I returned again to Nicaragua this weekend. I went back to the city of Granada where I first visited way back in March. This is the first time I visited Nicaragua since the elections were held. The Nicaraguans elected Daniel Ortega and the Sandanista party as president at the beginning of November and there were still lots of elections signs up, including signs thanking people for voting.

This time I stayed at the Bearded Monkey which is a hostel in the middle of Granada. The hostel was full of tourists and was geared for backpackers. They had a very good restaurant inside the hostel and there was a nice courtyard where you could hang out on hammocks. They also had plenty of books to read and movies to watch. I explored Granada again, now that I have my Nicaragua guide book, and came across quite a few beautiful old buildings in the oldest city in the Americas. Later that night I went to a popular dance bar near the hostel and enjoyed the music.

The next day I managed to get up and had excellent french toast in the hostel. The rest of the morning I checked out the chaotic market and picked out a couple of cheap T-shirts. The easiest way back to Bagaces was to take a direct international bus, but the bus was full. Instead I took a couple of old Bluebird school buses to the border just like the kind I used to ride when I was a kid. I picked up two more stamps for my passport. I have used up close to half of my passport pages now, but some of them still have room left over.

On Wednesday there was a party for my birthday down at the new pool. The pool was closed but they were nice enough to open it for us. It was kind of strange celebrating my birthday outside at a pool without freezing to death, but I can hardly remember cold weather anyways. There were about 15 people that came and they bought me a bike for my birthday because my other bike had been stolen a couple of weeks ago. I just need to make sure I get a chain lock this time. I also got a card with my head pasted onto a sloth. Apparently, other people have noticed that I don't do any work. I got an excessive amount of free drinks so making it in to work the next day was somewhat of a challenge.

This weekend I went to Playa Flamingo which is on the Pacific coast. One of the people here in Saco had a friend visiting from the States and invited some people to come stay in a nice hotel on the beach.

The beach town is full of different types of resorts and it was an impressive site at night with the colorful lights of the resorts lighting up the ocean. The main beach at Flamingo had clean white sand and the hotel itself also had a small private beach that was a little rocky but also nice. At night it was protected from the resort lights which resulted in a great view of the stars. There was a bunch of meteors, including one that lit up the sky and left a smoky trail.

Most of the beach town catered to the tourists, so the restaurants were relatively pricey compared to the rest of Costa Rica, but there were some good ones. The dry season has just started and the town was still not very busy as the high season doesn't really begin until December.

It was an interesting week in Costa Rican soccer as the Central American club final was played on Wednesday. It was won after penalty kicks by Puntarenas, which is a club from the beach town of Puntarenas. Puntarenas only has about 50 000 people, so it was a major shock that such a small team could beat out all the teams from the big cities in Central America. All of Costa Rica was cheering for Puntarenas because the two big teams, Saprissa and La Liga, had already been eliminated.

This weekend I went for the first time to a canopy tour. This is one of those zip lines that let you fly through the trees. These type of tours are extremely common here and it is almost a Costa Rican tourist staple, so I figured I should try one out.

The place was about 30 km north of Bagaces on the slopes of the nearby Volcano Miravalles. I went with a friend of the owners and we only had to pay a fifth of the price normal tourists pay. There was another group of tourists from Florida that went with us. The first part of the tour was a steep kilometer or so walk up into the forest. The forest was a rain forest and was full of animals and birds. There was lots of toucans in the tree and agoutis (they look like big rats) on the ground and there were plenty of leaf cutting ants making trail. Then we reached the first platform and we were hooked up to the line and zipped down to the next platform. There were about 10 or 15 different platforms and some were steeper or longer than the others. On some of them you could go upside down or in superman fashion which really felt like flying over a forest. The final zipline was about 500 metres long and went all the way from one of the tallest trees in the forest back down to the road where we arrived.

The weekend before I went horseback riding again, but halfway through I had to stop for a soccer game. It was the first time I have played in the big stadium field and it was a lot of fun. The field was slightly square which made the goals closer together and the sidelines really far apart, but it didn't take too long to adjust to.

This week marked the return of the dry season. On Monday night the wind started to blow and it has been blowing ever since. All of the clouds in the sky are gone now and there is no rain. It is also unusually cold. It must be in the low 20's with a high wind chill factor. I actually had to use my blanket for the past few nights. I also started taking weekly dancing lessons in Bagaces so I can go from a horrible dancer to merely very bad. I am learning dances such as merengue, salsa, and kumbia which are always played at the nightclubs here.

This weekend was similiar to two weeks ago. I again visited a popular volcano near San Jose. This time it was Volcan Poas.

The bus left from San Jose at 8:30 am, but I decided to stay overnight in Alajuela, which is about 11km from San Jose and is where the San Jose Airport is situated. The bus passes through Alajuela on the way to the volcano. The guy at the hotel spoke pretty good english and he mentioned that he lived in Toronto for a couple of years going to school. There were a couple of nice cathedrals including one that had been completely restored after being damaged in a 1991 earthquake. I ate pizza at a Irish-American-Italian-Tico restaurant which had a nice balcony table which was one of the few times I've been above the ground floor in Costa Rica.

The bus arrived in Alajuela at 9:00 and it was an extremely clear day on the drive up the volcano. The guide book warned me that the volcano would almost certainly be covered in clouds by 10 am, but when the bus arrived at 11 am it was still sunny. The Volcano is in a national park and it is probably the most popular park in Costa Rica because it is so accessible. It was only a short km hike up to the edge of the crater. This volcano is slightly more active than the previous one I visited and there was some smoke rising from different parts and the smell of sulfur was strong at times. Apparently they have to close the park sometimes if the wind is wrong and the toxic gases are blown towards the people. There was a big lake in the crater which is normally a bright blue, but for some reason it was white that day.

There was another trail that went to an old crater. This crater had a lake in it which was still slightly acidic and was deviod of most life because of this. The trail went through dwarf cloud forest and there was lots of moss and flowers on the trees. The volcano is lower than the previous one I went to so it wasn't nearly as cold, especially in the sun. There was a very tame montane squirrel, which only lives at high elevations, that came right up to my feet to beg for food. I also saw a number of hummingbirds and other birds. There was also a museum that explained the history of the eruptions of this volcano and other interesting facts.

This weekend I went horseback riding again. I had been planning to go last week but it was rained out, but this week the weather was fine. This time we went through Bagaces and then along the Pan-American highway for a while on a trail. There is a good restaurant some kilometers out of Bagaces that we stopped at. The place is on top of a hill and it has a really good view of the surrounding area, including a nice sunset. Returning was quite a bit more difficult because the sun had gone down and there was no moon. Luckily the horses knew where they were going and they have pretty good night vision, so we got back to the stables without running into too many trees.

Earlier in the week I won about $50 playing poker, so I decided to spend it on a bike. I bought a nice 10 speed bike from a former coworker who moved back to San Jose and didn't need the bike. It's made getting around much easier. It takes 5 minutes to get to town when walking used to take about 20 minutes. I also plan to spend one weekend biking down to Palo Verde and finally see that national park that is so close and yet so hard to get to.

This weekend I went to visit Volcan Irazu which is the highest active volcano in Costa Rica at 11,257 feet (3,431 m). This is just slightly smaller than the Volcan Baru (11,400ft/3477m) I climbed in Panama but this volcano was far easier to climb because there is a paved road that goes almost to the summit.

