Costa Rica Blog

Back to Canada VIII

2008-07-08T13:14:00.014-06:00

We entered into the States through El Paso on Sunday evening and the first thing we noticed was that the streets were empty. Nobody was out walking in the downtown and there were only a few cars. In Mexico the streets would be packed, especially on a Sunday. We stayed in a hostel in an historic building in downtown. The guy who worked there was very enthusiastic about El Paso and took some of us up to a lookout over the nighttime lights of the city for free. The next morning Greg took off for Phoenix where he was going to meet up with a friend and then fly back to Canada because he had ran out of money. Now I would be traveling by myself for the rest of the trip back to Canada. I decided to check out the Franklin Mountain State Park. It protects the mountains that loom over the city. I took the city bus as far as I could and then hiked about 2 miles into the park where I set up camp.

The next morning I got up at sunrise and headed up the mountains. I climbed up the side of the ridge and then followed the ridgeline north. El Paso is in the Chihuahuan Desert and the mountains were covered in many different types of cactii and prickly bushes. At the tops the mountains were very rocky and it is apparently a popular place for rock climbing. I passed a gap in the rocks called "The Window" before arriving at the top of the South Franklin Mountain at about 7000ft. There was a big air traffic control station on the top but the views in all directions of El Paso were amazingly clear. I tried to descend a different route but the trail soon petered out and I was left clambering over rocky ledges and stabbing myself with many types of cactii. I finally managed to get back to the ridge trail and I followed the ridge south for a while. Unfortunately the rough terrain managed to destroy both my shoes and I had to carefully make my way down the mountains. At one point I reached a cave and heard a bunch of rustling inside. I looked in and there were two nearly full grown vulture babies still partially covered with down feathers. I looked around carefully for any angry swooping parents and then finished the descent. I hiked back out to El Paso and wandered around the city finding the cheapest bus to Phoenix. El Paso had plenty of bus companies headed to different major US cities, mostly catering to Mexican visitors. The one I chose was used to dealing with Spanish speaking customers and the ticket sellers and bus drivers all spoke Spanish. I sat beside a man from Cuidad Juarez who was traveling to California to visit his brother and we had a long conversation in Spanish. Nobody in the bus was speaking English and it felt like I was back in Mexico. The overnight bus crossed New Mexico into Arizona and went through Tuscon before arriving in Phoenix.

I arrived in Phoenix early in the morning and wandered through the downtown as the sun rose, watching the empty streets slowly come to life. The downtown was very clean and seemed to be growing because there were a lot of new construction projects going on. The Arizona Diamondbacks baseball stadium and the Phoenix Suns basketball arena were both right in downtown. After the morning wore on I found the Phoenix hostel near downtown and caught up on some of the sleep I missed in the bus. In the evening I took a city bus to the town of Glendale. Phoenix is very spread out and is basically a group of towns that merged together as they grew to form Phoenix. Glendale was about an hour and a half on the bus but it is still considered part of Phoenix. The Arizona Cardinals football stadium and the Phoenix Coyotes hockey arena were located here and I was headed to the football stadium to watch an exhibition soccer game between Chivas from Guadalajara Mexico and the Red Bulls from New York. The stadium is a huge dome and was the site of the Super Bowl in February. The game drew mostly fans of Chivas and it seemed like a number of them had come up from Guadalajara to watch the game. Although the fans in attendance were few in number they made up for it in enthusiasm. They were disappointed when the Red Bulls won 1-0. It was an intense match, including a number of fights, which was surprising for an exhibition match.

The next morning I decided to explore around Phoenix and first headed to the town of Tempe. Tempe is the center for the University of Arizona State and I looked around some of the university buildings, including even more stadiums, such as the Sun Devil's football stadium. I then headed north to Scottsdale. This town holds on to the wild west theme with a downtown full of wood buildings straight out of a western as well as many art studios and restaurants from around the world. A large wildfire burning outside of Phoenix had filled the sky with smoke giving the sun a deep red colour which made me feel like I was on the set of a movie. I returned that night to the same hostel and had a new interesting roommate. He had joined the Marines just before September 11th and was sucked into the Iraq War. His body survived the war but his mind could not get over his experiences in Iraq. He had been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome as well as paranoid schizophrenia. He was very friendly and chatty and told me stories of driving across the States but he always seemed on edge and during the night he would scream out while he slept. It always surprises me how deep an effect the war has had on so many people in the States.

