Better late than never - The Final Central America Blog!

Day 189 – May 5

Got up at 5am!! (Thanks to our early rising tour guide), quickly met the 7 new girls in our group (5 Norwegians, 1 British and 1 American) and caught a bus to Copan, Honduras. We arrived in the afternoon, and went to explore the town a bit.

We were surprised to see the bank guards had SUCH big guns!

Copan is a lovely town with a really cute center park, and lovely little cobblestone streets. We got some iced coffees (yumm) picked up a few postcards, and then went back to the hotel to rest for a bit.


In the afternoon I went to check out the Mayan Copan Ruins with Denise and Pascal.

One of the most important of all Maya civilizations lived, prospered then mysteriously crumbled around the Copan archeological site. During the Classic period (AD 250-900), the city dominated the region for centuries.

Me standing in front of Copan’s most famous monument – the Hieroglyphic Stairway, the work of King Smoke Shell. Unfortunately it is now covered by a roof to protect it – but it doesn’t lessen it’s beauty much – I still thought it looked stunning. The flight of 63 stairs bears several thousand glyphs. The story that they tell is still not fully understood.

A view back down onto Plaza de las Estelas (Great Plaza). The size of this complex and buildings nearby (4509 within 135 sq. km. of the site) indicates that at the peak of Mayan civilization here (around the 8th century) the valley of Copan had over 20,000 inhabitants! A population not reached again until the 1980’s in this area.


Copan’s unique feature that sets it aside from other Mayan sites, is the huge amount of intricately carved and decorated monuments, statues and staircases

On the way out we saw some gorgeous Scarlet Macaws (we even saw a few try to mate which was an unusual and bizarre thing to see!)

That evening we went out for a great group dinner, Murray and I LOVED this eggplant, bacon bake!! It had a lovely presentation as well. We also both tried balledas for the first time – a typical dish of this area.

Day 190 – May 6

Today....
We got up at 7am and then took two buses, 3 hours each to get to the ferry…

that would take us to Utila, part of the Bay Islands! The ride was a bit rough & wet (if you were outside) but not too bad!

Our hotel there was quite cute – lovely little balcony’s and most importantly – AIR CON!! Here is me & our neighbor Emma posing on the balcony

It had a nice little bar and pool area as well

We booked our scuba diving for the next day, had a quick swim while enjoying a local beer, and then went out for a group dinner.

We had some gorgeous Barracuda kabobs, and a lovely dinner with the whole group:)

Day 191 – May 7

We got up and were at the dive shop by 7am to get ready for our day of diving!

Murray & Carrie on the dive boat. We had an hour ride to the North side of the island.

Me scubaing


We saw tons of gorgeous coral on our dive

And lots of pretty bright sea life

I think this is some kind of sea slug - I LOVE the pattern!


And our FIRST lobster that we have ever seen diving – very exciting! He was pretty big too!


And an eel


Me checking out the wall of coral – really beautiful


Gorgeous shapes on this coral - brain like pattern


And a fuzzy one


So pretty


A gorgeous spotted fish that swam by


I loved the little fish – check out those gorgeous colors


This was our FAVORITE fish – some sort of angel fish that is well known locally – isn’t it gorgeous!


Lovely


And a rock fish

A close up – how great is his camouflage! I love those big lips:)


Beautiful


Me & Murray scuba diving!


A ray


Look at those lips – wow


And a long skinny one (yes, I don’t know any of the official names of these fish)

We did one dive on the South side and one on the North – they were fantastic and for the first time in ages – Murray’s ears were perfect!!! Very exciting!


Back at the hotel – we enjoyed the view from our balcony for a bit

And then we went out to Bundu’s for a great lunch (taco salad!!) with Pascal.

Then we spent the rest of the day in an air conditioned internet café, had a drink with the group at the hotel in the evening, and then had dinner with Jean and Emma.

Day 192 – May 8

Murray was so excited that his ears were working properly, that he went off again today on two dives with our guide Trevor (I decided I’d rather spend the day checking out the little islands nearby).


A diver ‘riding’ a bicycle


Happy Murray


The ship they dove to see


A school of large fish – each fish was about 7 feet long!


