Nicaragua and Costa Rica
Greetings and Salutations to you all,
Well, it has been some time since I last wrote in here. Mostly because I have been on the go a lot and haven’t had a lot of time to sit down and write. I know, I know…no excuse.
Okay so where I left off…whew! This is going to take awhile. After the wedding Charlie and I headed off for El Salvador again. It was nice to spend some time there and we met up with Charlie’s friend Quique. Not sure if that is how it is spelt, but that is how is sounds phonetically. We went down to La Libertad, a small beach town about 45 mins away from San Salvador, had lunch and looked at a potential place for Charlie’s birthday party which is on March 28th.
The next morning we drove straight from San Salvador, through Honduras to Managua, Nicaragua’s capitol. I really enjoyed Managua and there was some great pieces of architecture there. Once I post the pictures to Ofoto I will send them out. I think that you will like them. From there we drove to Granada which is about 40 mins away. It is a small colonial town, next to Lake Nicaragua the world’s third largest lake.
I was really looking forward to staying there and studying Spanish. I had heard good things about Granada, but it was more run down than I had expected and not a lot of people there. I checked out a Spanish school there, which was okay (it was no Celas Maya), but I was going to give it a go anyways. The only thing that I didn’t like was the fact that there were only six students, all of which were over 50 except for one. Not really the place to meet new traveling buddies.
Since we were so close to Costa Rica, Charlie thought we should go down there to visit some of his friends for the weekend and then he would drive up and drop me off in Granada. Even though it wasn’t the best situation I thought that maybe it would be good for me to practice my Spanish without a lot of distractions. So we quickly left Granada and headed for San José.
The border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua was a nightmare. We ended up having to stay over three hours at the border while they kept asking for money to “speed up” the process. Apparently there is “extra” insurance that you need if you have a car and they need to “call” to get approval which can “take time.” Finally we were out of there, but didn’t arrive in San José until late.
Judko, Charlie’s friend let us stay with him which was very nice. We left the next day for Manuel Antonio a beach town on the Pacific side of Costa Rica. It was beautiful there. One thing about CR is that it is the easiest place to travel around in. Upon arriving here I didn’t want to leave so Judko said that I could stay at his place, since he was leaving for the States. Wow! Thanks. I had thought about taking Spanish lessons here, but the price is about 5 times more expensive here than in Guatemala. No, my Spanish would have to wait. Charlie left back for Guatemala (alone)….sorry.
A bit of luck! Rachael one of my dear friends that I met in Guatemala was finishing up her work project in the mountains and had a couple of days to spend in San José. We quickly met up for coffee and to hangout. It was so good to see her! We decided to go white water rafting on the Paquaté, one of Costa Rica’s best rivers.
The river is located in the rain forest which is absolutely beautiful and has 3 and 4 class rapids. It was raining the day that we went, so the rapids were in full force. There were about 6 rafts all together and one of them tipped over completely and all the people went down the river. A bit scary, but it added to the excitement. Our raft got stuck on a rock and started to tip over, but we all leaned to that side to prevent it from flipping over. One of the girls in our raft did fall out though. They served us breakfast and lunch and pick us up downtown. All in all it was an amazing time.
I met a few more friends of Judko and Charlie’s which was really cool to have a group of people to hangout with. Michael, who just graduated from the university with an Industrial Engineer degree had some free time since he wasn’t working so we decided to go to Montezuma another small beach town on Costa Rica’s Pacific side.
It is nice to have someone who knows the area to help out with plans. We first spent the night in Puntareanas then the next day went to Montezuma. It was beautiful. There were these waterfalls that you could climb to and swim in these little pools. Amazing! We met two guys from Victoria, BC Rudy and Mark who are really cool. I decided to meet up with them later.
So after Michael and I returned to San José I packed my bags and headed back to Manuel Antonio for a few days. I met up with Rudy and Mark, but they are leaving today to climb some mountain (no thanks :-) ). I need to figure out how to get to Panama. It is a bit more trouble than I would like, plus I need to figure out when I am going back to Guatemala. I am planning on studying for one more month to better my Spanish speaking skills.
The plan right now is that I will leave Manuel Antonio tomorrow for San José, spend the weekend there then on Monday go to Panama’s consulate to pick up a tourist visa. Then spend a couple of weeks there, return to San José to fly back to Guatemala City. So we will see.
All is good here and enjoying myself. I hope all is well with everyone.