The next morning I headed north to Flagstaff, Arizona. Phoenix is boiling hot in July with temperatures going to 45 degrees daily but Flagstaff is much higher and cooler and even has good skiing in the winter. I was planning on spending the night in Flagstaff figuring out how to get to the Grand Canyon but I found a shuttle bus headed there so I left immediately for the South Rim of the canyon. The drive there passed through pine forests and flat plains and there wasn't a single hint of the canyon until the bus reached the rim. The awesome view over the canyon was intense. The Copper Canyon was as vast but the reds, oranges and yellows of Grand Canyon made the view that much more impressive. I headed straight to the Backcountry office to try and get a permit but it had just closed. I then went back to the rim and settled down to watch the sun set over the canyon. That night I camped in the nearby Kaibab Forest and was unprepared for the frigid nighttime temperatures and spent the night huddled and shivering in my shorts.

I got to the backcountry office when it opened in the morning and they had no trouble finding a permit for me to hike down to the bottom of the canyon. Normally you have to reserve a year in advance but there are enough cancellations that it was easy for a solo traveler like me to find a spot. The ranger advised me to wait until 3 in the afternoon to avoid the heat of the day. It is advised to stay out of the sun from 10 to 2 to avoid heat stroke as the temperature reaches 45 degrees daily at the bottom of the canyon. I explored some of the lookouts on the South Rim and gathered enough water and food for my hike. I headed down the canyon on the South Kaibab Trail, a steep, exposed trail with no water that follows a ridge line down the canyon. At times the trail was carved right out of a cliff face and others it balanced on top of the ridge. I had brought over a gallon of water with me but the cooler afternoon temperatures and the less challenging downhill trek meant that I hardly needed to touch my water. I was beginning to regret taking so much heavy water until I ran into two hikers about 3 miles into the hike. They had both hiked all the way down to the bottom of the canyon and were trying to make it back up in the same day. However they had run out of water and one of them was suffering from heat exhaustion and they asked if I had any water to spare. I gave them as much as they wanted and they filled up their bottles to the brim. They thanked me profusely and one mentioned to me that he was the owner of a large international company based in Phoenix and if I ever wanted a place to stay in Phoenix he would let me stay as long as I wanted in a guest room in his huge house. It seemed that the gallon of extra water was not such a mistake after all. The trail continued descending and entered the last and most recent dark canyon that the Colorado River flows through. The river rushed by with a deep green and the trail went through a short tunnel and emerged onto a big suspension bridge that spanned the Colorado. After the bridge the Bright Angel Creek flows into the Colorado and this is the location of the Bright Angel campground as well as the more comfortable Phantom Ranch. After setting up my hammock tent, which drew a few comments from the other campers, I attended a ranger talk in the evening. The ranger had spent the last 6 years in the Grand Canyon and he had a bunch of animal stories that he told in an entertaining fashion. At the end of the talk he took out a UV flashlight and we went on a scorpion hunt. The scorpions are bright blue under the light and we found about 10 all over the rocks after only 5 minutes of looking. I had bare feet at the time so I made my way carefully back to my campsite, making sure to avoid stepping on any rocks.

The next morning I got up as soon as it was light and headed up the Bright Angel Creek to the Cottonwood campground. The path was uphill the whole way but the trail was not steep at all as it followed closely to the rushing creek. The canyon walls are so steep that the original trail was forced to cross the creek over 80 times but now the new trail is chipped out of the cliffs and it only crosses the creek a handful of times on well constructed bridges. At one point after crossing the creek I heard a rattle in the bush next to me. I backtracked to take a closer look and found a pinkish colored rattlesnake curled up inside. It rattled at me for a few seconds and I left it in peace. The narrow canyon eventually spread out a bit and I took a side trail to Ribbon Falls. The falls were hidden inside a shaded valley and created a cool refreshing area to get away from the heat of the canyon. There was a trail that went up behind the falls and from there the mist was very cooling. I was going to descend back to the bottom when I noticed a steep eroded trail continuing on with a sign post facing the opposite direction at the end. I figured the sign had some interesting historical information so I carefully made my way along the steep cliff. When I reached the sign I saw that it said 'Dangerous Eroded Trail - Do not walk'. They really need to put a matching sign under the waterfall. I arrived at the campground before 10 in the morning so I had the rest of the day to enjoy the stifling heat of the canyon. I found a campsite with plenty of shade so I napped for most of heat. I also went down to the creek to cool off and was shocked by the chill of the water. Despite the 45 degree weather I could not keep my feet in the water for more than a minute before they became completely numb from the cold. The creek emerges from underground only a few miles above the campsite and there is not enough time for it to be heated by the air. It was certainly a quick way to cool down in the heat.