Cool dude – Murray lovin’ the wreck dive (it was a deep dive – 32 meters)


Some sort cray/crab/lobster (size of a tarantula)


A groper, They are massive! (known to hang around that wreck)


Some sort of sea slug crawling on coral


Pretty


Close up



A cute little fish


The grouper again

Squid – aren’t they bizarre looking!

SO odd!

I think they look prehistoric


A cute little starfish


Another BIG ray


Trevor & Murray


Gorgeous coral

While Murray was away diving, I took a trip to the cays (islands) with Denise, Pascal and Jeanne. We started off with half an hour on a tiny boat through very rough waves to get to our first cay – Water Cay. The boat dropped us off, and arranged to pick us up again in an hour and a half. The only other people on the island was a group of stoners who were camping out and two other tourists – pretty quiet. We went for a swim in the stunning water, relaxed in the sun and had a great time. We were then picked up to go to Pigeon Cay for lunch. I had a terrible fish burger at a cool restaurant on a dock (wow that island is crowded with houses – looked amazing) and then we headed back to Utila. The ride back was ROUGH – the wind had picked up and threw our little boat all over the place! We got soaked from the waves, and I believe there are some videos out there of Denise and I screaming our heads off as we saw massive waves coming - before we crashed up and over the side of them, but we survived!

That evening we just hit the internet place again, got a nice shrimp dinner, and then had an early night. However, when we got back – ready to pack up in preparation for our early start the next day – the power was out. So we had to pack all of our bags with our head lamps – NOT FUN.

Day 193 – May 9

We were up and ready to go by 5:20 am!!! The plan was to catch the first ferry of the day back to the mainland. But we waited….

(Emma & Denise - our aussie friends)

And waited…..

And waited…

And enjoyed the lovely morning

And waited some more…

And the ferry never came! Apparently it was broken and needed a part. They didn’t know how long it would be until they could get a part, etc. So we eventually made other plans. After waiting for hours – we finally got half the group onto a crowded medium sized boat that would take them to the mainland. We waited with the other half of the group on the island for that boat to come back to pick us up (an hour and a half return trip at least…) so the seven of us went out for some brunch (I had a lovely breakfast burrito). Eventually we got a lift over at 9:45am, with our backpacks squished all around us, for 45 minutes, and we made it thankfully without getting wet.

We got taxis to the bus station, and then we (guess what?)

We waited… for the 12:30 bus that would take us to Tegulcigalpa.

Christina, Stina, Pascal & Me at the end of the row blogging a bit while waiting

Trevor reading, me blogging

The bus ride was LONG – 7 hours!! We checked into the hotel at 8pm, then popped next door for a quick bite to eat with Emma before going to bed (it was a LONG day)!!

Day 194 – May 10

AGAIN we left at 5:20 – but this time our alarm did not go off. At 5:30 our guide Trevor came up to our room looking for us. Thankfully we hadn’t unpacked much. So we threw it all together and ran down to our waiting taxi! We then got on a three hour long bus ride that took us to the Nicaraguan border.

The group waiting while surrounding the bags (for safety) while Trevor processed our passports so we could all cross the border

When we crossed the border – there was DRAMA! Tons and tons of trucks abandoned. There was a petrol (gas) strike on, which meant NO ONE was driving, in protest of the high petrol prices. Apparently it had already been going on for five days!

So we had a problem – no buses.

The blockade for trucks – just a chain across the road.

So we made the best of it – while we waited for Trevor to sort out what we were going to do…

Denise & I shared a fantastic mango. The fruit stand at the border wanted 4 Honduran lempiras for 8 bananas – we negotiated for two bananas and a mango instead! (about 18 lempiras is one US dollar)!!

Finally Trevor said – hey guys – this is our only option – a small pickup truck that will take us all the way to Grenada. It's this, or we are stuck at the border.


We had no choice – there was not other way to get to Granada. So 12 backpacks and 9 people got into the back of this TINY pickup truck.


It was like a puzzle – how to fit it all in!!


