Orosi - Costa Rica

Cooling down in the Highlands

After a month and a half on the beach, sweltering in the humidity and baking in the unabated sunshine, I, needed a break from the hot weather. Therefore, after thumbing through my Moon's Guide to Costa Rica, I decided to head to a small town in the chilly foothills of the Cartago mountain region and Cloudforest.

Orosi is a small village in a river valley by the same name that straddles the Tapatini Cloudforest to the East and Irazu Volcano National Park to its North. Most of the residents in this moist and chilly place are farmers growing coffee and fruits in the fertile hillsides along the river. What drew me to this particular location was it's proximity to San Jose, only an hour or so away by bus, but also it's relative obscurity among mainstream travelers. With no zipline tours or white-water rafting like other Highland destinations, Orosi has been left free of western development. What it did have however, and what drew my interests, was freshwater fishing for trout in its many mountain rivers.

Accompanying me, was a friend I had made in Jaco, a guy named Simon, who seemed, up til this point to have lived the exact same life as me, except in Canada. He's 25, graduating at the same time that I did (he even did a year abroad in sydney, Australia at UNSW, though he was the there the semester after I was). He had recently left his job back home and decided to get a one way ticket to Latin America. He started his trip around the same time as me (actually the day before I did) and was traveling roughly the same route as me too. And, as an added bonus he also had a friend flying in to San Jose at the end of the week and was killing time until they got here. So, when I told him about Orosi, he was game to come along, not so much for the fishing but for the weather. He's a surfer and, during his many hours spent on the water in the sun, had somehow managed to burn his retinas not once, but twice. He figured a couple days in a rainy mountain town might be just the remedy his burning eyes.

It was great, though not exactly what either of us had hoped for. The town itself was a one road hamlet that, though being virtually devoid of nightlife and a social scene was charming and inviting at the same time. We also found that our hostel had a language school with the best prices I had seen seen since Guatemala. The town was also dirt cheap (for Costa Rica). We paid $6.50 for a bed and about 25 cents an hour for Internet.

It also has some great hiking trails. We took trips to a local coffee farm and got a tour by Pepe, a 73 native who had been farming coffee his whole life. We also took another hike along a river to a natural hot springs. I was starting to think that maybe I could spend some time in a place like this, take some Spanish courses, volunteer at a local Finca, that sort of thing. Of course that would all depend on the fishing.

Convincing Simon to accompany me with a purchase of a six pack of tall cans, we woke up at 6am the next morning and took a bus 8km up a washed out dirt track to the small outpost of Purisil, more so a collection of huts than a village, and walked 3km along a pristine river valley near the entrance of Tapatini national park. We came to Kiki, a trout farm along the side of the road, and persuaded the owner to let us borrow some fishing lines to use in the nearby river. He told us there was no Trucha (trout) to be found there, but having heard otherwise, I persisted and he let us have some line and a hook (no rod though).

For the next three hours, Simon and I walked through fields of cow shit and chest high brush drowning bait in a fishless river. Finally, at 11:30am, satisfied that there was nothing else to do, we started drinking. By noon we had almost finished our supply of beer and decided we'd head back to Kiri, catch some trout out of there stocked ponds and eat lunch there.

Trekking back through the cow shit fields proved to be a little more trying after a couple tall cans and we emerged back on the road completely covered from the waist down in a brown clumpy liquid. We washed off in a nearby stream, Simon deciding it would be best for him to to just lye down in the water as to completely soak himself clean while I was satisfied with a quick rinse of the legs after which and we returned to the farm. With a slight bit of hesitation and constant supervision the owner allowed us to fish the ponds where I quickly landed two 13in trout. With a pond about the size of a kiddy pool filled to the brim with hungry farm trout it wasn't even sport. But, that didn't stop us from taking it up to the restaurant and having them cook it up for us as we guzzled down three more beers and a couple shots to celibate our catch.

Not wanting to embark on a drunken stumble all the way back to the bus stop in wet clothes, I cornered a group of young Ticos as they were getting into there car and asked them if we they were going through Orosi. This was a trick question because I well knew that there was only one road out and that had to go to Orosi, I thought myself very clever for this. When they hesitantly nodded I asked if we may then, since they were going that way anyway, get a ride. After they consulted for a few minutes, probably to consider the possibility of Simon or I becoming sick in their car, they put down some plastic and waved us in.

We got back to town and immediately went to the supermarket for more beer, though we both knew we didn't need anymore. We returned to the hostel drinking and playing with the local dogs along the way and promptly passed out in our bunks. That was at 4:30 in the afternoon. We didn't get up again until 7am the following morning.

So, while I can't say that our fishing venture was a big success, we both loved the town and our time there. I am seriously considering going back for a week or two for Spanish school and, yes more fishing, though this time I might bring along a proper fishing rod and leave the tall cans at home.

Jaco - Costa Rica

So apparently my luck was not as good as I made it out to be in my previous post. I say this because the job that I said I had, the one I so arrogantly boasted about attaining doing virtually nothing, yeah well, it kinda fell through. And, by fell through I mean I never really got it apparently. I called the boat owner, who sounded excited to have me aboard and gave me instructions to call the captain to make arrangements and a schedule. I did as told, but for four days, all I got was his answering machine. Then, when I tried to call the owner back he didn´t answer my calls either. That, coupled with my regrets about agreeing to be a bar manager for a local Mexican restaurant (essentially the same job I fled from back in the States) gave me enough reason to pack up my bag on a Thursday morning and catch the early bus out of town, leaving any an all obligations in my wake. So, finally, after two and a half weeks, I said goodbye to Tamarindo, without much to show for it.

I decided to head back to Jaco, the infamous town chronicled in an earlier blog as a prostitute and drug infested shit hole. You might be asking yourself, why would I, with all the amazing destinations in Costa Rica, select this one, and, it is indeed a good question, but I had my reasons. Playa Herradura, a town just 2km to the north of Jaco is home to the exclusive Marriott resort and Los Suenos, the biggest Marina in Costa Rica. I had received word that most of the countries charter fishing comes out of this dock and it would be the best place to seek employment.

After landing in Jaco in the early afternoon, I checked into the Hostel de Hann which turned out to be a great place. Complete with cheap clean rooms, a communal kitchen set on an outdoor terrace overlooking a small private pool, and FREE INTERNET! This place had all the extras needed for survival in this otherwise sad town. Plus, the people staying here were really cool and I made some friends right away. We all ended up socializing on the terrace after dinner and sampling the bar scene later on that night.

I awoke late the following morning and headed out to Los Suenos on an outbound public bus. This turned to be a mistake, as it took over an hour and a half to reach Herradura (remember, only 2km away) due to frequent stops to pickup (what seemed like) every middle schooler in Central America, as they headed home for lunch. So, close to midday I got off at the resort´s gated entry and walked 1.5km to the Marina.

Now, I am by no means an expert on maritime nor have I seen many Marinas, but Los Suenos has got to be one of the premier fishing destinations in the world if not the universe. Costa Rica is often considered one of the best locations for sportfishing and this seemed to attract the elitists of the sport. Every slip, and there were over 200 of them, was occupied by a boat worth well over a million dollars, some much, much more. An average day trip on one of these vessles cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,000. Some of the best and most coveted fishing tournaments are held here each year earning it the reputation as the British Open of sportfishing. In a word, it was serious fishing for serious fishermen. I guess that´s seven words.

So image then, that a groggy-eyed, scruffy faced gringo, lobster-red and soaked in sweat from walking in the midday sun, comes panting up to your 3 million dollar Sunsetter mumbling something about wanting a job though he´s never worked on a boat before and could only do it for a week or so on account of having to meet up with his friend who was flying in to San Jose. Samuel L. Jackson would have a better chance at joining the KKK then I did of cracking in on one of these outfits. The funny thing is, I knew it, but I still persisted because I thought, if anything, it would be good to see what they were looking for and how much they paid. That would be a challenge in itself since the guards, seeing that I was not a person of affluence, wouldn´t even let me down on the dock for the first hour saying I needed to get someone to vouch for me first. Eventually, I was able to use my backpack as collateral and was given a pass and the illustriously opportunity to grace there platforms and talk with some captains.

