aight... the "kah-reeb"

so the first place i went to on the caribbean was Parismina (population 400). this place is only accesable by boat and is known for their turltle saving program called ASTOP. so the first night i was there i volunteered and paid $15 to walk on the beach at night for 4 hours searching for leatherbacks laying eggs. i didn't see any, also to mention the fact that it is peak season for the leatherbacks. but it was still fun walking up and down the coast. the next day i took a tour with a local who takes you out on his boat and shows you some wildlife. saw some crocs, a couple sloths, monkeys, lizards and lot's and lot's of birds. the tour took about 3 hours and costed me 20ish dollars. it was fun. the next day after that, i decided to leave the small town and headed south for Cahuita. this was a nice town. more tourists...but more things to do. the first thing i did was the sloth sanctuary, which i had to take a taxi to. it was amazing! i watched a funny video about sloths, got to meet some and pet them in their cages and (the highlight) holding buttercup the first sloth that they rescued. buttercup hangs out on the patio in a wicker-chair. she is a three toed sloth and when our guide was introducing her, i asked if i could hold her. he said that he usually doesn't let the visitors hold buttercup, but since i was one of two in the small group, he picked buttercup up by her hands and lifted her to me. her legs wrapped around my stomach and i was holding a sloth. i got tons of pictures of this place! i'll post them when i get a chance. the next day i went to the Cahuita national park. it was free but i donated rougly 2 bucks. it was a long trail the followed the coastline. i saw two eyelash vipers, howler monkeys, white-faced capuchin monkeys, tons of small lizards, some sloths, an agotti, and a racoon. it was a really nice walk. i got really close to the white faced capuchins (i'll post the photos...). now i am in Panama on the Bocas del Toros isands. it's really nice here, different than costa rica. i have a tour set up tomorrow to go snorkling with dolphins! really excited! everythings going fine, i have three ish nights here then im going back to Alajuela to pack for my month long spanish course in San isidro del General. pura vida!

The Carib and Panama plans

this is me with volcan Arenal and a disgusting beard.  !update! i finally had enough of it, and bought a razor, i feel younger and have way more confidence. 

above is the Celestial River that has a natural chemical that turns the water greenish-blue. very cool

below is Lake Arenal at sunset.  

so i have roughly 2 weeks before i start my month long one on one spanish course in San Isidro.  goin' to the Carib to see Parque Nacional Tortuguero and the Sloth Sanctuary and check out anything else that i see...  hopefully all that will take place in a week or less.  then i need to get out of the country because my 90 day visa is up.  so im going to go to Panama and see the canal.  i only have to stay there for a couple days, then i am allowed back into Costa Rica.  i think i will go straight to San Isidro after all that and stay there for a month.  that's the plan for now. i was thinking about going straight through Panama and going into Columbia but that would take too much time and cost way to much.  i have heard so many good things about Columbia, and i know all you people reading this are saying "Columbia is the most dangerous place right now behind the middle east, there are drug lords and guns... etc."   well every single person that i've talked to here has said that when they were in Columbia, it was a beautiful country, the people were very nice and it was safe.  Columbia was dangerous years ago, and i'm sure some remote (let me repeat "re-mote") parts of the country still have ex-guerilla fighters, but they're out there in the mountains.  i have been looking at some Spanish schools in Columbia, and im thinking about studying abroad there, or somewhere else in south america. chile maybe.

right now i am at a country club near San Jose sipping Imperial and i just ordered a hamburger (my first one since... i can't remember, but i couldn't resist).  i guess i can say "life is good."

Arenal Stories.