And can you believe we had to pay (well, the guide did – as part of tour costs) $365 US dollars – for this small truck –that would take us five hours away to Grenada! (I know a strike was on but WOW what a huge rip off - those drivers made a nice profit from us)! They had to use part of that money to bribe the police at every checkpoint to let us through.


Denise, Emma and I got into the back cab, and Murray got in the front. I’m sorry – but there is NO FREAKIN WAY either of us was going to sit in the back of an open truck with that many bags, and 9 people to go flying down the highway. Ummm no – our travel insurance isn’t THAT good! (am I showing my age? lol)

It was a BIT squished – but better than sitting in the back I’m sure! (Me & Emma)

Still loading up

Does this look safe to you?

But I THINK our guide Trevor wasn’t TOO upset about having to ride in the back with the girls!

A tight fit!

Eventually they made one of us in the cab go to the back (thankfully Denise offered) and Murray put his legs out over the center console (he has bad knees). It worked!

We arrived five hours later – with a bunch of windblown sunburned people in the back, and we were ALL exhausted from the journey.

But we still had to walk a few blocks to our hotel – which was CRAP! So rundown and not clean and hot and awful!

But we really liked the city of Grenada - it has a cute main street – lots of colonial charm

We went to a cute American run bar across the street & thought this sign was hilarious (roo sniffers – ha ha!), the burgers and onion rings were fab!!!

Murray & Trevor having the local beer Tona – which is really nice (and SO cheap)!

Walking back to the hotel – this kid attached himself to our group – asking questions, generally being sweet but bothersome (just bored I think, but Murray kept his hand on his wallet just in case)

Eventually Murray couldn't stand his pestering anymore picked him up and turned him upside down – I think the kid loved it ha ha - cute, he was a sweet kid

Murray trying on the mask for the traditional dance the kids do in the street for change (what's this called Trevor?? I forget!)

All in all a fun night. We ended up at cute little cocktail place where we all had gorgeous FRESH fruit cocktails for around 1 US dollar each – amazing!

Day 195 – May 11

We slept in until 9 – barely – because it was SO super duper HOT and we had one tiny fan –bleh.
So we spent the rest of the day at the Euro Café which made fabulous iced chai latte’s and great bagels with toppings and fabulous wraps (pictured) and best of all free WIFI!

We literally spent almost all day there – from morning until late afternoon – blogging.

Then we explored town a bit – which was established in 1524 – this is the Cathedral


And the view of it from our hotel

The main street at night – lovely

That evening we went out to the movies! We bought a bunch of little bags of freshly popped popcorn and saw the movie ‘One Missed Call’ – it was in English with Spanish subtitles (hooray) and it was CHEAP - $1.50 per person! Afterwards we went out for a lovely steak dinner at the best steak place in Granada and then had a beer with the Norwegian girls who we spotted on the way back to the hotel – lovely night.

Day 196 – May 12

At 10:30 we all met up to go on an excursion to the ‘Monkey Hut’ on Laguna de Apoyo.


On the private (air conditioned HOORAY) bus! From left – Anna, Stine, Anna, Christina, Denise & Trevor


Laguna de Apoyo is a crater lake surrounded by tropical rain forest.


We went to a hostel called the Monkey Hut for the day. For $5 each would let us use their lake access, canoes, inner tubes and swimming platform.


Murray petting the super cute resident puppy


Me holding him up for a pic – OMG isn’t he GORGEOUS! He was such a sweetie!


Lizard on the building

We had a fantastic day there (thus – no pictures of the swimming, floating in tubes, etc since the camera was up safely dry in the bag). We swam, sunned and just relaxed – it was fabulous! We got back by 5, hit the Euro Café again for free internet and chai and then had a nice pizza with Emma.

Day 197 – May 13

Up and off by 8:30am in a private bus that would take us to our ferry. We got stopped once by an angry crowd (still protesting petrol prices) and they only JUST let us through when our driver told them he was only driving tourists and was ‘not a pirate’, and a policeman came to shush the crowd apart so we could pass)!