I went to San Jose on Saturday. I intended to go earlier in the day, but at 11 am I learned there were no buses between 10 and 2pm, so I arrived after dark. I explored the downtown area, where there were lots of stores and interesting restaurants. There was one large department store that was already fully into Christmas mode. There was fake snow falling in giant snowglobes and Christmas songs were playing constantly. I bought a Spanish-English dictionary there and the bag they gave me had a big Santa Claus on it.

The next day I caught the bus to the volcano. It was only $5 for the 2 hour trip up to the top of volcano, 2 hours to explore the volcano, and 2 hours to return to San Jose. The bus went through the city of Cartago which was the original capital of Costa Rica until it kept getting destroyed by volcanoes and earthquakes. There were a number of pretty churches, some in ruins. The bus continued up the mountain and the clouds held off at first giving a good view of Cartago and the valley. It was pretty cloudy though by the time we reached the summit at 10 am. There were quite a few Costa Rican families there having picnics and exploring the volcano because it is so accessible. It was very cold at that altitude and some people were wearing parkas and scarves. I guess they must have been looking for a good reason to use them in Costa Rica.

There was a trail that went along the craters edge. There were two craters, and the main one had a green lake in it. The last time the volcano erupted was in the early 60's when JFK was visiting Costa Rica. The ash released by the volcano covered a number of cities including San Jose and disrupted agriculture in the area. However, now coffee farms and other types cover much of the slopes of the volcano. The clouds would clear at times and would give a quick view of the craters. There was another trail about a kilometer that led to the summit of the volcano. Fortunately there was a big break in the clouds when I was on the summit and I got a fairly clear view of the entire volcano. Apparently, when it is completely clear, this is another place where both the Atlantic and the Pacific can be seen at the same time but I needed to arrive earlier in the morning. There was a restaurant back at the parking lot and by this time I was ready for a nice cup of hot chocolate.

Upon returning to San Jose I had a little bit of time before my bus left so I decided to take a trip to the nearby city of Alajuela. This city is the home of La Liga which is one of the two most popular soccer teams in the country( The other is Saprissa in San Jose). It also the home of Juan Santamaria, who was a hero in Costa Rica independence. There is a statue of him, a holiday for him and the airport is named after him.

The bus back to Bagaces was very relaxing. There was hardly anybody on it and, because it went directly to Bagaces, I could lie down on the back seats and go to sleep. In Bagaces it has started raining a bit more and they are completely reconstructing the road past my house getting rid of all the potholes.

This week was again spent in Bagaces. On Friday we had two back-to-back games of soccer against two different teams. We won the first game, but lost the second game, partly because we were tired.

On Sunday I went to the nearby waterfalls. They are only about 3km out of Bagaces and they are very stunning ( they have a colour photo of them in my guide book) but I had never been to them before. It is quite a popular swimming spot and I was told that it is good camping there and the falls look especially nice in the moonlight. I went for a swim and had fun, but I have a feeling that the little bit of water I got in my ear led directly to my current cold.

This rainy season has been lacking in rain, and October is no exception. I was told that October would be almost constant rain, but there hasn't been that much. The roads were even dusty early last week. The roads have held up ok with less rain, but this week they are re-grading the road to get all the potholes out. I heard that they are planning to build a paved bicycle path all the way down to the Palo Verde National Park at the end of the road, but I'll believe that when I see it.

I returned to Nicaragua this weekend. This time I travelled to the city of Masaya which is another old Spanish city like Granada. There was some problems with catching the bus in Liberia and I ended up waiting for about 2 hours at the bus station. Luckily the border crossing took no time at all and there was a bus at the border headed to Masaya that was just leaving.

I arrived at Masaya at around 4 pm on Saturday and they were in the last days of a week long festival. There were lots of beer tents set up on the street and this resulted in an unusually large number of drunk people on the street. The funniest was one outdoor table where there were three people sitting and each one of them was out cold in a different sprawl. And this was at 4 in the afternoon. I got a hotel with a TV for about 5 bucks and then went to explore the town at night. I had really good pizza at one restaurant, it seems that I always eat pizza when I go to Nicaragua. There were a couple of local bars I went in and I won 1 Nicaraguan Cordoba(about 5 cents) at a casino. At about 10 pm the lights suddenly went out. The casino had a generator but it took a couple of seconds to get it going, so there were a bunch of security rushing to the card tables in the dark. Apparently the government often turns out the lights at night to save electricity, but I don't think this one was planned or the casino would have been better prepared. The power was out for the entire city so the fan and TV in my room were sort of useless, but it was back on in the morning.

Masaya is well known for its markets and it has two big markets. The first is known as the old market and is surrounds by large stone wall which makes it look like a castle. The market itself was quite different than the crowded market in Granada. It was more like an outdoor mall than anything. It is geared to tourists who come in from Granada, but there were none there in the morning. Each shop was full of beautiful woodcarvings, leatherwork, artwork and different types of pottery. There are a number of small towns nearby and each specializes in one type of artistry. For example, one town specializes in furniture, another in pottery and another in flowers. And all this is sold in Masaya's market.

The other market, known as the new market, is the functional market in town. It was huge and crowded and was full of shops selling every type of thing. I ate some 'boha' in one of the restaurant stalls which was meat, coleslaw and yucca root served on banana leaves. After leaving the market I toured the city. There were three or four beautiful churches and an attractive central plaza. The city is also famous for its hammocks and there were a number of hammock making factories that were selling their wares out front. There was also a lookout over the small lake Masaya as well as the active volcano Masaya. The volcano is quite small but it is one of the most actively venting volcano in Central America.

At the hotel there was a Costa Rican guy who had lived in Virginia for the last 30 years. He owned a house in Costa Rica and also one in Masaya. He said that the real estate market in Costa Rica is getting as expensive as the States especially near the beaches. He bought a car in Nicaragua because he said that the cars were usually a couple of thousand dollars cheaper than in Costa Rica and he drove the car between his houses while he was visiting Central America. I also asked the hotel owner about the upcoming elections and he said he wasn't going to vote. He said the current party is corrupt and should be kicked out, but the alternative is the Sandanista Party, which he believed would cause an economic disaster as all the foreign businesses would pull out. He did have a preferred party but since they had no chance of winning this time he was not going to vote. He hoped that the party would be stronger in the next election.

Masaya was a very pretty city and I was told it is quite safe, especially compared to some of the larger cities in Costa Rica. Surprisingly there are very few tourists. Granada was full of tourists, and since Masaya is so close to Granada I thought there would be more, but I only saw three or four the whole time I was there. The trip back was uneventful, but the bus did pass through some of the different artisan villages which would have been interesting to visit if I had more time.

Returning from Canada was quite eventful. First of all my plane was delayed because someone was trying to bring their Newfoundland dog on the plane. Finally we taxied off, but because it was a very foggy morning we were told to take off from another runway and we had to return to refuel. We finally took off 1:15 minutes late and I originally only had 1:30 to make the connection in Atlanta. Luckily I didn't have to go through customs in the US so I ran to my gate where there was only one other lost person also looking for a plane to Costa Rica. We asked around and learned that they had changed the gate and we had to run across the entire terminal but we made it.