La Fortuna.  i finally saw the volcano without all those clouds during the day!  i had a great view of it also because my hotel was right in front of it all.  i sat outside my room reading Welcome to the Monkey House and glancing up here and there as the mass of clouds were slowly being lifted by the heat of the day.  i finally just dropped the book and watched the last bit evaporated--and there it was the shy volcano, Volcan Arenal.  it's a perfect looking volcano--it's a cone--it's like if you handed a piece of paper to a kindergardener and said "draw a volcano," it would look like that.  perfect.  though you couldn't see any of the lava--you had to go to the other side to see that.  so i booked a tour with mr. lava lava man, who has been doing tours to the volcano for ten years.  this cost me $15 dollars, very cheap considering some of the tours doing the exact same thing were going for $25-35.  he took us to a thermal pool that was free and more natural and full of ticos (not tourists :) ), a lot of the thermal pools in la fortuna have Las Vegan sprinkled all over them complete with water slides, mayan temples and roman pillars and cost a lot...... i'll go for the free and natural pools thank you very much.  after two hours of soaking, he took us to Arenal Lake at sunset.  beautiful!  then to the back side of the volcano to see lava.  it was dark, there were lots of people, the top of the volcano was covered with clouds... where's the lava?  we waited and waited then finally a small rumble and red-hot boulders came tumbling down the side along with a a little lava.  it was soo far away and soo dark i couldn't get any good pictures, sorry!  and almost every 5 minutes, another eruption would go and more lava rocks would come down.  it was pretty cool, i have never seen lava before.  i was expecting a river of lava and lots of fire..

  the next day i went to this place called ecocentre denues or something very close to that, and it offered a path that had many plants and animals to see.  i saw lot's of exotic plants as my ankles were fresh food for the mosquitos (i forgot the deet).  i came to a mesh dome that had a butterfly exhibit. wow.  there were so many of those things flying around. they had many of the famous blue morphos and tons more to see.  after that i walked around a lagoon that had caimans (similar to an alligator?) but i didn't see any.  i was told that there were sleeping sloths in the trees and i was always looking up to spot one, and here i did.  there was this grey sloth hanging onto a tree, sleeping about 3 meters away from me.  very funny animal, it moved a little when i threw a rock at him (just kidding).  they remind me of muppets.  i carried on and went to this frog house, where there were these tiny little red and blue poison dart frogs.  i got some good close up pics of them.  there were other frogs in there but they were hiding (nocturnal).  at the end of the trail there was this guinea pig type thing but with longer legs. i ended up following him around for a while.  all in all i enjoyed myself even though i had many itchy bug bites around my ankles.  the following day (my last day) i got up early to go see the La Fortuna waterfall.  the water is supposed to be a vibrant blueish-green color from some natural chemical ( i don't know).  it took me about an hour and a half to get there in the hot and humid weather, i was soaking in my own sweat when i reached the park.  i took a dip in the cold water watched the waterfall and soon enough i had to head back to Fortuna to catch my bus to Alajuela.  great experiences in La Fortuna.  Now... i just got an email back from Ed (the bamboo guy) and i will head down to san isidro to take a month long spanish course with his wife.  that start the first monday of april.  before that--because i have two-ish weeks to do anything--i am going to go over to the Caribbean Coast and see that side of Costa Rica.  it's supposed to rain a lot even in the dry season and have lots of mosquitos (i have started my anti-malarial drugs).  should be interesting if i get any of the drugs side affects which i hope i don't get.  that's that, see you all in the summer time where the living's easy.

covered by the clouds

so i am in La Fortuna, where the big bad volcan arenal is at. he's a shy guy. he always has a small cloud covering his top, so you can't see any spewing rocks or lava coming down the side. my hotel room has a great view though. this morning i woke up at 3am to leave with some people i met at the hostel and go see the other side of the volcano, it has a better view. we got to the other side and we had to walk down a trail to get to this really good viewing spot. BUT! the trail lead us to a river that we could cross and we ended up walking back to the taxi, from there though, we could see some flaming rocks falling from the cloud cover. i think i am going to stay here until i see a good view of arenal. hopefully within the next week, if not i might just go back, but i really want all these clouds to be blown away.

brand new.

after returning to Alajuela i felt much better.  i now know what i am here for, what i like, and what i am going to do.  Montezuma was great, but i couldn't just stay there, it would cost a lot and i wouldn't learn any spanish.  i met some great people there, but i had to move on.  i went to Santa Teresa and I immediately had bad vibes.  this place wasn't as green and shaded as Montezuma, the beach was more vast and deserted.  it had some great waves--but i don't surf.  and the tranquilo backpacker hostel was nice.  it was a bunch of surfers though and all they could talk about was "peaky-rights and lefts" and other surfing terminology.  english.  it hit me that i couldn't stay here.  the roads being so messed up, how touristy the beaches were, how hot and dry it was.  i was not expecting any of this.  i came to costa rica for spanish and to take it easy.  so now i am in Alajuela and i will soon be setting out for San Isidro del General to learn one on one spanish at New Dawn.  i have been there before, it's right below the Yoga Dojo and it's beautiful.  it is much greener down there.  so the program that i am doing is a month long spanish course for $400 which includes room and board.  i will have a two hour class every day mon-fri and have time to practice with my teacher throughout the day.  sooo excited. 