We watched the ferry unload

And then we got on – Emma & Me posing with our backpacks

The 1 ½ hour ferry took us out to Isla de Ometepe – home to two volcanoes, Concepcion and Maderas. Concepcion is still active, but its last major eruption was in 1957.

We watched ‘The Fast and the Furious’ on the ferry – in Spanish, then we got some ice cream at the ferry port before getting on another mini bus to the hotel.


Trevor trying to get our attention about what sort of transport we should take to the hotel


Driving to the hotel we had a great view of Concepcion smoking away


A model of the island – Ometepe means ‘between two hills’ in Nahuatl, due to the fact that lava flows created an isthmus between the two volcanoes, creating the island.

The island is located on Lake Nicaragua which is the largest lake in Central America and the tenth largest lake in the world. Forty-five rivers flow into the lake and its home to the world’s only species of freshwater shark.

A giant toad that was on the walkway to our room!! (larger than Murray's fist!! wouldn't want to step on HIM in the dark - ewwwww)!

These birds were all over by our hotel – gorgeous!

SO pretty!

A little bit of lizard fun time I believe - they were all over the place as well - you HAD to have a flashlight to get around at night!

We stayed in a hotel on Santo Domingo beach. The view was gorgeous (it really looked like an ocean view – because the lake is so gigantic)! But the lake was only barely warm (pee warm as they described it) so we didn’t choose to swim! We just rested that first afternoon, had a BBQ dinner down the beach (deep fried chicken & tons of dry coleslaw) then went back to our oh so lovely air conditioned room to watch a movie on our laptop!

Day 198 – May 14

We had a nice sleep in and then had muffles with wild bee money (we thought the menu mis-spellings were hilarious) along with some awesome scrambled eggs. Then we just spent the day relaxing! I wrote the blog, we slept, enjoyed our air con, and just relaxed! Weirdly enough we also ran into two people from our previous tour group – Lauren & Jay! They had come to stay at the same hotel! So it was nice to catch up with them a bit. We had a great group dinner at a restaurant up the road (great chicken brochettes, but a tiny portion of spaghetti) and the packed, and got to bed to watch another dvd!

Day 199 – May 15

We were up and ready to go with our bags by 7:30am
Our bags in Central America - (from left) the Camera bag, the day bag, and the giant backpack with all of our clothes and hiking boots

When we got to the town by the port we had a nice little breakfast – but it was only one lady working and we kinda stressed her out – all 13 people ordering at once! The food was good once it finally came though! (and the grape juice)!

Then we walked down to the port where we waited for the ferry to unload before we could get on.

We finally got back to the mainland, and then got a private bus to the border of Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

At the border a cute little boy came up to our van selling crickets that he had made out of leaves – many of us bought one. Here is Stine doing her Elvis face at the crickets!


Murray tried to eat mine!!!

When we went to grab our bags off the top of the bus in order to cross the actual border by foot (the rule I guess) this is what the top of our bags looked like – ewwwwww! Bugs anyone?


A banana horse we saw while walking to the border


After crossing the border into Costa Rica we had to wait around for our bus – Me & Emma waiting with our bags.


The group waiting


A wasp nest Murray saw at the bus stop – eeeek!

We thought this was hilarious – a guy sleeping in a hammock under the back of his truck – I just hope no one drives off while he is sleeping!!!

FINALLY we got on the bus – a public one that had NO bag room below the bus because many people seemed to be bringing gigantic washing machine sized boxes with them!! ON A BUS! They ended up having to put our backpacks on the back row of seats inside instead of under the bus due to those boxes!!!


This was the problem for Murray for 7 months - tiny people bus seats – as you can tell from Murray’s knees here! Not good!

The bus trip had so many stops that it ended up taking us 3 ½ hours to get to our stop. There the Don Taco (the hotel we would stay at) Van picked us up and took us the rest of the way to our hotel. Which was a LONG windy dirt road drive! We finally arrived in Monteverde, Costa Rica around 7pm, checked in, and then went out to eat – where we had a fabulous ‘Gringo Burger.’

Day 200 – May 16

We got up early – to our first free breakfast in AGES (they just aren’t a big thing in Central America – we almost always got at LEAST bread in South America)!

