Playa Del Coco

While sitting in the bus station in Liberia, where we had planned on going in our separate directions, Kyle and I started looking at the bus scedhules to get to Arenal. At this point of the trip, we were getting a little tired, and the bus scedhule to Arenal has 4 transfers, and we've probably have to stay overnight somewhere because we already missed the earlier buses. We hummed and hayed around the idea of going up to Arenal (and figured we should have just done it after Tamarindo before going to Nicaragua), or just heading straight back to Jaco since we'd need time to sell Kyle's boards.

In the end, we decided to go along with Lara and Gareth to Playa del Coco, which is north of Tamarindo. Sure why not. We spend a night or two and then head to Jaco. We ended up catching another cab down to Playa del Coco...we were all just so tired. We got into town, and well it wasn't exactly what any of us had thought it would be...I guess we should have gone up to Arenal.

This is our place of overnight accomodation. We ran into a local guy on the street who said he knew of a place for us to stay. The house was owned by a lawyer who rented out rooms. The rooms in the house were okay, but more than we wanted to pay, so instead... ...we ended up in the shack out back.

The roof was full of holes (but I think it did have a tin roof over top...or we hoped because it looked like rain!)

And the walls didn't go up to the ceilings, so we hoped there was no mosquitos! And other bugs!

The rooms were quite small as well. We had to store one of our board bags in Lara and Gareth's room...

...whereas Kyle slept with the other!

And the locks on our room doors were nothing more than small luggage locks. When we all went out for dinner, we worried that our stuff may not be there when we returned. This was the shabby-ist place we stayed. And it wasn't exactly cheap either! Since Playa del Coco is so close to Tamarindo, it as well is quite touristy and therefore expensive!

This is the bathroom...no showering after dark here...who knwos who could be watching.

Playa del Coco is a diving town...although Lara said she didn't get that vibe. Gareth planned on doing a dive here but decided against it. This town is also big because it's the closest location to run surf trips to Ollie's Point and Witch's Rock (some trips do also run out of Tamarindo).

Anyways, here's the beach. The water was pretty yucky and polluted. I got about mid-calf before headed back in. But it's also a fishing town, so there's slot fo yucky stuff in the water.

This is a quick shot of the streetscape...and yes it rained. Didn't have much rain at all in Nicaragua, we come back to CR, and it rains on us the first night back.

But here, Kyle finally found his "Trits", an ice cream treat that he was told to look for becuase they were "soooo good"! It's like an ice cream sandwich, but with a different cookie, and well it wasn't all that great.

Here's a funky little interpretation of a Christmas tree. Christmas trees were going up in the houses in Nicaragua while we were there. Normal ones, not like this. And all the markets were full of Christmas ornaments and wrappings. It's weird to think of Christmas in +30 C tempertatures! But it is coming.

Well, Playa del Coco didn't hit anyone's fun buttons, sure Lara and I did a little shooping but we didn't even buy anything. So here we are waiting for the bus...heading back to Liberia to catch the bus to Jaco.

Route in Costa Rica II

After returning from Nicaragua, we headed through Costa Rica again as our flight left from San Jose. The solid line is the route we took, and the dotted line is the places we thought of going to but never went.

Border Crossing

Due to crappy weather and poor surf conditions in San Juan area, we decided to hit the border a couple days early. We caught a cab in San Juan, hopped in the back of the truck, and hit the open road.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the roads in Nicaragua are better than those in Costa Rica. This is the road from San Juan to the Pan America Highway...looks okay doesn't it? ...or does it? Parts of the road were still pretty crappy, but they are still better than those in CR!

Now we're cruising! This is the Pan American Highway...better than some of our roads back home!

So we hit the Nicaraguan/Costa Rican border only to met up with Lara and Gareth--they left a few hours earlier but took the local buses instead.

The following pictures were given to us by Lara. Thanks Lara! Here we are with all our gear walking across the border line after going through the appropriate check points. Lara and Gareth got quite a kick out of all our gear that we hauled around. But really it wasn't too much...we each had a 45 litre backpack - super small, we got alot of comments about them - and the board bags. Now we're entering Costa Rica...

Here's Lara and Gareth with their two large backpacks.

And us again.

After going through immigration on the Costa Rica side, we all grabbed a cab together to Liberia which is one of the main bus hubs near the border. From there we will go our separate ways...Lara and Gareth to Playa Del Coco, and us, we're planning the trip up to La Fortuna/Arenal to see the volcano, hotsprings, and do some canopy (zipline) tours.

Back to San Juan

After the Laguna, we caught the "chicken bus" in Granada... ...and headed back for a second go-around of San Juan. On the bus, we met up with Katherine and Fraser (another part of the Vancouver crew who we met orginally in San Juan, saw them in Granada, and then saw these two briefly again when they day-tripped to the Laguna).With Evan and Phil already being back in San Juan, we all got together in the evening for dinenr and drinks. Here we are at Big Wave Dave's Bar and Restaurant.
Followed by drinks and card games back at Evan and Phil hotel.

For our second time through, we stayed at Hostel Nicaragua instead of the hotel from last time. Katherine and Fraser stayed here too, and we met up with the British couple that we also met at the Laguna.

This is Lara and Gareth that we met at the Laguna. They are just finishing up the trip that we are planning for the spring...Australia, New Zealand, and SE Asia. Needless to say, we picked their brains alot about the various countries in SE Asia.Here's some miscellaneous pics from San Juan...like a crab on the beach...

A neat looking house that overlooks our street.
A confused power line pole in front of our hostel.
A beautiful flower in our hostel walkway.
And our dinner out with Lara and Gareth during their last night in San Juan.

We went to a pizza place because we all wanted pizza, but after looking at the menu we all ordered side meals as well. Ya, we ate alot of food that night...way too much!

Through my Eyes - Granada Cemetery

This is my photo documentary. The Granada Cemetery was one of my trip highlights. This place was beautiful, and we had a nice sunny day for taking pictures. Welcome to my thoughts... through my eyes...

More Granada Culture

After only being in Granada for just one day, I realised that we didn't make it to the cemetery. I saw it when we drove in from San Juan and it looked beautiful so we headed back for one more glance around Granada, and we're sure glad we did.

We took the shuttle from the Laguna back to Oasis, and grabbed a cab to the cemetery. It was beautiful. And so different from anything I've seen back home.

Here are some of Kyle's pictures.

We toured around the city for the afternoon and came across a local market. How did we miss this the first time through?...it was just down the street from our hostel! But it was in the opposite direction of all the other sights. Here's some pictures of everyday market shopping.