so here i am.

took off. took the ferry. took the bus to montezuma. montezuma is by far my favorite town in costa rica from what i have seen. i made some friends on the street the first night i was there. they were college students from the east coast, and i am glad that i found them, otherwise i would be that loner like i feel that i am now. they invited me to go snorkling with them the next day. $45 for all the gear, two one hour snorkling sessions, the boat ride there, and a great lunch on the beach (fish, rice, beans, fruits and yes... beer). that trip lasted almost all day and it was so much fun, i wish i could be the operators and do that every day. i saw under sea snakes, puffer fish, coral, and tons of colorful tropical fish. montezuma is a tiny town. it has two main streets where all the shops and restaurants are at, then scattered around those are some funky hotels. i stayed the first night at the Mochila Inn which was an open-to-the-elements hostel, they had pictures of all the monkeys that chill out on their site. i didn't see any there. the next day, snorkling and i was invited to stay with the college students i went snorkling with, in their room at the Los Mangos hotel south. this place had a pool and an excellent view of the pacific. we spent a lot of our nights by bonfires on the beach drinking Imperial (costa ricas trade mark beer, and it's delicious!) one of the days we went to these waterfalls. you had to hike up this trail about 1 kilometer. the first waterfall, the biggest, had a great pool to swim in and a giant rock off to the side to jump off from. at the very top of the waterfall you could see tiny people at another waterfall right above. me and one of the college students found the steep trail that leads up to the top. this was the big waterfall that people were jumping off of. the first one was the biggest but the pool was way too shallow. this waterfall had the deep pool. this one was way too high for me so i sat on the slippery rocks and took pictures. right behind that was another pool with two small waterfalls. the place was beautiful, this was the type of thing i was looking for. after three nights in montezuma, the students were heading back to their house in Gracia (near sarchi) and i headed to Santa Theresa. i am here now. i am now at the Tranquilo Backpacker Hostel. very nice place, but after talking to the people that work here i learned that walking around the peninsula (like i had planned) would be very hard because of the roads and how screwed up they are. so i am going to explore all over now. by bus. camp out. after that i think i am going to Tony's then see if i can land a spot on this bamboo construction farm in San Isidro de General where they also teach spanish, i am really excited about that one.

fuel station: FULL

so after working two weeks on the farm up at volcan poas and getting my debit card from the states, i am ready for the playa! i am going to pack super light (i think) and heading from Alajuela for Puntarenas to catch a one hour ferry ride to the Nicoya Penisula. i am really playing this whole trip by ear, hence "beach-bumming". i want to stay in Montezuma for a little while and hopefully find some other backpackers and see if they want to come along, but i am really not sure if that will fall through... their are some places that i definitely want to see on this trip like cabo blano national park, playa (im going to butcher this one) tarminado and the nation park there. i want to go to the barra honda caves, and finish at santa rosa national park. on my way back to the central valley i think it would be cool to stop at volcan arenal, the most active volcano in central america, and stay at a place with an excellent view of the lava spillng over the side of the volcano.

the big soccer game is tomorrow. it's san jose vs alajuela, they are the two big teams here in costa rica. they have both been league champions forever except in 1992 when some other team won the title. i am invited to a party for the match with a bunch of young guys who are at least 5 years older than me. should be fun. then on sunday i have a tennis match in the morning against one of Venessa's (Tony's wife) relatives who is a really good player. in the last two weeks i ahve played 4 indoor soccer games. it is really big down here (who would've thought?) i kind of have the disadvantage because i can't tell the othe guys on the field where i am at or what to do becasue my spanish isn't that strong... yet.

life is good down here, not a lot to worry about. i'll be back in 3ish months when oregon heats up with another summer. im gonna' be soo tan for next fall.

Broyan