The two of us were picked up for our tour of the canopy at 8am.


The first thing we did was walk the hanging bridges to look at the view and wildlife

Monteverde has a small piece of cloud forest which it protects. A cloud forest is much like a rain forest, but much of the moisture comes from the condensation left by the nearly constant cloud cover that blankets the tops of the mountains, not by the falling rain as in rain forests. Monteverde reserve covers 1600 hectares of forest and is home to a great variety of plants and animals (2,000 species of plants, 100 species of mammals and 320 bird species inhabit this small area).

A picture of a gorgeous bird we saw
And up close


Monteverde (Green Mountain) was settled by North American Quakers who came in the 1951 because they wished to move to ‘greener pastures’ to leave behind the constant fear of war and the obligation to support continued militarism (during the Korean war) through US taxes (they are pacifists). They chose Costa Rica because it was committed to a non-militaristic economic path, and because the area was a suitable place for farming and cattle.
Me on one of the 8 hanging bridges – we heard a lot of birds and the views of the rain forest were amazing


Looking for birds! (that’s it Steve – I’m hooked now! Just don’t start calling me a twitcher!)


Lovely fern called Monkey's Tail

Lots of pretty flowers around - look hard and you see something else in this pic above.

Lovely

So tropical looking
I LOVE these colors!
Especially in contrast with the yellow

Next at we went to the humming bird gardens - where wild birds flew in.
This guy side on looks normal - but when they turn head on they can lift their feathers and reflect all sorts of colors!! See below!

Some of them were quite big as well - like small little birds, rather than tiny humming birds!
Murray spent HOURS taking photos - the birds came in and out of view at a thousand miles per hour - so quick!!
Well hello there!
Oh he is SO fluffy & cute!
Check out those bright colors - purple and blue - gorgeous
A stunning blue hummingbird
OH MY GOSH - I love the colors on this one
Check out that flapping wing movement - amazing - especially when you consider how quickly they flap their tiny wings to stay in the air!
A movement photo
You can see that the back stroke also seems to push air down - must be their secret to hovering?
You can see all the details on his wings here - amazing
A tiny little guy

I like the green on this guy too
He has a bright little spot on his forehead
Gorgeous pattern on his back - almost snake like!
Taking a bit of a rest
When Murray was finished up, we moved on to the reptile area for a tour
They had some amazing looking snakes in there!

And really cool looking lizards
I love his fan like back and blue speckles!
What you lookin' at?
They really are beautiful
A spiky backed guy

A snake hiding in his own coil

And a little skinny tree snake with amazing camouflage

Oh hello there! Look into my eyes.......

This is a dart frog – his bright colors let us know that he's poisonous!

A super close up of a moth - how strange does THAT look! Look at his yellow things?

And another snake
We saw this guy run past us while we were checking out the humming birds - bizarre!

For lunch we went out to a fun place in Monteverde called the tree house with Denise. It is built around a giant tree and you have a nice view from the top floor. Murray was a bit perturbed by the blue cherry in his drink though!

Me petting the cute dog at our hotel who we lovingly called bum licker – you can guess why...... he did it constantly!!!!!

We were picked up for our ‘night walk’ at 5pm

A coutis we saw who was wedged up in a giant tree

And a BIG hairy spider - scary!

and another - they really were massive - bigger than my hand for sure!

ewww HUGE tarantula

You can just see the stick here Denise use to poke him in his hole so he would come out for a photo - eeeek!

And this scary lookin’ spider had protection against being eaten by bigger things - he excretes a drop of liquid that tastes and smells terrible - look close.

A scary ant that bites! Check out those jaws - we had to be careful since we were wearing socks & sandals!! The guide put a large walking stick in its jaws and it held the weight!!!

At the very end of the walk we finally saw what we had come on the walk to see - A SLOTH!

We were lucky to have a very rare viewing of a two toed sloth (who was a light grey color – sort of ash I guess) eating and fussing about before crawling back into a ball to sleep – it was AMAZING!

They are SO hard to spot - especially moving around! We couldn't see him great with only flashlights - but we were SUPER thrilled to viewed one in the wild:)

We also saw a porcupine (climbing up a tree) and a raccoon - a fantastic experience - well worth it!