I did interview on one boat, a 45 foot Yacht called the High Tide out of Incest Alabama or Roadkill South Carlina or some place like that. The captain was nice enough, and was indeed looking for help, but he wanted a deckhand with experience, a six month commitment, and a resume, non of which I could give him.

I stopped in at a charter office on my way out and asked the guy behind the counter if he knew anyway I could get on a boat for a week just to learn how to crew. He laughed in my face and told me that I needed six to eight months on a boat to really learn how to work a fishing boat and that I couldnt' learn anything in a week. He then launched into a pre-rehearsed speech about the idiosyncrasies of ocean fishing and how one has to have a vast amount of knowledge about boats, fish, and the ocean before even asking to be let on a charter. He then informed me that most of the mates at this marina had gone to the maritime academy to get there positions, showing that they were "really dedicated to the art of sportfishing."

I had to hold myself back from laughing as I walked back to the bus stop. I am fly fisherman and indeed believe in the subtle nuances of baiting, hooking, and landing a prise fish, but this guy was trying to turn paint by numbers into a Rembrandt. I coudn't tell if he was serious or if he was just trying to take the piss out of me. I hope it was the later because anyone who thinks that you need a PHD in Aero Science to put a little plastic thing with a hook in the water, drag it behind a boat where ever your GPS tells you to and drink beer until you hear the line snap forward has been out in the Costa Rican sun too long. Yet, then again, I can't knock it to much, seeing as that I have been trying, without much success I might add, to get a job doing just that.

So, with no possibility of employment and nothing tying me to Jaco, I think I´ll leave the hot sunny beaches for a few days and cool off in the chilly highlands and await my friends arrival at the end of the week.

Tamarindo - Costa Rica

Not originally part of my Costa Rican itinerary -- many independent travelers find it to be an overdeveloped tourist trap -- I opted to go to Tamarindo because a) Patrik, my Swedish surfing companion was looking for good waves and b) I, hearing they had a good stock of fish and sailboats, was looking for a job as a first mate. Additionally, I had visited Tamarindo on a family vacation two years before and wanted to see how it had changed in that time. Boy, had it.

When our dust filled bus rolled out of the foothills to the shoreline of Tamrindo with the last rays of sun disappeared over the horizon, I could see though the shadows and twilight that this was an entirely different place from what I remembered. Where mom and pop shops once lined the road leading into town now stood small mini malls and souvenir shops. Where once stood local restaurants sampling local flavors, now were American food chains like Pizza Hut, Burger King, and TCBY. I could see why backpackers and ecotourists would be turned off by this town´s blatant sell out to American Imperialism. And, along with this influx of conglomerates and high rise condos, crime and prostitution have also infiltrated the town. It leaves you wondering why the locals would allow this to happen.

But its not that simple, and many who live in Tamrindo, natives and transplants alike, are up in arms fighting developers to try and save what little of its previous charm remains. Many Gringos who live here, most of whom for over 20 years, are all part of local boards and community groups trying to stay this over-development. But, I'm afraid to say, they have little chance against the powers of Western money which the Costa Rican government welcomes with open greedy arms.

As a traveler however, Tamarindo is not that bad. There is a steady flow of young parting tourists and plenty of places to get a drink and with deluge of eatetiers, you get an abundence of choices at competitive prices. Plus, with a decent beach, and host of cheap apartment and room rentals, I thought this would be a good place, in spite of all its Americanisms, to settle in for a few weeks and find a job. I had asperations of becoming a deckhand or mate on a local fishing boat for a few weeks. That would prove to be a lot harder then I thought.

I spent the better part of two weeks looking for work without success. I would go down to the 'docks' in the early mornings trying to talk my way onto a boat but, being the middle of the high season, the captains already had there crew and didn't have time to train a new recruit. In town, there was a bunch of restaurants and bars but they couldn't hire you unless you had working papers, a thing unobtainable unless you lived in Costa Rica for two years or married a Tica girl, both of which I was not prepared to do. So, I waited. I sat around on my ass waiting for something to fall into my lap. I'd play in the local poker tournaments (a serious venture here since they send one lucky qualifier to the world seriers of poker every year. I'd fish though I had to pay for it., I'd party with Partik and a big group of friends at the hostel. I basically became a beach bum.

Finally, after two weeks, I had had enough and wanted to leave. But, the night before I was going to take off, I ran into the owner of a local bar. His name was Pablo and I had met him at a poker tournament at his establishment the week before. He had perviously told me he knew a few people who might need help on their boats and he would look into it for me. Not really caring at this point anyway I asked him if he had found anyone. He told me that he hadn't talked with them yet but he had some maintenance work he needed done around the bar, cleaning gutters, scrubbing patios, ext. and I could do it as long as I didn't mind earning Tico wages ($1.50 hr). Hell yes I minded. I didn't want to do hard labor in the hot Costa Rican sun for next to nothing. At the same time, I didn't want to be rude or seem snobby so I agreed to come by the following morning. It turned out to be the best carreer move I made since I'd been there.

Fist of all, it was a suprisingly great feeling to actually be working, forget the fact that it was for less then it cost to write to you now, it was work. Doing something productive and getting paid for it was a feeling I had long since forgotten. I found myself whistling while I fought off Iguanas on his rooftop, humming along with the radio as I scrubbed, and re-scrubbed his sap stained patio. Genuinely happy as I raked up his scorpion and fire ant infested leaves. It was great!

As I was raking the last of the leaves into a bag, he came out and told me that he had just got off the phone with one of his friends who owns a sailboat and he indeed needed an extra hand and I had the job if I wanted it. If I wanted it??! I tried to contain my excitement and said that sounded like it would be cool or whatever and was the happiest guy in the world. To top it off, after work, as a token of my appreciation I washed his car for free!

So the moral of this story is, if you sit around on your ass long enough, something good will eventually fall into your lap!

Malpais - Costa Rica

I had my reservations about going to Malpais. The Planet describes it as a surfers paradise but nothing special if you don't hang 10. This posed two problems for me. One, I am not much of a surfer and even though I am always willing to give it a try, I couldn't see myself falling in love with it and wanting to do it everyday. Second, I don't much like surfers and surfer towns. In my experiences in California and other places, they tend to be clicky and have an elitist, even snobby, attitude. But, having talked with more than a few people who had been there and loved it, I thought I would give it its fair chance.

Malpais is not like other tourist destinations in that it's not actually a town, but a series of small collected hamlets stretched out along a long dirt road for about 3 or 4 kms. Driving along in a bus, you'd pass by a collection of hostels, a bar, a pulperia (shop) and a few eateries before the road would dwindled off into forest and beach again for a few minutes until you came to the next encampment. But what it lacked in centrally located enmities it made up for with it's accommodations. One in particular.

Tranquillo backpackers is probably the best hostel I've stayed at in all my travels. Only a few years old, the place is brand spanking new with clean bathrooms (co-ed), a huge kitchen, sturdy beds, and a fresh coat of paint that gives you the impression that you're staying at a upper class hotel and not a $12 dorm room hostel. It gets better. They offer free Internet, a big plus for me since I spent a lot of time writing to you guys, free pancake breakfasts every morning, that you make yourself, and boy did I. I'm talking about pancakes as big as a car tire. It also had a pool table, ping pong, and DVD library, all for free! And, the icing on the cake, it every spare corner of the place was lined with hammocks. It had everything you wanted.