Back in Costa Rica it was a shock at how hot it was, but I quickly readjusted to the heat. This weekend I spent in Bagaces or in Liberia. We have a new neighbor, an older woman from the States who is looking for a piece of land in Costa Rica near a national park. She has a really big, strong and (luckily) friendly pit bull, so our little puppy pit bull has someone to play with. She also has a Siamese cat with two kittens. She mentioned that she once had the first place Siamese in the States.

I have also played a lot of soccer since I got back. Usually there is one game every two or three weeks but we have played 3 games since we got back, in addition to playing every break during work. We are playing the games indoors but we still use the uniforms and everything.

This weekend was another three day weekend because of the Costa Rican Mother's Day. I decided to return to Nicaragua again and visit a beach there. I arrived at the Costa Rican side of the border just in time to stand in a long line. Then it was a 1km walk across the border where the line was far shorter. It was a short bus ride to the nearby city of Rivas, which had lots of old colonial buildings. Then it was a taxi ride to town of San Juan del Sur which is a town right on the beach.

The town is in a harbor which has historical significance. Before the Panama Canal was built, the easiest way to cross Central America was to travel down the San Juan River, cross Lake Nicaragua and move your stuff 20 km overland on a tram to San Juan del Sur. Now the town is a tourist town and has a lot of really nice restaurants and places to stay. My hotel was very clean and pretty and only cost 10 dollars. There was a really good pizzeria and a laid back cafe that served an excellent cinnamon french toast. The beach itself was somewhat crowded but had good waves that were fun to play in. I was initially confused because I assumed the time would be the same as Costa Rica because that's how it was the last time I was there. But apparently they have Daylight Saving Time from April to September in Nicaragua for some reason. Considering the sun rises at close to 6 am and sets at close to 6 pm all year round, I don't really get why they use it, but they must have some good reason. Another problem I had was my camera. Unfortunately none of the buttons work any more, and my camera was full and I was unable to delete anymore, so I was only able to take a few pictures in Nicaragua. Next time I have to remember to delete the pictures before I go.

An interesting event in Nicaragua is that the presidential elections are coming up in November. Politics are a big deal there and the newspapers were full of news about the election. The Sandanista party, which is hated by the States because of its Communist origins, is the front runner as of now. The party and the leader, Daniel Ortega, were in power for about 5 or 6 years during the 80's after they overthrew the former dictator, fought against the Contras, and instituted a democracy. Then they lost the subsequent elections. There were a lot of red and black Sandanista flags flying and a bunch of impromptu parades popped up when I was there. A lesser known presidential candidate for a different party actually made a personal appearance in one of the parades. It would be interesting to come back when the election is closer.

On Sunday evening I decided to take a tour to see the turtles. From July to November it is egg-laying season for the turtles and there is a beach about 10 km from San Juan Del Sur where they sometimes gather in the thousands to lay eggs. The group of about 10 of us took an extremely bumpy ride on an open back truck to the beach. We passed through one large Sandanista political rally and a large number of fireflies before arriving at the beach. It's impossible to predict when the thousands of turtles will come and when I went there were only a few turtles but it was still an interesting experience. The turtles are pretty clumsy on land so they need a flat beach with soft diggable sand. They used their flippers to dig the hole, lay 50 or more eggs, then clumsily cover the eggs back up. They didn't seem to mind the people too much, but you had to be very careful with lights or the turtles might get confused and head off to the jungle.

Coming back to Costa Rica on Monday involved a collective taxi to Rivas, a collective taxi to the border, zero waiting time at the Nicaraguan side, two hours of waiting at the Costa Rican side, a bus to Liberia and then finally a bus back to Bagaces. It's probably only about a three hour drive, but with all the waiting at the border and changing of buses it took 6 or 7 hours to get back.

The last two weeks I spent mostly in Bagaces. The last couple of Fridays some of the people in the company here have organized soccer games against various other teams in Bagaces. Apparently Bagaces has about 30 teams that play soccer regularly. We played in a full-sized field in town with 11 players on each team and we even had a referee giving out red and yellow cards. We had about 5 or 6 other players who don't work here but played for us anyway. Our team won the first game, but lost the next two. I was surprised that we even competed because we never practiced together and one of the other teams even had a real coach. It is a lot of fun even if it is too hot, and it brought back memories of playing soccer on the big field when I was a kid.

In work we are ready to ship the first new machines with the software next week. The software is still partially under development but it is functioning well and some of the customers are ready for the new machines. Also, Mark, the guy from the States, returned after a couple of months traveling through the States and Europe and is happy to be back working here.

For the last two weeks Liberia has held a big exposition celebrating the joining of the Guanacaste province to the rest of Costa Rica. July 25 was the actual day of the joining and is celebrated as a national holiday throughout Costa Rica. The Liberia fair went from July 21 to July 31.

On the first Saturday, me and Sarah, the new girl from the States, went to check out the fair. The first weekend was slower and they were still setting up some of the tents, but there were still a lot of people there. Many of the tents were temporary restaurants, some were selling different Guanacaste cowboy stuff and there was also, strangely, a large number of car and other machinery dealerships set up. I guess some people need something to drive home after the fair. The biggest buildings by far were the three or four temporary bars set up in one corner of the fair. The bars were two and three stories high, and in the night they were crammed with people and extremely loud. We watched a bunch of horse competitions because Sarah was involved in similiar competitions in the States. The horses here are smaller and the riding style is different but it was still entertaining.

In the evening we bought tickets for the rodeo. They brought in two truckloads of bulls and each one had a rider who would try to stay on as long as possible. There were a couple of bullfighters with red capes in the ring who would distract the bull when it knocked the rider off. Also, any spectator could jump in the ring at any time for a thrill. They had two ambulances waiting outside the ring with a special door to shove injured people through. One guy got his foot caught in a rope and he was shoved through to the ambulance. After the bull calmed down, two men on horseback came out with lassoes and roped the bull. It was very entertaining, but I didn't try my luck outsmarting the bull in the ring.

The next weekend was a three day weekend because of the Guanacaste day holiday. On Saturday we returned to Liberia because they had a big concert. Unfortunately it was raining very hard and we got soaked and muddy. The concert was still packed and the entire fairground was full of people despite the weather. It was a Spanish reggae band which is extremely popular in Costa Rica, especially with the kids in my family. The band was very popular and people looked like they were having a good time despite the rain and the mud.

The rest of the weekend we spent at Playa de Coco, a nearby beach. It had a lots of good restaurants and tours for snorkelling and scuba diving and other things. The beach was nice, but rather small and crowded.

My post is late this week because we had a power outage on Friday. The previous weekend I took a four day vacation to an archipelago in Panama called Bocas Del Toro.

I left on Friday night after work and took the bus to San Jose. On the bus I met a Canadian-American citizen who worked in Costa Rica for a couple of weeks studying monkeys. He goes to St. Andrews University in Scotland and knows a number of UWO students who do exchanges there. He heard some good things about a couple of hostels in San Jose, so we went to one that was full, and then finally found space in another hostel. The hostel had a very relaxed atmosphere and most of the people were taking a plane out of San Jose the next day. I met one guy from San Francisco who had spent the last 4 months in a language school and surfing constantly. There was also a girl from Montreal who was just leaving after spending a month on the beaches of Costa Rica. Since they were both leaving, they were a little envious that I still have eight months left here. In the morning there was free breakfast, they had a big pot of pancake batter and a bunch of portable stoves so everyone could cook up a plate of pancakes.