Day 201 – May 17

Today we had another nice free breakfast (I tired the local breakfast – which included rice and beans – surprisingly good)! Then we all got on buses to go out to La Fortuna.


On the way we stopped for ice cream – Christina was holding this parrot which kept stealing her ice cream – cute!

Then we boarded a ferry which took us 1 ½ hours across Laguna de Arenal (an artificial lake!)

Trevor tried on my hair band – attractive!

The ferries

We checked into our hotel, then went out for lunch. Murray and I like the Costa Rican beer Imperial!

The view of Volcan Arenal from town – wow it’s close!

Then we went to the tour operator GAP works with to find out about tours in the area – and they gave us all a nice cold beer – fantastic!

We booked our tour for the next day, then went back to the hotel to enjoy the wifi from our room (and the cable tv) and then Murray went out to dinner with the group to celebrate Norwegian Day (I wasn’t feeling well so I stayed in). He came back late having been pick pocketed – fun fun!

Day 202 – May 18

I called the bank to cancel our ATM card, and then we jumped onto our tour bus that would take us to our boat animal tour!

It took us two hours to get to the Cañon Negro, and then guess what – the captain was missing! They gave us some cold drinks and went to find him, and eventually we were off!


One of the first things we saw was a caiman – swimming right by our pontoon!


A gorgeous lizard


They call these guys Jesus lizards – because they seem to walk on water when they jump quickly across the water

LOTS of baby caimans on the shore
They are pretty small compared to the adults!

Another huge lizard - nicely camouflaged

A striking bird

The locals call this a snake crane - because when just their necks are popping out of the water it looks like a snake

I love this guy's super wide bill - a Duck Bill ??
He is quite pretty
Lookin' straight at the camera

And a beautiful Woodpecker

Another Caiman swimming by

This guy is drying his wings, because he doesn’t have an oil on them they won't dry without him holding them out to the sun

A King Fisher!

And monkeys!!! Oh they were SO Cute!

Awwwwwwww
And we saw bats - good thing we had spotters on the boat - these guys are REALLY hard to see against the bark

A Caiman getting into the water

And even sloths!!
Another Kingfisher
And turtles jumping into the water - scared of the boat's engine
A gigantic lizard sitting on the beach

A little bird getting ready to spear fish with its beak.


And GO!

Howler Monkeys – apparently they have big white….. they are quite noticeable when you looked up the tree at the monkeys - eeek!

Yes - he is sticking his tongue out at us - ha ha!
So cute how his tail is wrapped around a lower branch
Doing a bit of howling - gosh they are noisy!

And some more sloths!!!!!!!!!!!
Such LONG bodies and limbs!!
Really Amazing!! Remember this is only a 2 hour wildlife tour – and these animals are ALL wild. We now know how hard it is to spot wildlife after 6 months in South America and wow – this tour was fantastic!


one more little turtle
And some baby birds peeping out of their nest
CUTE!

We got back at 3pm and relaxed with our wifi for awhile. Later we went out for an iced coffee and cake with Trevor, then out for (awful) pizza with Emma and Trevor for dinner. The chili on it made everyone feel sick!

Day 203 – May 19

We rested all morning while most of the group was off rafting (we’ve done that enough down in this part of the world) and had a nice relaxed breakfast with Emma and Pascal. Then hopped into a bus with all 12 backpacks and went to meet up with the group after their excursion (an hour and half away). We had a bit of lunch and then transferred to a bigger bus (in the rain) that would take us all the way to San Jose – which took about 3 hours. After checking in we went out for our last group dinner.

Trevor & Anna
Christina & Stina

Me & Trevor


Pascal & Denise – two friends who did the whole 4 weeks in Central America with us

The group! We had a nice two weeks together!


On our way back we saw these huge murals – dedicated to what I guess San Jose is known for – doctors & dentists (there were SO many offices around)!!

It was a great tour! We had a fabulous guide –who also became a friend, we met a lot of great people, and we saw some amazing things!!!