Plus, the surfers that I dreaded so much turned out to be some of the coolest, nicest people I've met on my travels thusfar. I made more than a few freinds who I would gladly invite to crash on my coutch in Cali and who extended an invitation for me to do the same if I ever found myself in there neck of the woods. Likewise, the town itself had an non nonse and unpretensious vibe that was evedent from the onset, just look at the restaurant signage.

The only problem was, that is all there was. After spending a week there, surfing or swimming in the mornings, lounging around in hammocks in the afternoons, and socializing over pool, and card games in the evenings, I began to get a little restless. Plus, though I never thought I'd say this, I was beginning to get a little sick and tired of pancakes. So, along a Swedish guy I had befriended there, we decided to move before we got adult onset diabetes from the sugary breakfasts and coconut cocktails.

Montezuma - Costa Rica

Getting the hell out of Jaco just as fast as I could, I took a bus, a boat, and another bus to Montezuma, a small outpost on the southern most tip of the Nicoya Peninsula billed as a backpacker place with a hippie vibe. After the serene experiences of Jaco I suppose I could have gotten off the bus at a stockyard in the middle of a swamp and it would have been an upgrade, but, standing in the town center, I could tell Montezuma had a vibe I could gel with.

Montezuma is more of a pueblo then an actual town, with a small park as it's epicenter, the bulk of the town is spread out within a few square blocks comprised mostly of restaurants, hotels, and a few small bars. Longhaireed street venders in hemp clothing lined these blocks pawning off there self made jewelry and crafts, always greeting you with a 'buenas' and a smile. It was small and simple, and that was it's charm, not pretending to be to be a big resort destination. It would if it could I suppose, but the steep zig zagging dirt track that leads you here has thwarted any developers plans for building up the area.

Just north of this 'center' there is a small beach that fronts a rocky break and a few backpacker Cabinas and tent sites. I found quarters in a sparse hostel that gave me a room big enough for a twin bed, a fan (on the wall) and, if you held your breath, a person. But it was right on the beach and $10 a night, so I couldn't complain.

Accompanying this welcoming vibe, were welcoming people, and within the first 15 minutes of being there, I had made four friends. A Swiss couple I met getting off the bus, and an American and Israeli when looking for a place to stay. We became a tight group from the start and had most of our meals together and most of our exploring as well.

The Swiss couple and I took a day hike to some nearby waterfalls which were a very impressive sequence of three cascades, one with a 40ft jump if you were feeling adventurous. Then the next day, we all set out to explore the series of beaches along the southern tip of the coast that eventually would lead us to Playa Grande, noted as being the best beach in the area with calm waters and coral colored white sand. We hiked for almost two hours, through forest reserves and along rocky headlands in search of this post card worthy stretch of beach only to find that it was nothing more than a long line of trash covered brown sand that was apparently also a nude beach. And when I say nude beach, I mean gay nude beach seeing as they both seem to be synonymous anyway. We spent the better part of the afternoon shielding our eyes from oily old Italian men with young Tico boys who waved to us (not with there hands) as they strolled by. Not what we were expecting, but an experience to log in our journals anyway.

After a few days in this place, I began to give serious thought to staying on here and finding a job. It seemed to have everything I wanted, a chilled out beach town with a mellow vibe (but not a surfer scene), with some nightlife and other activities if you got board. I asked around a bit and found that there was not real work to be found in town and that most of the boat activities (where I was looking to find employment) came out of Jaco. Well, there went that idea. So, when the Swiss couple said they were moving up to Malpais, a 2 hour bumpy ride up the coast, I decided that would be my next stop too.

Manuel Antonio to Montezuma- Costa Rica

After the Swiss Miss sisters took there leave of us in Dominical, the Berkeley bunch and I moved camp up north to the resort town of Manuel Antonio, a small plot of restaurants and hotels fronting a picturesque beach and the entrance to a national park by the same name. We got settled in, the Berkeley bunch again opting for a nice hotel on a wind blown bluff overlooking the ocean while I sweated it out in the hot, thick air of a hostel back off the main drag on the fridge of the jungle. After that, we got right to, as Leif so rightly calls it, 'work.'

'Work,' for us consisted of an early day time activity, for instance, a walk through the national park to commune with the white-face monkeys and sloths that lounge and forage through the trees, followed by a lunch --which always ended up being at the same place with the same tired waiter-- and then a good half day on the beach. This was considered the real work, "putting in time at the beach," an it was actually. You had to make sure to get equal distribution of ultraviolet light on all sides and get as much as your skin would allow without burning. This required lots of 30 SPF sunblock -- 40 for the face-- and cool off breaks under an umbrella or in the ocean. I'm not kidding when I say, it this is hard work.

A few day short of a full work week, the Berkeley Bunch had to get back to San Jose and take a plane back to the States and I moved on in search of sunny beaches on the Nicoya Peninsula. It wasn't that many kms away, but the journey would involve a least three buses, a cab, and a slow ferry to get there and, not being pressed for time, I decided to break up the trip and made a stopover in Jaco, midway up the Pacific coast.

Little more than a one road town with an uninspiring beach filled with drug pushers and prostitutes, Jaco is definitely lacking in the charm department. But, being the most access able beach town from San Jose (only 2 hrs away) it is a popular pace and the road is actually a four lane highway flanked by high rise hotels and teeming with old, fat American men on there yearly 'fishing' trip. The fishing, usually consisted of them going to the bar, picking out a working girl, drinking as much as possible and then heading off to there hotels. Occasionally they'll actually go out on a boat, so they have some pictures to show there wives when they get back home. I had the dubious honor of staying in a hostel just next to one such bar and had to pass by it every time I came and went.

On one such occasion, returning to my room after dinner, I turned the corner by the bar and almost stepped on a prostitute who was crouched down in the middle of the street with her (possibly his) mini-skirt rolled up around her/his waist as it urinating. startled, I stutter stepped by him/her barley missing the rather large stream that was flowing toward the gutter and too my amazement, she/he didn't even stop, move, or look away, it just stared back at me as if I had tripped over it's shoe while it was reading the Sunday times on a park bench. Classy place, this Jaco.

The next day, feeling compelled for some reason to move on, I walked over to the bus stop to await the next transport out of town. When I got there, I was welcomed by a young Tico boy who was also waiting for the bus. We chatted in my broken Spanish and I learned that he was a student who had a part time job at a pharmacy in the next town. He was nice, friendly and helpful, telling me where to go and what to see up the coast. We small talked 2 or 3 minutes, all the time needed to exhaust my Spanish vocabulary and then the conversation trailed off.

A few minutes later another kid on a bike pulled up and my young friend ran over to greet him. They started into an excited conversation, one that was moving too quickly for me to follow, and then the kid reached into his pants and pulled out a small but bulky hand gun. Needless to say, this sent a shiver up my spine as I was completely caught off guard. He handed it over to the guy on the bike who inspected it like it was his occupation and then, with a nod of approval, handed it back. Then, with a air of question in his voice he told him something. The kid looked around, first at me (causing me to break out in a cold sweat) and then around for anyone else that might be in the immediate facinity. Before I could begin to think what he was doing to raised the gun, cocked it and, with a ear piecing crack, fired into the bushes behind the bus stop. The shot echoed down the street and I turned around to see what the reaction of the people nearby would be. There was none. No one even broke stride, lifted a eyebrow, or cocked there head. Business as usual in Jaco I guess.

His friend took off and he sat back down, putting his gun back in his belt and shooting me a placating grin. When I asked him why a young student with a job was carrying a gun he again looked at me with a grin. "Es nesesario aqui, amgio, es nesesario," (it's necessary here, my friend, it's necessary). The bus pulled up a few minutes later and I was happy to to say good by to Jaco.