I caught a bus directly to Panama at 9 am. The road first had to run across the middle of the Costa Rica mountians to the Caribbean side. In the 70's they decided on a route to build a major highway across the country. However the environmentalists protested because it was unspoiled wilderness. A compromise was reached that the road would be built, however the entire area would become a national park. This made for an excellent bus ride because there were countless lush, unspoiled mountain valleys filled with jungles and waterfalls.

Once the highway reached the Caribbean at the city of Puerto Limon it turned and ran along the Caribbean coast to Panama. The people on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica and Panama are very different from San Jose and the Pacific side. Most of them are Jamaican immigrants who came over in the 1800's to help build a railroad and stayed because of the banana boom. There are also a smaller number of Chinese immigrants and a large rural population of natives. Most of the people here can speak English and Spanish which I can mostly understand, but to each other mostly speak a Creole mix of the two, which I can't. The Panamanian border crossed was very relaxed and I had no trouble crossing. The border itself was actually an old railway bridge but it now used by vehicles. Only one vehicle at a time could cross, and people walking had to make sure they didn't fall between the planks. After getting off the bus at the next town I took a taxi to the dock where I caught a boat taxi to the main town in the archipelago. It was an interesting ride because the boat went at high speeds through a series of canals that had natives in dugout canoes waving as we rushed by. I knew the main town was rather touristy, so I planned to head to a nearby island, Bastimiento, that was more isolated. Arriving at the town there was an boat taxi waiting to take people to the island. I was initially the only person to jump in, but a couple who were unimpressed by their first impression of the town were convinced by my description of the island to come too. Our boat driver took us to Bastimiento and dropped us off at a hostel in the one small town. We all decided that the floating building was a good choice and got our rooms there. The guy was a French surfer/student who was spending 4 months in Panama and Costa Rica surfing and the girl was a health food store/yoga instructor from California.

We were the only people in the hostel so we went looking for a place to eat supper. The town is extremely laid back and doesn't have a single vehicle, not even a bicycle. The main street, as seen in the picture, is simply a sidewalk. The people were very friendly and some were more so. For example: Question"Where is the supermarket?" Answer"The supermarket of ganja?". It's not the first time I've been offered weed, but it was the most creative. We found a recommended restaurant that was excellent and cheap.

The next morning I followed the path across the island to the beach. I was expecting a well-used path, maybe even a sidewalk, but it ended up being a half hour walk along an extremely slippery path with ankle deep mud through the jungle. In other words, a lot of fun. Later in the day, when there were other people coming down to the beach, there were some with a big smile, and others who were covered in mud and looked like they wanted to kill somebody. The beach was very beautiful and was empty. I ate my breakfast and Alex, the French surfer showed up. He had managed to bring his surfboard over the trail and he was eager to try out the waves, but they weren't up to his standard. I was planning on walking down the beach, but there was a storm coming, so we went back to town, but the rain came quickly and my stuff got soaked. I spent the rest of the time drying it out. Strangely, it seemed to always rain at night and in the morning, but never in the afternoon, which is what I have grown used to.

After lunch, the rain cleared up we returned to the beach and I managed to explore more of the beach. Most of the island is uninhabited and half of it is protected as a park so there was lots of beaches and jungles to explore. I learned that when you are walking in the jungle, you should never stop and take a picture. Twice when I did that I failed to notice that I was standing on an ant nest and my feet got covered in itchy ant bites. I also came across a whole bunch of army ants that were marching at least 6 feet deep. There was also a little lake where a young native child was throwing pieces of bread into the water. I realized that he was feeding two smallish crocodiles who actually seemed to enjoy the food. He was very proud of his job and he excitedly explained all the different kinds of food the crocodiles would eat. They also would chase after the turtles in the water, but never caught any.

The next day it was raining in the morning so I hung out in the hammock. After the sun came out I explore more of the beaches, especially one rocky penninsula where the waves were crashing particularly hard. I got accidentally soaked a couple times and thats probably why two of the buttons on my camera no longer work. Any more buttons give out and I'll be only able to take one type of picture. However there were some neat tidal pools with different kinds of fish in them. When I returned to the main beach I found Alex there scouting out the waves. He said the waves were bigger today and he had arranged a boat ride to another island where the waves were supposed to be even better. I was ready to check out another island so we walked back to the town and caught a ride. However the boat just dropped Alex off far from shore, so I continued on to explore the main island and the town of Bocas del Toro. The town was extremely tourist-oriented and was completely different from the island I was staying. It was full of foreign tourists as well as foreigners who had moved here permanently. There even was an airport where you could fly to San Jose or Panama City. I returned to Bastimiento Island when it got dark. It happened to be Blue Monday on Bastimiento, and there was a large party in one of the bars in town that every body in town went to.

The next day I had to return to Bagaces. I left at 8:30 in the morning. I took a boat taxi to the main town. At 9:00 I took a boat taxi to the mainland. It was a different route than the one I took before and the calm waters and many islands reminded me of cottage country with palm trees instead of pine trees and dugouts instead of canoes. I needed to rush to catch the bus to San Jose at the next town so I crammed into a cab. We arrived after the bus had left, but I found another full cab that was going to the border. Luckily the bus was still at the border when I arrived, so I was able to get on. Unfortunately my luck ran out at that point. The bus had to stop soon in a nearby town because there was a problem with the tire. After a half hour of sitting in the hot bus, the tire was replaced with the spare and we left again. However we had to stop regularly to check the tire and before we got back to the San Jose the bus driver gave up and pull off the road. I had heard and seen many buses breaking down in Costa Rica, but this was the first for me. We waited around and eventually another bus with a few empty seats pulled over and we moved into the new bus. Finally arriving in San Jose, I caught the 6:00 pm bus to Bagaces. Now I had the pleasure of experiencing a San Jose traffic jam for the first time. The traffic was slowed to a crawl and it took an hour to get out of the city. When I finally reached Bagaces at 11:00 pm I was tired but I now am an experienced Costa Rican bus rider.

This will be a short post this week because I have to leave early. This weekend I again stayed in Bagaces because of the World Cup. On Friday I went with around with a couple of other people checking out the bars in Bagaces and the nearby city of Liberia. The variety of the bars is quite stunning, anywhere from a small square room to an open patio on a hill with a great view. There even was a casino in Liberia that Jim, the programmer that lives here but get paid an American salary, picked up a quick $150 at.

On Sunday it was the final of the World Cup. I watched the final in town with a group of people. There was a heavy rainstorm that knocked out a small part of the match, but the end of the game was fine. I am not sure why, but the Italians were the clear favorites here and everybody was happy when they won. It seems that everbody hates the French. After the match we went to the new pizzeria that just opened up in town a couple weeks ago. The family that owns it is Italian and they were very pleased about the results of the game. The pizza was also delicious.

I stayed in Bagaces again this weekend. On Saturday I watched the World Cup game at the new pool and played some soccer after the game was over. Most people were cheering for Brazil because it is nearby and Brazil is a popular team anyway, so there was disappointment when they lost.

There have been quite a lot of changes at work over the past couple of weeks. Mark, the intern from the US has left, and Zanda from the Bahamas is leaving next week. Also there is a new intern from the States that started working on Monday. She will be working in the office part time writing the manual for the software, and spending the rest of the time on the ranch with the horses. So finally I am not the new intern anymore, but I still have the worst Spanish.

