailand and beyond.

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San Jose, Costa Rica

So I´ve made it more or less in one piece. Thanks Matt for taking me to the airport so early!!! Had no problems with the airport. I don´t have anything exciting to report at the moment, I´m utterly exhausted as I decided not to sleep last night and flying when you are still sick doesn´t help any. I thought my head was literaly going to explode with the decent into Miami... now I´m just deaf in one ear. I am a little overwhelmed at the moment and I´m sure the exhaustion has something to do with that. I am not impressed with the Hostel I booked so I canceled the second day and am going to try to get to Manual Antonio tomorrow instead of sunday.. and pray that I can find a cheap room... I have reservations starting this sunday, hopefully they have room one night ealier as well. Its also pouring here right now so its kind of putting me off checking out the city... plus I don´t really want to walk around this area... David... This is not Thailand eek... the tears have started already sorta... lol.. I don´t want anyone to worry about me I´m fine just tired and I´m sure once tomorrow hits after some sleep everything will be seen in a much better perspective.

Later...

I did manage a mission to the bank as I decided not to exchange money at the airport because the exchange rates weren´t great.. but I kind of wished I had. You can\should only exchange at banks... I went on a mission first one was closed and then I took a taxi to another one and had to wait in line for a good hour..jeeze but its done then I walked back to the hostel in the pouring rain.. yup hasn´t let up since I left. San Jose is actually really small and walkable although I don´t know how much of it you actually would want to walk. I ended up walking through the Plaza de Artas (I think) its kind of cool. They have all these artistic cows everywhere painted in different themes.. its like our Toronto Moose when it was all over the place, I didn´t feel quite safe enough to bust out the camera to shoot a picture. The streets around it are closed to traffic and their are lined with really nice stores and bakeris ect.. kind of like one of the streets in Lima, but I think I remember Lima´s being nicer. Anyways so I´m back here for the night I´d love to go to bed but seem to think that 7pm is too early.. The bartender was just opening up the bar.. I may grab a drink and then go crash.

Ciao,

Sarah
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