Pasific Coast - Costa Rica

Having gotten in touch with our inner spirits in the cloud forest, it was time to drink a few and we said bye-bye to the wet and windy Highlands making path for the dry and hot Pacific coast. Leah, a friend we all knew from college, was taking surf lessons with her sister in the centrally located Domincal, and we thought that would be the perfect place to start.

A low key surf town, Domincal is on the up and coming track and land there is being bought up quicker than Microsoft stock in the 80s. The pot-holed dirt track that leads you there is being paved over with asphalt and you know that this town's days as a sleepy little fishing hamlet are numbered. The locals, anticipating this, and have raised the prices to fit those of a resort destination, in spite of the fact that it still lacks all the enmities of such places, such as banks, good food, and, oh yeah, resorts.

This became abundantly clear when we checked into our hotel, supposedly one of the better deals in town. The Planet indicated that they had large cabanas for up to five people with three bedrooms, all with AC, a TV, and kitchen. What the half-conscious hotel receptionist showed us was a dark musty room with temporary walls partitioning it into thirds, two of which were bedrooms, and the third the entryway, "kitchen," and a steel bunk bed thrown in the corner, supposedly making up the third bedroom. There was two bathrooms and two AC's but they were both in the other bedrooms and the receptionist seemed almost offended when we asked for a fan for the third "bedroom." The TV worked, but since they didn't have cable we couldn't watch anything. Oh, and they charged us $70 a night for the privilege of staying with them. Very expensive, even for Costa Rica. Unimpressed with these accommodations, we switched out the next day and, with the girls, moved to another hotel down the street. It wasn't fully built yet and the construction started early in the morning, but it was a welcome reprieve from the casa loco down the road.

We spent 4 days in total in Domincal, mostly on the beach paralleling the town during the daylight hours and in one of the many bars that line the main drag come nightfall. However, the day before we left, Leah, Cynthia (thad be her sister), Eli, and I signed up for a horse back riding/waterfall tour. I was actually not going to go, the price being a bit too steep for my backpacking billfold, but Leah offered to front me the money (which I will pay back!) and I got to tag along. I was glad I did.

We took a taxi to 'Don Titos Horse Tours' and, along with about 20 other tourists checked in at this family run horse ranch. Our guides, the two grandsons of the owner, 21 and 16 year old Eddy and Marcos, though young, were obvious veterans, having done this there whole lives. Knowing every horse, and it's personality and rider preference, they went around asking everyone what there experience was with horses and then matching up with a steed accordingly. The more experienced riders got the younger stronger horses. When Eddy asked me I said I'd ridden "a dozen times," which was, in effect, a complete lie but I wanted a good strong horse and not a lagging nag. What he gave me was a young colt named Cuchulo, or what I came to call him, Culo (asshole). He was young and brash and, knowing I was an inexperience rider who would not take control, decided he was going to lead and I would have to follow. From the moment we started down the trail, zig zaging it's way down the valley wall toward the river below, Culo broke from the line and rushed toward the front.

Horses have a peaking order, the dominate horse get the right of way, and little Cullo did not yet understand this and repeatedly tried to overtake the older dominate horses. These horses would in turn, push, bite, and even hit check Culo sending him to the edge of the trail, (often times a steep drop to the valley floor below) and me to the edge of a heart attack. Eventually, he was able to squeeze past the lead horse and, to my terror, broke into a gallop down the steep rocky maze of criss-crossing trails leaving me to wonder where he thought he was going and where the hell Eddy was. But hey, if it was unsafe they wouldn't let the horses run free right? They know what they're doing... this is Costa Rica! I also noticed that Culo was veering from one side of the path to the other, specifically toward under hug branches so that as we rode past, they would slap me in the face. He was doing it on purpose. It sounds paranoid I know, but the asshole did it every time! I knew what he was doing, he was testing me, taunting me, daring me to take control. He wanted me to. With no other choice, I grabbed the reigns, leaded forward in the saddle, trying to get into the rhythm, and, with a swift heel check to his gut, kicked it up a notch and we tore down the trail. We came to the river, were Culo, not yet having the wisdom to conserve his energy paused, exhausted, for a long drink and was much more docile for the rest of the trip.

After a half hour, we came to the families house, perched up on a bluff overlooking the river valley. It was a small farmhouse converted into a restaurant complete with hammocks, parrots, and a shy, but friendly Toucan. There we had a traditional breakfast before heading on to the waterfalls, which were an amazing set of double falls that offered a refreshing dip and rock jumping. We spent the majority of the day there, returning to the restaurant for a late afternoon lunch and chance to play with the wildlife before heading back. Culo, having found his second wind, and I, my confidence, had a great ride back and sprinted up the hill in a dead run finishing alongside the other lead horses. I think we can say that both Culo and I earned our stripes that day.

La Fortuna & Monteverde - Costa Rica

We were all tired. It had been a wet, crowded, bumpy bus ride and when we arrived in La Fortuna it was damp and clowdy. We checked into our repective accomodations, the Berkeley bunch staying at the upscale Pura Vida, with air con and cable TV, and me at Gringo Pete's with with 8 person dorms and lockers for your personal effects (keys for the locks were extra). But hey, only $2 a night!

La Fortuna is a base from which you can explore Volcan Arenal, one of CR's most active volcanoes. During my visit here two years perior, we had been rewared with spectacular views and a midnight erruption with large chunks of glowing red volcanic rocks shooting out of the crater like missles afire and exploding on the steeps below. Sounds great huh, but we got none of that this time around. The volcano was hidden in a think showd of mist and fog and apparetnly hadn't been visable in weeks. It was so dense in fact that is was impossible to tell if there was a volcano there at all and Leif and Eli were sceptical.

With no projectile pyrotechnics on display, we consoled ourselves with the other main attraction in La Fortuna: the hot springs. With numerous underground water systems that are superheated by the emerging magma, Fortuna has an expance of day spas with built-in pools along the stream bed and are the perfect temperature for a soothing dip. We spent hours soaking in the relaxing spring water, making sure to hit up the bar for a refreshing cocktail between soaks. As good as this was we realized that that was all we were going to get out of Fortuna, we cut our losses and headed up to Monteverde the next day, taking a jeep, boat, jeep transport to get there.

The town of Monteverde, and the nearby Santa Elena, are perched up in the highland mountains, just below the cloud forest line. Thousands of visitors flock here each year to walk or zipline though this impressive jungle and search for rare species of birds and flora and fauna. Not able to sell everyone on the zipline tour, we opted for a hike through the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve instead. Walking along in the damp mist you felt minuscule compared to the overgrown trees and ferns. Even the shrubs that grew off the tress were massive and you understood that you were staring at centuries of life and were walking on ancient ground. This mysticism was compounded by the mist that encapsulated every part of the forest, from the jungle floor to the tops of the canopies. And, it blew through it in big gusts spraying sheets of condensation over everything (and everyone).

I usually don't take walks, always going for the fast-paced ziplines or supercharge dirt bikes instead, but its always good to stop and smell the fungi from time to time. To take in all the sights and sounds that you would otherwise not bother to see or hear. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to buy a pair of wool socks, and start eating granola everyday, but, at leat for that day, I defiantly felt at one with nature.

San Jose/Highlands - Costa Rica

SAN JOSE

I got in late in the afternoon on the 3rd and wasted no time in meeting up with Leif and Eli, two high school buddies who had come down for a couple weeks to tour Costa Rica. We caught up over a mediocre dinner and then headed out to the party spot, a collective of discos called El Pueblo. It was worse than the dinner, with a seedy fenced entrance and a group of mostly vacant discotheques blaring non-stop reggae tone for small groups of teenie-boppers. I was stunned, I had been there two years ago with my girlfriend Naomi and it was the place to be, with every bar full, dance floors going crazy and bilar-inas and DJ's leading the festivities. Apparently a lot can change in two years.