We finished the 2 week mini soccer tournament this week and my 2 player team ended up as the winners. A lot of the people were surprised because I am from soccer-poor Canada, but I was lucky to have an excellent teammate. I now have eight extra bucks to spend. Of course I'll probably have to spend it on shoes because I am in the process of ruining my second pair of shoes. My first pair already had the treads come off from playing too much soccer and hiking.

It is vacation time for the kids here. They only have 2 or 3 weeks off now, but they have two months off at Christmas. The family also got a new truck because the old one was breaking down all the time.

I again went to a beach this weekend, but I didn't leave until late in the afternoon on Saturday after watching the games on television. I was headed to the far point of the nearby Nicoya peninsula to explore Costa Rica first national park. This meant that I returned to the beach town of Puntarenas where I waited to catch a ferry. The ferry took about an hour and a half and it was after 10 by the time I arrived at the peninsula. The bus driver wanted 6 dollars for the ride to the beach town, so being stubborn and cheap I decided to walk 11km instead. It was raining slightly and the road was pitch black, I could hardly even see the yellow line and I often stumbled into 6 inch deep potholes filled with water, but it was worth it. I didn't get up in time for the early morning bus to the park I was originally headed for, so i went to another nature preserve instead at Curu beach.

The park is full of hiking trails and they are trying to reintroduce the squirrel monkey and the scarlet macaw, which are not found in this part of Costa Rica. The trail to the beach led through a cattle farm and I was surrounded by a hundred cows staring at me intently. I got to the beach and I had to choose from among the 10 or 20 trails to follow. I was still tired from the night before so I decided to take a short looking trail to a secluded beach and relax a bit. Two hours later I finally reached the beach. The trail was marked 'difficult' on the map, but they should have used a stronger word. Most of the trail was incredibly steep as it climbed the coastline cliffs and the rest of the trail I had to basically blaze my own path through the underbrush. There were markers on the trees, but many time I had to retrace my steps because I had lost the faint trail. In addition there were many spiderwebs strung over the path and I was constantly wiping the webs and sweat off my face. I even got bit in the neck by a spider.

Luckily the beach actually existed at the end of the trail and it was nice and definitely secluded. The sand was clean and white and it was the softest I have encountered so far in Costa Rica. It was also full of hermit crabs. I ate my lunch on the beach and it was very amusing watching the crabs. At first only one was brave enough to investigate my empty can of tuna. After watching the surf for a while I looked back and there were ten crabs around the can. The next time I looked I was surrounded by about 50 crabs all fighting over my leftovers. The big crabs would come in to grab and toss out the little ones, and the little ones would try to hold on to their scrap of food and scramble off to eat in peace. It was like a giant wrestling match. They polished off my leftovers in no time flat.

In order to avoid the trail again, I attempted to return along the shore. After narrowly avoiding my backpack being soaked by waves numerous times, I decided it would be easier to take the trail. It was much easier now that I knew what to expect. I returned to the ferry and this time I was able to enjoy the trip in the daytime as the ferry passed between numerous islands, including one that used to contain a high security prison that is famous in Costa Rica. I spent most of the trip talking to a firefighter from San Jose who went to the beach with his family for the weekend. He talked about his job and how he wants to move to Canada some day.

At my company, a bunch of the workers here have organized a mini two week soccer tournament during the breaks to reflect the World Cup. We play as two man teams on a small field outside the factory. It's a fun way to spend the break, but it way too hot when the sun is out.

This week I again stayed in Bagaces to do some more eye tests on Sunday. This time it was in the school and we did exams for children. The program is working well now, but there were still a few kinks to work out. I had a different type of machine this time, one for children, so I had a whole new set of Spanish phrases to practice. Also we recorded the data for the children so I had to ask for their names. I have the worst time understanding people's names. All Spanish spelling is phonetic, so it should be an easy matter to translate the sounds into words, but I usually can't make out anything. And then when they spell it out, it ends up being something simple like 'Irene'. I enjoyed the day anyway and I now can use two extra days off in the future for a four day weekend.

On Saturday I went to a new public pool that opened up in Bagaces for a birthday party. The pool is popular among the locals and even has a large water slide. It also has a soccer field and a volleyball net and on Sunday after the eye exams I went back to play soccer in the afternoon. I didn't have a chance to get to the beach this weekend but I saw on the news that the entire Pacific coast, from California to Chile, was experiencing extremely strong waves from a freak storm in the Pacific. Considering how big the waves were last week, it's hard to imagine how big these waves were. They even had to evacuate some beach houses in Costa Rica due to flooding from the waves.

The world cup continued and Costa Rica lost their last game as well. It was the first World Cup that Costa Rica was in and did not win a game, so there was lots of talk about disappointment but there still lots of games to watch. It was also a sad day in the house when the 5 month old half Rottweiler half Doberman was hit by a car and killed. It happened last week during Costa Rica's first game and the other puppy lost her playmate. The family got another little puppy to keep it company. It was also the birthday of the youngest son last week and now they are all teenagers at 15,14 and 13 years olds.

I had a nice long blog about my trip to the beach but just as I finished, my computer inexplicably shut down and I lost it, so I will give you the condensed version. I went to Samara beach about 4 hours away on Sunday and I walked along the coast there. It was very beautiful and the waves were huge especially out on the exposed cliffs. The major news story in Costa Rica on Monday was about 4 Americans drowned in a beach just south of where I was because of the large waves. I found a scorpion in my bag and got a sunburn but I had a good time.

Costa Rica is out of the world cup after a disappointing loss to Ecuador but we have a pool going at the factory that makes all the games very interesting to watch.

This will be a short today because I have less time this afternoon. We got two hours off to watch the first game of the World Cup here at the factory but we had to work later. Costa Rica lost, but they weren't embarassed by Germany and the two goals they scored were a big thrill here. With only 4 million people, Costa Rica is the second smallest country in the World Cup, only Trinidad & Tobago is smaller, so they held their own against Germany.

Last weekend Bagaces had another big fair and the company organized a stand at the fair where they gave free eye exams to anybody who wanted them. This was partly a service offered to the town and partly a good way to test the machines and my computer program. On Sunday, the first day, we discovered many problems, but we were still able to give the exams. On Monday morning we fixed pretty much most of the problems and things went much more smoothly, at least until we were rained out in the late afternoon. Since I wrote a lot of the program, I was one of the people performing the tests. It was good practice for my Spanish, however I don't know how useful the line "What are the numbers in column A, line 1?" is going to be in the future. I also don't think I was too useful in explaining eye problems to people, "You have problem with near eye". But overall I enjoyed myself and I am glad that my program seems to be working well.

I stayed in Bagaces this weekend. On Saturday I was invited to go horseback riding. I have never been on a horse before, so I wanted to try it out. Emer, who has a company in Bagaces, had two of her friends visiting from England who were going to try it as well. Jessica and Lydia, one of the girls who follows the monkeys, also came. The owner of the company I work for has a number of horses at his ranch and kindly allowed us to use them. I got a nice little horse who was very easy to handle and was really fast when he wanted to run.