Craig
Well, it has been some time since I last wrote in here. Mostly because I have been on the go a lot and haven’t had a lot of time to sit down and write. I know, I know…no excuse.
Okay so where I left off…whew! This is going to take awhile. After the wedding Charlie and I headed off for El Salvador again. It was nice to spend some time there and we met up with Charlie’s friend Quique. Not sure if that is how it is spelt, but that is how is sounds phonetically. We went down to La Libertad, a small beach town about 45 mins away from San Salvador, had lunch and looked at a potential place for Charlie’s birthday party which is on March 28th.
The next morning we drove straight from San Salvador, through Honduras to Managua, Nicaragua’s capitol. I really enjoyed Managua and there was some great pieces of architecture there. Once I post the pictures to Ofoto I will send them out. I think that you will like them. From there we drove to Granada which is about 40 mins away. It is a small colonial town, next to Lake Nicaragua the world’s third largest lake.
I was really looking forward to staying there and studying Spanish. I had heard good things about Granada, but it was more run down than I had expected and not a lot of people there. I checked out a Spanish school there, which was okay (it was no Celas Maya), but I was going to give it a go anyways. The only thing that I didn’t like was the fact that there were only six students, all of which were over 50 except for one. Not really the place to meet new traveling buddies.
Since we were so close to Costa Rica, Charlie thought we should go down there to visit some of his friends for the weekend and then he would drive up and drop me off in Granada. Even though it wasn’t the best situation I thought that maybe it would be good for me to practice my Spanish without a lot of distractions. So we quickly left Granada and headed for San José.
The border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua was a nightmare. We ended up having to stay over three hours at the border while they kept asking for money to “speed up” the process. Apparently there is “extra” insurance that you need if you have a car and they need to “call” to get approval which can “take time.” Finally we were out of there, but didn’t arrive in San José until late.
Judko, Charlie’s friend let us stay with him which was very nice. We left the next day for Manuel Antonio a beach town on the Pacific side of Costa Rica. It was beautiful there. One thing about CR is that it is the easiest place to travel around in. Upon arriving here I didn’t want to leave so Judko said that I could stay at his place, since he was leaving for the States. Wow! Thanks. I had thought about taking Spanish lessons here, but the price is about 5 times more expensive here than in Guatemala. No, my Spanish would have to wait. Charlie left back for Guatemala (alone)….sorry.
A bit of luck! Rachael one of my dear friends that I met in Guatemala was finishing up her work project in the mountains and had a couple of days to spend in San José. We quickly met up for coffee and to hangout. It was so good to see her! We decided to go white water rafting on the Paquaté, one of Costa Rica’s best rivers.
The river is located in the rain forest which is absolutely beautiful and has 3 and 4 class rapids. It was raining the day that we went, so the rapids were in full force. There were about 6 rafts all together and one of them tipped over completely and all the people went down the river. A bit scary, but it added to the excitement. Our raft got stuck on a rock and started to tip over, but we all leaned to that side to prevent it from flipping over. One of the girls in our raft did fall out though. They served us breakfast and lunch and pick us up downtown. All in all it was an amazing time.
I met a few more friends of Judko and Charlie’s which was really cool to have a group of people to hangout with. Michael, who just graduated from the university with an Industrial Engineer degree had some free time since he wasn’t working so we decided to go to Montezuma another small beach town on Costa Rica’s Pacific side.
It is nice to have someone who knows the area to help out with plans. We first spent the night in Puntareanas then the next day went to Montezuma. It was beautiful. There were these waterfalls that you could climb to and swim in these little pools. Amazing! We met two guys from Victoria, BC Rudy and Mark who are really cool. I decided to meet up with them later.
So after Michael and I returned to San José I packed my bags and headed back to Manuel Antonio for a few days. I met up with Rudy and Mark, but they are leaving today to climb some mountain (no thanks :-) ). I need to figure out how to get to Panama. It is a bit more trouble than I would like, plus I need to figure out when I am going back to Guatemala. I am planning on studying for one more month to better my Spanish speaking skills.
The plan right now is that I will leave Manuel Antonio tomorrow for San José, spend the weekend there then on Monday go to Panama’s consulate to pick up a tourist visa. Then spend a couple of weeks there, return to San José to fly back to Guatemala City. So we will see.
All is good here and enjoying myself. I hope all is well with everyone.
Craig
posted by Unknown at 1:10 PM
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