And that is the sense I got with San Jose. Where before we could walk the streets at night a feel completely safe, I now heard horror stories about armed robberies and doggy side streets. A friend of mine was walking home to my very hostel with her brother one night when two Ticos pulled a gun on them and demanded money. They were starting to hand it over when one of them hit her brother in the face, not knowing that he was an ex-marine who didn't like to be hit in the face. He then grabbed the guy with the gun and beat the shit out of him while his friend watched in horror. Not to be out done, my friend clocked the other guy, breaking his nose. The assailants ran off and my friends were ok, but that kinda stuff was very rare two years ago and now it seems to becoming more and more common place.

HIGHLANDS

The following day we took a bus out to the Northern Zone to meet up with Leif's mother and sister, also along for the vacation. We met them at a posh hacienda hotel set on the Rio Sardinal river in the foothills of the La Virgen. It was way out of my budget, but I splurged myself and enjoyed a refreshing dip in the pool, a real hot shower (I'd only had about 3 in the past two months), and a full dinner and breakfast buffet.

The following morning, around 8:30am, we took a taxi from our hotel out to the main road and waited for a bus, supposedly arriving any minute, to take us to our next destination, La Fortuna. Then, searching though his bag, Leif asked, "Did anyone bring the Lonely Planet?"
"Damn it," I exclaimed, "I forgot it on my bed."
I had been reading it the night before and left it along with my other book when we checked out in the morning.
"Well, I guess its lost then." Madaline (Leif's mother) signed.
I felt bad. "I can run and get it," I said.
"What if the bus comes while your gone?" Eli asked.
"If it comes take it, there will be another one, I'll just catch up with you there, plus I think I can make it, if I run fast enough." And I set out, running at a brisk pace back down the side road toward the Hotel.

I hadn't realized it on the way out, but it was a hilly road that was a lot longer than I thought. Moreover, it had started to rain and that, coupled with the humidity left me soaked in seconds. I ran on, picking up speed worried now that I would indeed miss the bus. I can tell you that in my three months of traveling I have ran about half a dozen times, usually to the gym and back in Antigua which was about five blocks and at about 65 degrees, now I was in a full sprint in the rain on some muddy road with the temperature at about 85. As I descended to a bridge crossing I was getting light headed and starting to slow down considerably. Still I pushed on, I had to make that bus! I was on the verge of passing out when I heard a truck engine behind me and turned to see a pickup truck bumping down the road. I stopped,, turned about and stood in the middle of the road making the driver come to a skidding halt right in front of me. I came around to the driver's window to find three very perplexed farmers staring back at me.
Forgetting my Spanish, and too winded to speak anyway, I mumbled the words "Nesesito... go ... the Finca... Por... Fa...vor."
They looked at me blankly for a second and then one of them spoke.
"Quieres ir al Finca?"the driver asked.
"Si!" I mouthed back.
"Si, si, es muy cerca, esta al otro lado de-"
I didn't even hear him, I just ran to the back of the truck and threw myself in the truck bed. They all looked back at me, more perplexed then before, then each other, then back at me. I gave them the thumbs up sign and singled for them that I was ready to go on. The driver turned back around and with a slight shake of his head started up the road... about another 25 feet around a bend and to the entrance to the Hotel.
"Oh," I muttered dismounting, "Esta muy cerca."
They all gave me the thumbs up sign with a slight shake of their head and rolled off down the road.

I ran up the dive way and yelled for a taxi as I dashed into the room and grabbed the books. I came back out and jumped into the cab telling him to double time it back to the road. The trip had taken twice as long as I thought it would and I was sure if I hadn't missed them already it would be close. We raced back down the road, and arrived back at the bus stop to find them all still standing there relieved that I had made it back in time. I emerged from the car covered in mud and sweat and had to change on the side of the freeway. But at least I would make the bus which should have arrived by now. We waited, we waited, and we waited. The Hotel had told us 8:45-9:00am, the taxi driver told me 10:00am, then a women waiting along the road told us 11:00am. The bus actually arrived just before noon, right on time according to the bus driver. I couldn't be mad though, at least I hadn't missed it and I got some much needed exercise to boot.

Updates - Panama & Costa Rica

I´ve seemed to have gotten a little behind in my blog posting so I will try and summarize my past couple of weeks in condensed sections, that are more fill than frill.

COSTA RICA

After our harrowing boarder crossing, Mike and I thought that the Caribbean would be a nice reward. We landed in Puerto Viejo, a surfer town almost touching the southeastern border with Panama. This town makes it claim to fame for having the famous ´Salsa Bravas,´ a off shore reef break that offers spectacular, and dangerous, waves for die-hard surfers. The town itself was a little on the seedy side. Most of the locals are young men who aggressively and unabatedly pursue the foreign girls. I found this out first hand because we met up with our friends Judith and Emily and had to fend off these sleaze balls 24/7. But all was not lost, at our hostel, we met up with some of Mike´s friends who had amassed a huge group of 14 people and it made for a very merry Christmas, complete with a huge potluck, Elmo pinata, and Christmas carrels. I made it an early night and went back to my tent around 4am, Mike stayed up until 9.

The following day, Mike´s group convinced us to come with them down to Panama City for New Years. Wasn´t in the plans and a bit out of the way since I had to be back in San Jose on the 3rd to meet my friends, but if Panama is the place to be, then I couldn´t pass it up.

PANAMA

Mike went ahead with the rest of the group and I traveled with the girls, who were also going to PA to ring in the new year. The border crossing passed without incident and we made our way toward Bocas de Torro, an outcrop of islands just south of the border and a must-see on the Panama backpacking circuit. We almost didn´t get the chance because after being told by a border guide (never to be trusted) that it would cost $5 for a taxi and boat ride to Bocas, he put us in a cab with his buddy cab who, after arriving at the docks, demanded more money saying it was $5 each for the cab and $5 more each for the boat. We refused to pay, not because of the money, but the principle. We got in the boat and sat there while he yelled at us and called the police. Finally he got the dock agent to hold up the boat until we either payed or got off and waited for the federalies. Not wanting to miss that last boat of the afternoon, nor have anything to do with the Panama police, we swallowed our pride and coughed up the cash. The was a lot of activities in Bocas, from surfing and snorkel tours to bike rides and beaches, but I didn´t do any of that because it rained the whole time. We spent the time getting our livers in shape for the new years celebrations that were rapidly approaching, playing drinking games and Martin (a Swedish guy in the group) and I taking Tequila suicide shots. That´s where you snort salt up your nose, squirt lime juice in your eye, then finish with a shot of the worst tequila they have. Sounds awful, and it was, but it was also free!

From there we made our way to Panama City and settled in for our New Years festivities. The group, now more then 20 strong, would have a huge dinner at our hostel, ring in the New Year there, and then head out to the bars, which don't really get crowded until 1am or so anyway. The first part went as planned with a big dinner on the veranda followed by fireworks and champagne to for the ball drop. But after that, it all fell apart. Imagine yourself trying to keep 5 drunk people, all with there own idea of where they want to go, together. Impossible right. Now imagine that there are 19 people and your drunk too. It ended up being just the girls and I walking down to Calle Uruguay, a stretch of real estate with a bunch of bars and discos. It was at this point that we decided that it would be a good idea to try and take shots for every letter in the words 'New Year.' Probably better done at the beginning of the night than at the end. Judith ended up getting really drunk and decided it was a good idea for her to take a walk around town by herself. Emily, not drunk enough to see the wisdom in this, wouldn't let her and they ended up walking around together, leaving me to finish off the New Year's challenge. We finally made it back to the hostel to watch the sun come up and people were starting to file in from there adventures as well. Everyone except Mike, who ended up waking up on a side street somewhere downtown having no idea how he had gotten there. We were convinced that, had she gone off on her own, Judith would have somehow woken up beside him. The next day was spent recuperating, or, in Mike's case, drinking and gambling at the casinos. As for myself, I fell back on my favorite pastime, movies. And, to start the new year off right, we made it a double feature.