Everything went well at first as we made it to the edge of town where we stopped at a restaurant to have lunch. However, as we were waiting for our food, Emer's horse started to panic for some reason and started pulling out the fence posts. Emer went to calm down the horse but when she was tying it up again it panicked again and gave her a serious rope burn. Eventually the horse was calmed and Emer got some treatment but she wasn't able to ride any more so we headed back. We spent the rest of the afternoon riding around the farm and I enjoyed the thrill of racing around on a horse. However I did mange to lose my hat in the process. It was blown off after my first gallop and I figured I would find it later, but when I went back to look for it, all I could see was endless cow patties that all looked exactly like my hat.

In the evening we went to the local hot springs which were only a half hour drive up the mountain from Bagaces. It is a local favorite because it has a good restaurant and they let you bring your own beer. There were many different pools with both hot and cold spring water, but since the air was quite cool in the mountains we headed for the hot ones. They were very nice and ten times cheaper than the ones in the more tourist heavy Arenal area. After the hot springs we spent the rest of the night in the local dance bar.

The next morning I was walking through Bagaces and missing my hat when somebody called me over from one of the houses. I went over and was surprised to see the ranch's night watchman holding my hat. Apparently the guard dogs found it because it must have smelled suspicious to them. I guess my hat is also able to magically return to me in addition to all the other special powers it has.

The build up to the World Cup is in full swing. TV is broadcasting all the pre-World Cup friendly games, not only for Costa Rica, but also for all the other teams they will face. The first game they play is the opening match of the World Cup against the host Germany next Friday and is greatly anticipated. They also play against Poland and Ecuador. Apparently they have a fairly good chance to advance to the next round, however their team has looked pretty bad in the friendly matches.

This weekend I headed to another national park with an active volcano. This one is called Rincon de la Vieja and is only an hour or so from Bagaces. However, it ended up costing me a lot more to get to the park because there are no buses there and I had to take a taxi.

Originally I was going to camp overnight at the park, but they were only allowing camping at the other entrance, so I arranged a lift back in the afternoon. The first trail I took was a loop trail that visited a lot of different types of volcanic activities such as boiling water and bubbling mud pots. It was very hypnotizing watching the perfectly formed mud bubbles bursting and the air was full of the smell of sulphur. I also saw many of the famous blue morpho butterflies and continued to see them throughout my stay at the park.

The second trail I took was a 5km hike to a waterfall. Near the ranger station there was a coatimundi rooting into holes in the ground and the tree were full of a pack of white faced monkeys. The monkeys were amusing to watch. Some of them who I got close to would start to shake a branch menacingly at me, and half the time the branch would break and the monkey would nearly fall out of the tree. The trail wound through the forest before coming out on a ridge with a view across to the ocean. I passed a large group of what looked like Canadian high school or university kids returning from the waterfall but by the time I arrived at the waterfall there was nobody there. The waterfall very beautiful and suprisingly big considering the rainy season has just started. The water was especially blue because of the copper salts in the water. The water was cool and refreshing and very deep.

By the time I returned to the main park station it was 4pm, the time I was scheduled to go back, however my ride had already left. I had another offer for a ride but I decided to stay because I still hadn't had a chance to climb the volcano yet. That meant I had to walk 8km to the other ranger station. It was starting to get really dark by the time I reached the other campsite, so I hastily set up my tent and went to sleep. Luckily for me it didn't rain that night, because I didn't set the rain fly properly in my rush to setup and I woke up in the night staring at the stars. The other station had a historical ranch house there that was supposedly once owned by Lyndon Johnson and some museum pieces displayed. I got up at 5 am and headed back to the other ranger station On the way back, I stopped at a set of hot springs where the hot water was bubbling out into a cool water stream. It was very soothing on my aching muscles, however I ended up regretting it later when I learned that it was a hot spot for ticks. I ended up picking ticks off me for the next few days. While I was there I also saw my first toucan and I saw numerous flocks of toucans the rest of the morning but they were gone once it started getting warm. It was an 8km climb up the volcano once I returned to the first ranger station and it stayed sunny most of the way up. The last stretch was very steep and it started to rain, so ended up scrambling up a muddy path. The top of the volcano was very desolate and windy and I had to follow a narrow ridge up to the crater. The volcano is still active and the crater itself was very impressive. The wide crater was filled with churning smoke and you could walk right up to the edge of the crater where it dropped off in a sheer cliff into the smoke. There was a sign there that warned not to stay longer than 15 minutes to avoid the toxic gases. Coming back down the mountain was fun because the slope was steep enough to half slide down parts. At the bottom I managed to catch a ride with a mini tour bus with a bunch of Germans back to Liberia and home.

This weekend I decided to head down the Pacific coast to Manuel Antonio National Park. I first went to the town of Puntarenas where I could catch a bus to the park. Puntarenas is on a long skinny peninsula in the Pacific and has a couple of miles of very clean beaches right in town. The beaches are popular with the local Costa Ricans and were fairly busy. I had a couple of hours before my bus left so I explored the town and the beaches and went swimming.

The bus to Manuel Antonio was 4 hours and mostly followed the Pacific coast as it changed from the dry, brown region in the north to the rainy, green region in the south. One river the bus crossed, I could see 4 or 5 big crocodiles lying on the banks. Later the bus went through the surfing town of Jaco which is full of foreigners. After Jaco there were miles and miles of African palm plantations which were endless rows of large palm trees. These plantations were planted after bananas were no longer profitable because of disease and labour costs. I didn't arrive in the town of Manuel Antonio until after the sun set and I found a hotel on the beach. I didn't bring my tent this time because there was no camping allowed in the park, but I should have because people were camped out on the beach and there was a camping area at the hotel. I went to beach and I was the only one there. The beach had some pretty strong waves but it was very shallow so I had fun playing in the waves.

The next morning I got up to get to the park when it opened at 7:00. The park is only open from 7-4 and there are strict rules about how many people can enter each day. It is also closed on Mondays. I was one of the first people in the park and the rest of them headed straight for the park's beaches so I had the trails to myself. The park was full of wildlife. I was only in the park for about 6 or so hours and I saw pacas, which look like huge hamsters, raccoons and a coatimundi. I saw quite a few large, rather tame iguanas and many other types of lizards. The were also groups of the white-faced monkeys hanging around and I could hear the howlers monkeys. The park also had the endangered Central American squirrel monkey, but I didn't see any of those. The forest floor was full of large red and black crab with purple pincers. They would scurry around trying to return to their home before I got near, and if they couldn't find a place to hide they would raise their claws threateningly. But the most interesting sighting of the day was spotting two sloths up in the canopy. One was sleeping and the other was moving in slow motion along a branch.

One trail had a warning sign on it saying the trail was closed, but since I had walked the rest of the trails I decided to check it out. It went to a beach where the trail was mostly washed out, but I managed to find a way down to the beach. The beach was very large, but rocky and it was completely secluded and probably hadn't had visitors in a while. The sand was covered with bright red crabs who would part like the red sea as I walked along the beach. I spent the rest of my time in the park exploring the rocks and the dark crabs that lived on them and swimming in the waves.

On the return bus ride I was unable to return through Puntarenas because there were no late buses so I was forced to take a roundabout route 8 hour trip through San Jose. The road to San Jose was very scenic as it climbed into the mountains. The only time it rained the entire trip was when I was sitting in a bus, and when we arrived in San Jose it was raining hard. The gutters where full of water and some of the roads were slightly flooded so it seems that the rainy season is in full swing in San Jose. Here in Bagaces, the rain has faded again and it has been dry again for the last few days however the vegetation has become more green from the few days of rain. I caught the last bus back to Bagaces and didn't get back to my house until midnight.

