More of Costa Rica and Panama
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Bianca
03 December 2013 | Panama, Boquete
Buenas!
Time flies by. Technically I'm already in Costa Rica again, but I just came from Panama this morning.
First off some things I noticed on this trip, especially in Nicaragua is that cows and horses are standing alongside the road instead of in the fields. Hundreds of dogs everywhere and in Nicaragua also pigs at the houses. Mostly quite ok houses but you see a lot of wooden and plastic fabrications as well. All in all the countries look quite developed, most roads are well paved, there's sidewalks (which for instance hardly exist in Sumatra). Lots and lots of bugs of course as to be expected. Luckily I haven't seen many snakes in real life, just with walking in a forest looking for them. Costa Rica is quite expensive, a good meal still costs about 15 dollars.
Back to the travel stories. I left off with travel day to Arenal/La Fortuna. Until a few years ago this was the place where you can see hourly small eruptions, but there was an earthquake a few years back and now the Arenal is quiet. Still a beautiful place. One thing that was really funny at our hotel was that some people went swimming in the pool and when we got back from dinner, there were toads in it! haha. We spent 2 nights here as we had a full day tour. The tour went to Cano Negro, close to the Nicaraguan border. A boat tour on a quiet river where because of the farmland, there's just a small layer of forest left and all animals are close to the wáter because of it. We saw crocodiles, monkeys, different types of birds, lizzards, and a lot of it :) Very nice.
On the way back from the tour I was dropped off at Baldi resort with 3 others. Baldi is a resort with vulcanic hot springs! Very big and very very beautiful. I would recommend it to anyone who likes to relax in hot pools. We tried every wet bar as well of course haha. Yummy cocktails. We spent half a day there including dinner, one of the best excursions of the entire trip!!
Tuesday we left again and we made a stop early on at a beautiful waterfall. Went swimming there :) The rest of the day was just driving and just some regular stops for coffee, lunch and so on. We went to Sarapiquí. Here we were able to do a 'chocolate' tour: explanation of the process of making chocolate and of course we were able to taste. It's actually tasting cacao, not chocolate as there's no sugar in it! It was fun, but something I won't have to do again. Not much news to me. We spent the night in sort of ghost hotel according to stories. All that kept me awake was cockroaches in my bed! yikes! Horrible night... in the morning I got to see the blue-jeans frog though, that was cool! THere were lots as it had just rained a lot.
We continued our journey right away to the Caribbean coast at Puerto Viejo. Beautiful hotel location, right at the beach where we went swimming of course. Or I should say: jumping in the waves. Very pretty.
Thurday was supposed to be a full day with snorkling but unfortunately we had rain for the full day!! Just in the morning a 30 minute walk on the beach when it was dry, but the rest was rained out.Boo! We went to an animal rescue center which was nice and walked around in town in our ponchos. Mostly just doing nothing.
Friday we left to go to Panama! Another border crossing! After all the horror stories we Heard about people getting kicked out and all, we actually had our shortest border crossing of the vacation! haha. And then in sort of a speedboat to Bocas Del Toro. My back is broken, but the islands are beautiful. Nice hotel in the middle of town, really good!
I'll leave the rest for tomorrow. Dinner soon!
Till soon all.
Time flies by. Technically I'm already in Costa Rica again, but I just came from Panama this morning.
First off some things I noticed on this trip, especially in Nicaragua is that cows and horses are standing alongside the road instead of in the fields. Hundreds of dogs everywhere and in Nicaragua also pigs at the houses. Mostly quite ok houses but you see a lot of wooden and plastic fabrications as well. All in all the countries look quite developed, most roads are well paved, there's sidewalks (which for instance hardly exist in Sumatra). Lots and lots of bugs of course as to be expected. Luckily I haven't seen many snakes in real life, just with walking in a forest looking for them. Costa Rica is quite expensive, a good meal still costs about 15 dollars.
Back to the travel stories. I left off with travel day to Arenal/La Fortuna. Until a few years ago this was the place where you can see hourly small eruptions, but there was an earthquake a few years back and now the Arenal is quiet. Still a beautiful place. One thing that was really funny at our hotel was that some people went swimming in the pool and when we got back from dinner, there were toads in it! haha. We spent 2 nights here as we had a full day tour. The tour went to Cano Negro, close to the Nicaraguan border. A boat tour on a quiet river where because of the farmland, there's just a small layer of forest left and all animals are close to the wáter because of it. We saw crocodiles, monkeys, different types of birds, lizzards, and a lot of it :) Very nice.
On the way back from the tour I was dropped off at Baldi resort with 3 others. Baldi is a resort with vulcanic hot springs! Very big and very very beautiful. I would recommend it to anyone who likes to relax in hot pools. We tried every wet bar as well of course haha. Yummy cocktails. We spent half a day there including dinner, one of the best excursions of the entire trip!!
Tuesday we left again and we made a stop early on at a beautiful waterfall. Went swimming there :) The rest of the day was just driving and just some regular stops for coffee, lunch and so on. We went to Sarapiquí. Here we were able to do a 'chocolate' tour: explanation of the process of making chocolate and of course we were able to taste. It's actually tasting cacao, not chocolate as there's no sugar in it! It was fun, but something I won't have to do again. Not much news to me. We spent the night in sort of ghost hotel according to stories. All that kept me awake was cockroaches in my bed! yikes! Horrible night... in the morning I got to see the blue-jeans frog though, that was cool! THere were lots as it had just rained a lot.
We continued our journey right away to the Caribbean coast at Puerto Viejo. Beautiful hotel location, right at the beach where we went swimming of course. Or I should say: jumping in the waves. Very pretty.
Thurday was supposed to be a full day with snorkling but unfortunately we had rain for the full day!! Just in the morning a 30 minute walk on the beach when it was dry, but the rest was rained out.Boo! We went to an animal rescue center which was nice and walked around in town in our ponchos. Mostly just doing nothing.
Friday we left to go to Panama! Another border crossing! After all the horror stories we Heard about people getting kicked out and all, we actually had our shortest border crossing of the vacation! haha. And then in sort of a speedboat to Bocas Del Toro. My back is broken, but the islands are beautiful. Nice hotel in the middle of town, really good!
I'll leave the rest for tomorrow. Dinner soon!
Till soon all.
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