COSTA RICA

The following day the girls and I took a long, sticky bus ride back to Costa Rica stopping late in the afternoon at a small roadside town called Palmar Norte. There we treated ourselves by checking into in a nice Cabana hotel with a pool and relaxed after a long travel day. That night we had a farewell dinner as the girls where heading off the Pacific and I was heading up to San Jose to meet up with my friends. It had only been about two weeks since I started traveling with them, but I felt like I had known them forever and it was sad to say goodbye. Now I'm waiting to meet up with my Berkeley companions and explore Costa Rica and see what's changed since my last visit over two years ago.

Boarder Crossing - Nicarauga

Finding the hiked up prices for the holidays but not the social scene to go with it, Mike and I decided to leave Nicaragua and head off to Costa Rica, where the girls and a bunch of Mike´s friends were planning on being for Christmas. Mike was actually ready to leave well before I was, but waited for me because he didn´t really want to cross the border alone. He didn´t know it at the time, but my company would be little help to the absolute mayhem that awaited us at the border.

We set out at 6:45am, wanting to get an early start and avoid any holiday rush that might come traveling the day before Christmas. We got to the border before 8am and when we got out of the cab, we didn´t see any of the long lines that the Planet had been warning us about and figured that, for once, the book was proving wrong in our favor. Then we turned the corner to walk to the immigration office. Though only 8am, there was a line that ran from the ticket windows, down the length of the building, around the corner down that side, and was spilling out into the street. We quickly took a place in line, somewhere in the middle of the street, and a downpour promptly let loose. We struggled with our bags as we moved the line beneath an awning on now, the third side of the building. We noted that during this mad rush we had lost a fair bit of places in line as people took the opportunity to mistakenly´move up´during the confusion. From then on, the line was at a virtual stand still.

Mike and I passed the hours making markers and predicting when we would reach them. ¨I bet we can make it to the tree (10ft away) in a hour,¨ ¨betcha, we cross that lamp post before ten.¨ Sometimes you need to set small goal to attain the bigger ones. Well, the bigger one was not getting any closer and after hours of standing in the rain I figured it was time to see what was up. I ran up to the ticket booths around the corner and discovered the problem. There was no organized line and it was a virtual free for all. Our line, the one we had been standing in for 2 hours, lead to a single file stream of people that were getting pushed to the wall by all the others, who were just jumping in front and trying to push there way to the window.

Mike and I decided it was not in our best interest to try and cut and waited another hour to cross the corner. By then, the group of cutters had turned into a mob, and no one was moving anywhere. Fights were starting to breakout in the crowd, and the border officials -who, up until now, had been calmly sipping coffee and chatting in behind the ticket window watching the madness- took action. They grabbed one guy and dragged him into the street beating him with there batons. The man, terrified tried to give up, but the police kept hitting him and finally put him in cuffs. This show did little to dissuade the crowd and more pushing and hitting ensued. Mike and I, having been adopted by a group of Nicaraguan´s who felt sorry for us, held our place in line and tried to push forward.

Finally, after four hours, I had had enough, realizing that we may never get through. We had another idea. Tica bus, a first class international bus company was known to take care of all the passport business for there passengers. If we could get on a Tica bus, the could, in theory, handle it and save us the trouble. Problem was that all the Tica buses coming to the border were already full, and, by the time I tried to barter our way on, the passport official had come and gone. Finally, Mike had the bright idea that, instead of trying to get a seat, we could just ask them to take our passports, get them stamped and we would walk across. This would be illegal of course and like most illegal activities at the border, it would cost. But after four plus hours in this shit hole, we were ready to pay any price.

When the next Tica Bus pulled in, I approached the driver. He waited for everyone else to get off the bus and then let only me in to negotiate. $20 a passport and we would have to walk across. Fine by us and we agreed. He handed him the money and the passports and he disappeared behind the crowd. Yes, I was a little nervous about it, since we really couldn´t go to the authorities if he pulled any tricks, but you have to understand how desperate we were to get out of there. He reappeared moments later and said the inspection official would be by later. He then motioned for me to come back on the bus and again we had a private conference, in which he told me that, for a price, he could be persuaded to give us a space on the bus all the way to San Jose. This seemed like a godsend to us and we agreed. Little did we know that, space did not mean seat and when we got our passports back and boarded the bus he told us that we would have to stand in the back and duck down when we crossed the boarder patrol. OK, so now had had our passports illegally stamped and were sneaking across the border. Not wise, but still a better option then the never ending lines at the Nica border.

Once past inspection we had to disembark at the Costa Rican side and go through there migration office. We were preparing ourselves for another mob, but found nothing of the sort. We got out, qued up in a line, separated by partitions, where one officer stood watch and were through in less then 20 minutes. I couldn´t image why the Nicas did do the same. They had the personnel, and we saw the partitions... boxed up in a corner of an office. We were across! But, there is no rest for the weary, and for the next five hours Mike sat in the isle by the bathroom and I sat perched atop a diaper changing shelf at the back of the bus. We didn´t even care, we were just happy to be across. The moral of this story is its amazing what a length of rope and a guy in a uniform can do to create order out of chaos.

Isle de Ometepe - Nicraguara

Now three strong, Mike, Judith, myself, we did a hope skip and a jump down to the next tourist destionation along Nicaragua's Western streach between Lake Nicoragua and the Pasific, Isle de Ometepe, Nicaragua. We were feeling good about life and enjoying the boat ride over when I heard a familar voice that made the hair on the back of my head stand up. Jane had decided to tag along and was now joining us on the sundeck. I went back inside.

Omotepe is billed as a more rustic and way to expierence true Nicaruagan culture, the small villages scatered between at the bases of the two volcanos that make up the majority of the island offer basic accomodations and little in the way of a social scene. Nontheless, we made our way to the base of Volcan Madera following the Lying Planet´s suggestion to stay at Finca Magdalena -Jane decided to stay there too, brillant- a old farm house turned Hostel set at the base of the Volcano and make the easy day hike to the top of the volcano in the morining. It was at this point that I decided never to take the Planet siriously again.

First the Finca. I have noticed that in many cases, the hostels that are listed as being the best in the planet usually turn out to be the worst. I think this is so because, after getting into ´the book,´these places don´t need to worry about reputation or word of mouth to get a steady stream of buisness. So they kick back, now on easy street (relatively) knowing that no matter what they do, or don´t do, they will always have there rooms filled. Such was the case with the Finca, which offered millitary style cots in misquito friendly open-air storage rooms, and abismal serfice without a smile. The food, written up to be cheap and great, was anything but. I´m not sure if it was a joke, but the cooks somehow managed to undercook the beans, and overcook the rise. Did ya get that, they couldn´t even cook beans and rice, I won´t even talk about the meat or moldy bread. On top of that, they shut down the resturant at 7pm and the bar at 9, though they decided to close it at 8:15 on this particular night. To pass the time, and aviode Jane, who was confessing to the rest of the group that she had once taken three shots and not felt drunk, Mike and I were schooled in the card game ´doublehead´ by two German girls who had joined out group. Finally at 10pm for lack of anything else to do we went to bed, content to get a good night´s rest for the Volcano in the morning.

We met our guides after a horrible breakfast at the Finca and walked to the trailhead, a couple hundred meters behind the hostel. From there it was a 5km hike to the summit where the Planet told us we would be rewarded with a beautiful crater lake and a refeshing swim. Somehow, we knew that this would not be the case. The assent, ususally the easy part for me, was muy pelegroso (very dangerous). You followed a broken trail through the tropical foothills to the steeps of the volcano. From there you have to use trees and rocks to scale up the absurdly muddy path as it zig zaged its way up to the summit. This was particulary hazardous for me, who ruptured a disk only six months before, and every slip or unbalaned step threatened to tweek my back. I am not much of a quiter, but I seriously thought about throwing in the towel on this one.