This weekend I avoided doing my usual cheap travelling and decided to splurge a little bit and stay in an all-inclusive four star resort on the beach. I was invited by the former Saco employee Emer and Randall, her Costa Rican boyfriend. After she stopped working here at Saco, they started up a web design company in Bagaces. One of their clients was this resort on a beach in nearby Papagayo and they were offered a good discount for this place. Her two other employees, Katherine and Jessica, also came, along with Katherine's boyfriend Henry.

I took Friday afternoon off of work so we could get down there early and take as much advantage as we could of the all inclusive part of the resort. It was only about an hour and a half drive and the road down to the beach was actually paved and had no potholes. I was expecting a one building hotel, but it was actually a group of separate buildings, each with a view of the ocean. A van was constantly circling the resort, so moving from building to building wasn't difficult. There was two types of restaurants, the buffet style and a regular sit down restaurant. The sit down restaurant was only available for reservations, so we made reservations for the Saturday when we checked in. After checking in we immediately went down to catch the end of the lunch buffet. The lunch had less choices than the supper buffet but still had plenty to offer. After lunch we all took it easy and relaxed in the pool and the swim-in bar. There were about as many local guests as there were foreign guests in the hotel and there were a group of employees called the "Fun Club" that went around encouraging everyone to get involved. In the evening they put on an impressive dance theatre show.

On Saturday we had planned to take a boat trip at 9:00 am, so it was a struggle to get up, but I definitely didn't want to miss the breakfast buffet. The boat ride was a short trip to a nearby, more secluded white sand beach. The main beach at the resort is black sand, which is interesting, but not as pretty. The first thing we did after arriving at the beach is test out the hammocks. It was shady and food and drinks were brought out. Later we played beach volleyball and soccer with some of the employees. It was very hot but the water was cool and clear. We returned to the resort in the afternoon and there were plenty of things to do around the pool. There was 8-ball pool, ping pong and foosball. We met a young Canadian guy on vacation from Calgary. He is the first Canadian that I have met in Costa Rica, although I have been told there are plenty here. In the evening we got dressed up and went to our restaurant reservation. It was a fancy Italian restaurant with excellent food. We had 3 course meals with wine and thoroughly enjoyed the food. After we returned to the pool where they had a live band playing popular Cosa Rican songs and everybody was dancing. We stayed out until 2 am and everybody had way too much to drink but it was a lot of fun. I managed to get up for the breakfast buffet but I returned to the air-conditioned room to sleep. I woke up again just in time for the lunch buffet and then we had to check out at 1pm. I thoroughly enjoyed the all-inclusive part of the resort and the resort and setting were very beautiful.

I was lucky to get sun during the weekend because the rainy season started on Tuesday. It poured down and has rained everyday since. It's amazing the changes that have occured since the season has started. The roads are so deteriorated already that I can't imagine how they will look after six months. There are many different types of birds and many frogs and toads have appeared out of nowhere. The rainy season is called 'winter' in Costa Rica because the rain cools the air down slightly, however the humidity now is very high, so I don't think I will need any coats this 'winter'.

This weekend I went to nearby Arenal volcano. It is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and is constantly erupting. It is quite near to Bagaces but it requires climbing into the mountains and going around a lake on some very poor roads, so it takes about 4 hours.

I left after work on Friday, and only managed to reach the town of Tilaran before the buses stopped running. Luckily, Tilaran had plenty of things to see because they were holding their annual rodeo or 'tope'. Crowds of people gathered in the central park and there was a fairly large fireworks display launched from the middle of the park. After the fireworks there was a parade of more than a hundred different horses with riders, each one displaying their horseriding skill. The highlight of the parade for the crowd was when one rider lost control of his horse and they ran off at top speed.

The next morning I caught the 7am bus for the volcano. The road skirted the Arenal Lake and had many scenic views of the lake. The road was full of potholes in many places but there were many fancy hotels and other tourist type places. The lake was created in the 70's by a dam and is one of the best places in the world to go windsurfing because of the consistency of the winds. The dam and the numerous windmills here generate alot of Costa Rica's electricity.

The bus dropped me off at the entrance to the Arenal National Park. My plan was to walk to a nearby town on the other side of the lake and either stay there or find a trail to Monteverde, a famous nearby nature preserve. I arrived at the isolated town just before noon and asked at a Snake Zoo where the trail was. One of the tour guides spoke English very well and he said that the trail was no longer in use and I would need a machete to cut my way through the jungle. He invited me to spend the night at his house where he lived with two other guides and his wife. His house had a great view of the volcano and he said that I would be able to see the lava flowing at night, so I decided to stay.

His tour guide roommates had both recently finished studies at University and one of them was having his tour guide English exam that afternoon. He was very nervous because he had failed a few times before and he asked if I would be his tour for the exam. I agreed and I got a very interesting tour of the snake zoo for free. They had many types of poisonous snakes, frogs and other reptiles in the zoo and many of the non-poisonous ones you could touch, including their 5m boa constrictor and python. Outside they a very pretty garden and a butterfly conservatory. My guide's English wasn't great but I understood what he was saying. He was thrilled when later he found out that he passed. After the tour I decided to explore the trail to Monteverde. It climbed steeply and gave a great view of the volcano and the lake. Once it got into the jungle it didn't disappear right away, and I think that it could be used to get to Monteverde, but that's for another weekend.

When I returned to the snake zoo, the english speaking guide, Alfonso, mentioned that they were going to Tilaran to roller skate and asked if I wanted to come, so I decided to go. We were taken there in the back of an old open-back truck and the 2 hour night ride was rather surreal, with clouds of fireflies in the trees and the stars in the sky. The roller rink was sort of a bust because there wasn't many people there. And then when we were ready to leave at 11 our ride was missing. After a lot of worried conversations, they managed to organize a ride back at 4am and we headed to Alfonso's wife's family house to get a few hours sleep. On the way there we ran into the first snake i've seen in Costa Rica. An extremely venemous coral snake was crossing the road just in front of us. I know it was a real coral snake because I had 3 snake guides to verify that it wasn't a fake coral snake.

The next morning I found that an excellent way to bird watch is to lie in the back of a truck in the early morning. Not only are the birds extremely active in the morning, but you can easily see all the birds in the overhanging branches. I saw countless different species. The three guides were very apologetic about the mess-up in transportation, but aside from missing the lava show on the volcano, I enjoyed the experience. After picking up my stuff, later that morning I caught a return ride back to Tilaran. This time there were less birds and I was roasting in the sun, but the panoramic views of the lake were very pretty. There are still many things to do in that area, such as visiting the hot springs, taking canopy tours and watching the volcano at night, that I'm sure I will visit again soon.

This week is going to be a short post since I had to work on Saturday to make up for the Easter Week and I didn't do a whole lot this weekend. On Friday night I played soccer again with people from the company and others in town and again had a lot of fun. This time I brought a lot more water because I knew how hot it was going to be.

Saturday night was the final game of the Costa Rican soccer season and it came down to a match up between the two most popular teams in the country, Saprissa and La Liga. Saprissa is from San Jose and is the favorite in my house. La Liga is from nearby Alajuela and is almost as popular. Saprissa won the game and the championship 2-1 and everybody celebrated in Bagaces, even though San Jose is so far away. It would be similiar to the Leafs winning the Cup, assuming the Leafs win the Stanley Cup regularly. Now the next big thing in soccer is the World Cup which is greatly anticipated.