Day 204 – May 20

We had an AMAZING breakfast – best in Central America so far (made to order omelets whoo hoo) and then we got a $20 cab to the dentist. I had a tooth that had broken ages ago (like at the beginning of South America) but hadn’t hurt until the past few weeks. We met some people on our wildlife boat tour who had come down from the US to get work done by a particular dentist (because it’s about a third of the price of dental work in the USA). I got his contact details from them, and booked in for myself.

He was a nice guy, said he trained in North Dakota – thus his English was great! He did a few x-rays and sadly informed me that I needed a root canal (eeeek)!!! Lesson learned – just because it doesn’t hurt doesn’t mean it’s not in BAD shape!

They couldn’t do it right then, because they had to call in their root canal specialist. But he did agree to clean my teeth and Murray’s (for a ridiculously low price) and then he offered his personal driver to drive us back to our hotel to pick up our bags and come back in time for my afternoon appointment. We agreed immediately – which saved us $40 in further cabs!!! The driver took us back to our hotel, Trevor went with me to the bank cash in our traveler’s checks (we needed more cash than we could get out of the ATM for the dentist), we said goodbye to him, and back to the dentist office it was.

We got back JUST in time for my 1pm appointment. The guy gave me tons of Novocain and was super professional – but I was scared and had tears streaming down my face the whole time! But it went well. I didn’t feel a thing, the dentist then filled my tooth, and I was done and feeling ok (although a bit numb on one whole side of my face – even my EAR) and ready to go by 2:30.

Although I was still upset when Murray returned (he grabbed a bite to eat while I was having my tooth drilled) and I said to him ‘A murder happened today – my tooth was the culprit’! My first dead tooth – so sad!

We finally got a taxi to the ‘coca cola bus station’ and we waited around for the 5pm bus to Jaco.

We got there at 9pm and went up to see our friends Emma & Denise in their room. They were happy to see I was ok, and we all went out for a lovely dinner (I had a fantastic veggie burrito)!

Day 205 – May 21

We woke up to rain – yuck. So diving was out.

So Denise, Emma & Murray went four wheeling instead!

This is the 'restaurant' that they got to when they were ATVing up the mountain - hmmmm

Quite a view!

Just a BIT muddy!

Murray getting sprayed down after the ride - the REAL test of our waterproof jackets - his t-shirt was complete dry after this pressure hose wash!!


And the back!

While they were gone I went to the post office, had my hair cut, and walked around town a bit - very nice:)

We all went out to lunch together at a bagel place that made amazing bagel sandwiches and great iced coffees, then we went off to explore the town a bit.

Then we saw this cute little guy peeking out of a window

Murray petting him – you can see JUST how small he is! CUUUUUUUUUUUTE!

We went down to take a look at the beach – quite dark colored sand – but pretty
Murray spotted something in the water - it turned out to be a 'school' of sand rays, and when the wave picked up they surfed inside the wave so you can see their silhouettes like the dolphins do with waves. About 20 of them all at once! Amazing sight - a first for us!

This is a big surfing beach apparently

After packing and relaxing the rest of the afternoon…

Denise and Emma came over with beers to shared before setting off to dinner.

At the restaurant Murray spotted this guy up against the door jam in the men’s toilet!

Murray, Emma & Denise – good company! Shame the food was SO bad!

Me & Murray enjoying our super tiny Margaritas

The rain pelted down that evening – again!

Shame our last ‘beach excursion’ rained the whole time – but we still had a nice time. We said goodbye to Emma & Denise – great friends – and then we went to bed!

Day 206 – May 22

We got an EARLY private cab to the airport (the buses are too unpredictable for that kind of thing) to find out there was a ton of delays out of San Jose due to the storms the previous evening. We got on an earlier flight to Dallas, spent a few hours there (with a nice American style dinner yay) and then finally arrived in Minnesota LATE! My parents were there with our truck to pick us up (VERY exciting - this was the first time we saw the truck in person that we had bought for our road trip)!! We got home and fell into a completely exhausted sleep - excited to get started preparing for our 5 1/2 month USA road trip!!!

Minnesota & USA road trip blog coming soon! ! !