Then, we made it to the summit, we were ready for our pictoureque lagoon, but, as Mike describes, ¨what we got was a muddy pond, partially obscured by mist and were banned from swimming because of the sulphur content.¨ So, after a breif rest and a quick bite, we were ready to head back down. Again Mike puts it best when he writes, ¨ with all of the visitors up and down it, plus the rain, albeit not much, the trail had become a rather dangerous, very unpleasant mudslide. This coupled with the fact that our guide ran off at speed, leaving us all behind, leaving me to speculate on the differences of meaning in the word guide, as I thought it meant to show someone something, in this case the way out and that that was what I had paid for.¨

And believe it or not he was one of the better ones.

It was worse for me, while my back had been the issue on the way up, now my knees (also an old Lacrosse injury) where begining to give out. I couldn´t control myself as I slipped down the muddy, almost stream like, trail falling several times. All around me people were slipping and falling as well, being carried off down the trail in the stream. Think of the mudslide scene with Micheal Douglas and Kathline Turnner in Romancing the Stone. The guides, who were nice enough to check in on us from time, would simply bystepped the people on the ground and kept walking down the trail.

The end couldn´t come fast enough, and back at the Finca we all sat in exhuasted silance, stunned by what we had just done to oursleves. Even the light-heated Judith, who relishes this type of adventure, said, ¨well, that was not so good.¨ Having had enough of Ometepe´s ´rustic ambiance,´ we hightailed it back to the main town and took a ferry out the next day. Judith was on to San Jose, Costa Rica, Mike and I decieded to give Nicaragua one last go and headed off to the Pasific beach town of San Juan Del Sur, where we hoped to find a lively palce to celibrate Christmas by the sea.

Laguana de Apoyo - Nicaragua

Note: Mike Friend is a contributing Author to this blog post.

Granada, the three amigos (Mike, Judith, Myself) made a hop skip and a jump over to Laugna de Apoyo, a small lake 30 minutes in the back of a pickup from downtown Granada. Our hostel in Granada talked up the place and booked us into there sister hostel "The Monkey Hut." The Hut was a two story beach house set on right on the lake with basic dorm rooms, a collective kitchen, and a large hardwood veranda overlooking a secluded cove. It also had a small rocky beach with a diving dock and water platform. We spent a few hours sunbathing on the docks and taking a kayak tour of the surrounding coves, polishing it off the afternoon with a siesta in one of the veranda hammocks.

The Hut has a very co-op type feel where there is free collective use of the kayaks and sports equipment and everyone cooks together and is on the honor system for any drink or snacks they take. This sharing system allows you to meet and interact with all the other people staying there and this is what makes staying there so great. It is also what makes it so bad.

For the most part, everyone I have met so far on my travels have been stand up individuals. Even the Brits, who I had a pretty poor opinion of after a couple incidents in Thailand and Australia, were fun easy-going folk and change my views. I can attribute this trend to the fact that Central America is still not a big dot on the international backpacking circuit. Because, while it is establishing itself as a gringo-friendly destination, it isn't as traveled or developed as Europe or Southeast Asia. This means that while the true thrill seekers and adventurous come here in droves, the wankers and main streamers stay to the beaten track. But this brilliant sociological theory of mine came crumbling down when I met a girl from California named Jane.

An 18 year old recent high-school graduate, Jane stands just under five her Peruvian roots give her a stocky wide legged stance that seem to impede her as she walks. Her unkept curly black hair hides most of her flat disproportionately big face and head. Basically she looks like a troll. But, not one to judge on appearances when she engaged me in conversation, I was interested to meet a fellow Californian and get her toughts on Central America. She introduced herself and asked if the peanut butter I was holding in my hand was mine. I confessed that it was and she went on to lecture me about trans fats and how unhealthy it was, and that she grinds her own at home. Interesting I thought.

Then, while eating my Cup O'Noodles with Judith on the veranda, she told me how much sodium I was taking in and that, as a health conscious Californian, she knew better. I told her that I generally like to eat better, but, when traveling, found it to be hard and expensi- "Well, I manage just fine, you should try a little harder," she snapped back, "back home I grow my own veggies." At this point I could tell that she wasn't trying to have a conversation (or couldn't rather), but just wanted to hear herself talk. And, while Judith found her insults hilarious, I didn't and got up and left the table. Mike writes, "Scott was looking weary and disappearing into the dorm room. This turned out to be with good reason as he explained he was trying to "get away from that girl. She gives California a bad name". That girl turned out to be Jane and Scott turned out to be very accurate, although underplaying the exact nature of her annoyingness."

Later on that evening, after dinner, a group of us gathered outside for some drinking games and Jane decided to join in. Mike again writes, "The full extent of Jane´s ignorance started to emerge and she swiftly became one of those people whose very breathing would irritate you. Plus she has the table manners of an animal, lacks any social grace and her naivety is astounding, meaning that she has nothing to offer a conversation, coupled with the fact she doesn´t actually listen anyway. So the evening turned into everyone else conversing and her sat around the table, ignoring the fact she was being ignored and trying to claim some stake in the conversation unsuccessfully." We were happy to take leave of her the next day, heading south to Isla Ometepe, and be done with her... or so we thought.

Granada - Nicaragua

Having spent twice as long on Utlia as I had expected, and servery cutting into my travel time before I needed to be in Costa Rica to meet my friends, I decided to forgo the rest of Honduras and try and get straight to Nicaragua. With me was Judith, a German girl I had met in Belize and now, having finished her diving on Utlia, wanted to do the same thing.

Getting to the Nicaraguan border wasn´t that bad, crossing it was another matter. As soon as we stopped the collectivo at the immigration station, we were swarmed by money changers and guys with tuk tuks all wanting to ¨help¨us. The surrounded Judith, whose Spanish was much better than mine, and started negotiating fares to take us across the border. One guy went a step further and took our bags from the car and put them on his tuk tuk. We asked him a price, and he quoted us 20 Limperias to take us across. A fare offer, we climbed aboard.

Not twenty feet later, when I asked him what the conversion rate was, he started quoting a different price for the ride. Now he wanted $2 each. Judith, not one for tricks, became furious and told him to stop. He pretended not to hear us and kept on. At this point we both told him to stop and started getting out of the tuk tuk, while it was still rolling down the hill. Not wanting to loose his fare, he agreed to our original price. We made a stop off at the border patrol to get stamped and then road on to the Nicaraguan side, where we had read buses would be waiting to to take you on to other destinations. But the driver, who, when asked about where the buses were, shook his head and saying they were, Pinche (assholes). That very well could be true, but I still wanted to find these assholes and I catch a bus.

I was beginning to get an uneasy feeling about this guy, who now avoided talking to us and was looking around as if to see if anyone was watching. He rolled to a stop in a vacant lot behind a abandoned truck inspection station. Judith asked him where the buses where and he repeated that they were assholes and then demeaned $2 from each of us. I was getting ready to step up and act brave saying we would not pay, but Judith, who saw this coming beat me two the punch. She tore into him, with unabated curtness and unsuppressed imfromality (as Germans can well do), saying that he was a lier and they was no way we were going to pay him anymore then the original price. He stood there looking at us, first her then me, who could only offer a nod as if to say ´yeah, what she said!´Shaking his head he took the Limperas and turned around calling us both Pinche Gringos, and we walked on from there.