Work is going well and I am closing in on finishing the first version of the program. It is also almost rainy season here. Although it hasn't rained yet, there have been quite a few clouds and some rumbling thunder. I don't know if this is related to the rainy season or not, but I also saw my first scorpion since arriving here. The dogs were barking cautiously at it, so one of them probably got stung. I am managing to practice my Spanish by watching Costa Rican television. Simpsons and Family Guy are very popular in my house and its amazing how some of the voices sound exactly the same in Spanish. Homer sounds like the Bumble Bee Man, though, which is very amusing.

By the way, I have posted some more photos on my photo page.

I left Panama City on late on the Tuesday afternoon, so I had a good view of the Panama Canal as we crossed over the Bridge of the Americas on the way back to David. We arrived in David after dark, and I had no idea what hotel to stay in, but luckily there were a couple of other Americans on the bus. The one guy had just arrived in Panama and spoke no Spanish, but the other guy had been living here for two years working for the Peace Corps and he recommended a good cheap hotel. So me and the newly arrived guy took a taxi to the hotel. It was only $12.50 a night but it was luxurious for me. I enjoyed the air-conditioning and had my first hot shower since I arrived in Central America.

The American guy and I decided to check out the bar scene in David so we walked around to a couple of bars. Since the beer was only 50 cents a bottle and a meal only $1.50, it wasn't real expensive. The guy was 32 years old from Seattle and had just retired from professional boxing. He had a lot of interesting stories about the things that happen in pro boxing and the politics behind it. He had to retire because his last match gave him a bad concussion. However, I only noticed his boxing 'stutter' after he had a couple beers. His parents were sailing around the world but there was a family emergency, so he was flying down to watch the yacht for a month. He invited me to stop by later, but I didn't have time.

The next morning I took an old school bus to the mountain village of Boquete. It is a really beautiful town nestled in a valley. The main industries of the town are coffee growing, flower growing and tourism, so that sort of indicates how pretty it is. Also it was a nice cool change to the rest of Panama. I arrived planning on hiking and camping in the national park but I had no map so I bought a snack and sat in the park to decide what to do next. I was then approached by an extremely friendly Panamanian named Pancho who owned the hostel across the street. Since the hostel was quite nice and only $6.50 a night I decided to stay. Pancho was very helpful and he gave me a map and a whole bunch of info about what to see in the area. I met his Chilean wife and his son and he talked about how he met her playing basketball in Chile. I took an afternoon walk through some of the pretty mountain coffee plantations. In the evening Pancho had a party and I met all the other people staying in the hostel. There was two girls and a guy from Spain, a girl from Argentina and a guy from San Francisco. There was also a guy there who owned a hotel down by the beach and he invited everyone to come down and celebrate his birthday on the weekend with free drinks for everybody. Unfortunately I had to leave before then, but I enjoyed a number of glasses of rum I was offered at the party.

The next morning I woke up at 6:00 am because I planned to climb the nearby volcano and Pancho said that it clouds up in the afternoon. I took a taxi to the end of the paved road and it was an uphill climb of 15 km from there. After about 1 or 2 km of walking through farmland, I arrived at the National Park. The park protects the Baru Volcano, which is an extinct volcano and at 11, 400 feet(3475 metres) is the highest mountain in Panama. The entire mountain is covered in cloud rainforests and is full of many types of birds. I saw many new kinds of birds and was especially impressed by the number of hummingbirds, even at high altitudes. I was even buzzed by a hummingbird at the summit. I never saw the famous quetzal though, although I saw some close relatives. The views were beautiful until about 10 am when the clouds rolled in. Even so, the clouds gave the forests an interesting atmosphere. I arrived at the summit at 11 am and it was quite cold. I had to put on a sweater and a jacket while I ate lunch and waiting for the clouds to clear. Apparently, the summit is one of the few places on earth where you can see the Atlantic and the Pacific at the same time, but I never got the chance. If I come again, I will make sure to camp just below the summit so I can get to the top for an clear sunrise. It rained the entire way down, and since I was already soaked, I decided to walk the entire 25 km back to town. I was exhausted and all my stuff was soaked but I definitely would do it again if I'm ever back there.

The next day was Easter Friday, which is an extremely important day in Catholic Latin America. Easter is probably more important than Christmas here. I noticed that as the day went by, more and more well-off Panamanian tourists arrived and the town began to be crowded. I decided to walk along the town's main river. It was a pretty mountain stream and I climbed through some beautiful valleys. The outskirts of Boquete has many houses where the Guayami Indians live. The women in this tribe all wear very colorful dresses and the men usually wear a collared shirt. They reminded me of Mennonites from Ontario because they stand out when they come into town, they remain very traditional, and they mostly work as farm workers for the various farms in the area. After climbing to the end of the paved road, I took one of the local bus/van back into town to avoid getting soaked in the afternoon shower. In the evening the hostel was packed full of Pancho's relatives who were visiting him for Easter. I was the only foreign traveler left. At around 9:00 the town had a huge Easter Friday procession where thousands of people walked from one church to another following the cross. There were a number of brightly decorated floats, some being carried by local young men. I imagine that the number of people in the procession was much more than the number of people that actually live in the town. It was a very interesting experience because Easter is not nearly as important in Canada.

The next day I said goodbye to Pancho and his wife and I started to head back to Costa Rica. I wanted to avoid the Sunday rush at the border, so I planned to head back to San Jose to spend the night. By now, I was getting pretty good at the buses, so decided to take the local buses back. I took one bus back to David, then I took a bus to the Costa Rican border. I crossed back relatively easy. I was deciding the best way to return to San Jose when I was approached by a couple of kids. One was trying to sell me a ticket to San Jose for tomorrow and the other was looking for people going to San Jose to fill a minivan. I decided that the minivan trip would be interesting, especially because it was the same price as the bus and the van was air-conditioned. The driver of the minivan was a very friendly Panamanian who had lived the last 16 years in Costa Rica. He had learned English from being a taxi driver and he was eager to practice it with me while we waited for the van to fill up. Eventually, a large group showed up and after the border checks of the van and the luggage we finally got under way for the 7 hour trip. The van was crammed full, but I managed to find some space in the front seat because the driver wanted to practice english, so I got a much better view of the journey than the bus ride before. Strangely enough, my best wildlife sighting so far occured on the drive back. We reached the mountain highlands after dark and the headlights shone on a small animal on the road. It looked like a house cat, but as we got closer it was leopard colored. It seemed very confused and we had to brake before it ran off the road. The driver was very excited and said that he had only ever seen that type of 'tigre' in zoos. I later looked it up and it was probably an oncilla, also known as a tiger cat, one of the rarest cats in Costa Rica, living mostly in South America. I doubt I will be able to top that animal sighting for the rest of my trip.

That night I stayed in the same hostel in San Jose as the one at the beginning of the trip. The next morning I took a tour of the city of San Jose and was impressed by some of the buildings in the city and of the mountain views. At noon I took the bus back to Bagaces and watched many traffic jams and overheated cars on the opposite side of the road as everybody tried to return to the big city after the Easter Holiday. Panama is definitely a place I'd like to go back to, as there are so many things that I haven't seen. But now I will only have weekends to travel, but there are still plenty of places in Costa Rica that I still haven't seen.