After a lot of searching and asking, we found the out of the way hidden bus station where every other tuk tuk driver was dropping and picking up passengers and got our bus. We headed to Leon, a small city in the northwestern province famed for its charming colonial ambiance and distinctive local flair. Plus, I wanted to meet up with Mike, a friend from Guatemala, who had sent word that he was waiting for me there. We stayed there for a total of four hours. Both Judith and I had grand visions of towering colonial cathedrals and, indigenous artwork and clothing shops lining the streets, but found it to be a little uninspiring and dead. I guess when you´ve seen a parque central in every country you go to it losses its luster after a while. We stayed there just long enough to get some lunch and check my email, where I learned that Mike had moved on just that morning to Granada, another colonial city on the coast of lake Nicaragua. Wasting no time we took the next bus.

Granada was great. While it was still another typical Latin American city with a central park and cathedrals, it also possessed a certain vibrance that was laking in Leon. We met up with Mike, at one of the hostels and had a chance to catch up over dinner and drinks. Mike is a 33 year old school teacher from England who I met during a poker tournament in San Pedro, Guatemala. He is young at heart and can party with the best of them and always seems to know whats going on.

The next day, the three of us took in some culture, Judith going to a local village nearby and Mike and I touring some churches and the local museum. Both were underwhelming to say the least but we felt good about ourselves, having exercised our intellectual side. Check that off for a few more months. Meeting up with Judith in the afternoon we made our way down to the lake and took a lancha for a tour of the Isletas. A group of over 360 miniature islands that pepper the lake just off the coast of Granada, the Isletas make up a charming labyrinth of mangroves. Each island, only about 100ft from shore, owned a house, restaurant, or bar with wide verandas overlooking the far eastern shoes of Lake Nicaragua. We found bird sanctuaries and curious spider monkeys that liked to jump from the trees onto your boat and look through your belongings, and finally we found a bar were we stopped for a few beers before heading back to Granada.

Back in town, we met up with Emily, a South Londoner and a friend of Judith´s. Together the four of us set out for a tour of the nightlife, which didn´t disappoint. After a controversial pool game, which the Brits claim to have one on the last shot (who the hell thinks you don´t have to call the 8 ball?) we went to a salsa bar, where, Emily being my experienced teacher, taught me the finer points of the Salsa and Meringue. I can´t say I was graceful, but it was a lot of fun, and I have to add that to the list of things I want to learn before returning to the states.

Again, my time here was cut short because I of my impending rendezvous with my friends in Costa Rica, and also because there was a lot more of Nicaragua that I wanted to see. Next up it was going to the volcanic island of Omotepe, located just off the southern shores of Lake Nicaragua.

Utila - Honduras

After the previous few days of relative stressfulness, I was searching for a safe haven from bad weather, hustlers, and angry landladies. I found reprieve from all three on the tiny Caribbean island of Utlia. One of three sandy outcrops just off the north coast of Honduras, the Bay Islands have a unique history. Columbus landed there on his fourth and final voyage in 1502 and subsequently wiped out the indigenous populations and the island remained uninhabited for many years. Not much changed until, in the mid 1700s, the British expelled a group of rebel slaves to the islands where they repopulated and established a society that is today known as the Garafuna. It was also a popular hideout of English and Dutch pirates who used it as a home base for robbing Spanish gallons returning home with there treasures.

With a rich and diversified history such as this, in is no wonder that these islands, while still technically Honduran, are in a world of there own. Utlia is considered the cheapest of the three, and is therefore a beacon for backpackers. Beside being a chilled out, English-speaking Caribbean play land for backpackers, Utlia also has the cheapest dive courses in the world; costing around $200 for a four-day Open Water Certification. Although never really one for Scuba before, I felt that this was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up and signed up at one of the islands more reputable shops known for helping nervous first-time divers. And, while this was their biggest selling pitch it would prove to be an moot point, as both my classmates, myself, and my teacher where going to make it a wild and bumpy ride.

Chiara, a 23 year old California girl had just finished her instructor certification and we where her first class-though we didn't learn that until much later in the course. She was friendly, enthusiastic and I felt relatively comfortable putting my life in her hands. Along with myself there were two others in the class: Doran, a 20 something Israeli who could not read or understand English very well -a definite problem when you have to get through a 175 page PADI book in the first two days of the course- and Bill, a 56 year old trucker from Nevada who was as blind as a bat and had trouble hearing. Needless to say that the first part of the course, consisting of reading, classroom videos, quizzes and confined water diving skills, was a bit of a process. Chiara, who you will remember had never taught a class before, had to find a way to teach Doran all the things he was not willing to read in the classroom, and a way to demonstrate underwater skills to Bill who couldn't see two feet in front of his face. As you might surmise, there was a lot of repetition in the early stages and it was taking us twice as long as in normally would. I for one was fine with this because I had been putting off diving for a week due to a head cold and wanted as many extra days as I could muster to try and unclog my ears before entering the open water.

The fateful day finally came where we went out for our first open water dive and lets just stay it was memorable. We all made it into the water just fine and Chiara, working to tread water with an extra weight belt of about 25 lbs was quick to explained our dive plan. We would descend to a small sandbar 30 ft below the surface and work on a few skills before having some free time to explore the surrounding reef. Sounded great in theory. But as we tried to descend both Bill and I could not attain negative buoyancy and floated on the surface. Chiara, obviously fighting to stay up with the extra weight struggled for five minutes trying again and again to properly weight us. All the while we were being carried further and further from the sand patch, and the boat, and he had to struggle to get back to our drop zone. She did her best and again started our slow decent. Then everything went to hell. My left ear would not equalize and before I hit 2 meters I was in a lot of pain. I signaled to Chiara that something was wrong but she didn't see me. She was too busy chasing after Doran, who, apparently not understanding the final exam he had somehow managed to pass, let all the air out of his BCD and was dropping like a stone to the bottom. She managed to catch up with him about 20ft down at which point I couldn't wait any longer and made my way to the surface. Bill, oblivious to the everything that was happening, was turned around in the opposite direction still trying to descend. When Chiara finally surfaced with Doran, who was bleeding from his nose, Bill was floating off in the strong top currant and couldn't hear her yelling for him to return to the group. She had to race over there and toe him back to us, all the while still toting the heavy weight belt in her hands. At this point she made the wise decision to cut the dive and we faught the currant back to the boat defeated.

Doran ran to a corner, now terrified of the thought of diving, and mad that Chiara had not warned him about what happens when you drop four atmospheres in 3 seconds. I couldn't hear anything out of my left ear and was jumping around trying to get the water out with a bottle of water and vinegar. Bill, tripping over fins and weight belts was following Chiara around trying to figure out what happened. Even though time would have permitted it, we decided not to try another dive. I could see the obvious frustration on Chiara's face, whom I felt bad for having had the luck to get the group from hell for her first class. She didn't let it show though, and only gave us positive encouragement. In the end that proved to be her, and our saving grace. She convinced us all to give it another go and two days later we made two successful dives. I got down to 57ft, Doran learned the you only get one pair of sinuses and is best not to crush them, and Bill got a pair of subscription goggles and was able to get down (where you can hear better because sound travels faster underwater). We even saw a huge pod of dolphins on our boat ride back and everything seemed perfect. Two days later, we finished our course and became Open Water divers! Chiara quit the next day.

Aside from many hours spent at the dive shop, Utlia has a great social scene. When you get a group of people from all over the world in one town for something as adventurous as diving, you get a great blend of people. I made some great friends, Russell, Orin, and Bruce, were a group of Brits who singled-handily changed my view on the British. There was always something to do, a trivia night, an all you can eat/drink BBQ at the dive shops, a black belt drinking challenge (where you have to drink six shots in a row; all the levels of the belts. Proud to say I am a black belt). Lots of people come here for their open water and stay for their advanced and dive master, tacking on a couple extra months to their stay because they love the place so much. Unfortunately for me, I didn´t have the time, or the money, for that and after a week, I moved on... to Nicaragua.