The next day I woke at dawn again and headed up the steep part of the North Kaibab Trail to the North Rim. I passed the waterfall known as Roaring Springs where the Bright Angel Creek pours out of the side of the canyon and cascades down to the canyon floor. This crystal clean water source provides the drinking water for all the thousands of visitors to the Grand Canyon. The trail soon grew very steep and started to ascend the canyon wall in endless switchbacks. As the morning progressed I started meeting hikers descending and later I encountered my first mule train. I stood to the side and waved hello as the riders passed. There were quite a few more as I ascended and I wondered what it would feel like to sit on a mule as it walked along a sheer cliff, knowing that your life depends on the mule. Apparently the Grand Canyon has never had a person on a mule fall off a cliff so the mules must have pretty good footing. The last part of the ascent was very sandy and I sweated profusely as I trudged slowly up the dusty sand but I made it to the top before 10 in the morning. At the top I went to the Backcountry office to get a permit to return. Again it was no problem and I decided to head back down later that afternoon. I stocked up my supplies in the park store and I walked out to the Bright Angel Point, the main lookout for the North Rim. The North Rim is at over 8200 feet, 1000 feet higher than the South Rim, and the climate allows for a cooler pine forest that reminded me of Canadian forests. The view was spectacular of the Bright Angel Canyon and the South Rim in the distance. After a good rest I headed back to the trail head and started the climb down. I ran into many of same mule trains coming back up the trail and many of them remembered me from the morning. The path down was a lot easier, however I unfortunately forgot to air out my feet and sweat-softened skin was no match for the pounding descent and my new shoes. My feet became covered with blisters and I was relieved to get back to the campsite. Luckily I met a couple from Bermuda and talking with them helped keep my mind off my feet.

The next morning I got up at headed out for my easiest hike yet, three hours of a pleasant downhill back to the main Bright Angel campground. I kept my mind off my feet by chatting with the Bermuda couple again and arrived in camp at around 10. The temperature was about 45 degrees in the shade and I went to walk around the area. I went down to the Colorado River for the first time and dipped my feet into the ice cold fast running river. The Bright Angel creek at this point had warmed up enough on its 8 mile trip from Cottonwood that it was very pleasant to go for a dip in. I relaxed in the rushing spring for about an hour, staying cool in the blistering heat and letting my blistered feet relax. I headed up the canyon the next morning on the Bright Angel Trail which is slightly less steep than the South Kaibab Trail but a couple of miles longer. The trail had plenty of water, was shaded in a valley through part of it, and did not bother my feet because it was uphill so I was feeling pretty good when I got to the green oasis of Indian Gardens. I decided to take a 3 mile side trip to the plateau overlook where I got a great look at the Colorado River and a close-up of a fairly tame California Condor calmly sitting on a rock. I made it back to the South Rim in time to head to the campgrounds and get a good shower and use the laundry facilities. I caught one more look at the great canyon before I headed out into the Kaibab forest to spend another chilly night before heading back to Flagstaff.

Back to Canada VII

2008-06-22T08:22:00.006-06:00

That afternoon we headed to the capital, Mexico City, one of the biggest cities in the world. We got off the bus and got on the Mexico Metro, a huge subway system that services the entire city, and crammed onto the trains with all our packs. It only costs 2 pesos, about 20 cents, for a ticket to anywhere in the city. We got out at the Zócalo, the main plaza, and it was shocking emerging into the middle of one of the biggest plazas in the world. We found a cheap hostel right near the zócalo and explored the historical centre containing the National Cathedral and the Atzec ruins of the city of Tenochtitlan whose main plaza was in the same location as the current zócalo. The next day we went with some other people from the hostel into the huge Mexican government building on the zócalo which was full of immaculately maintained gardens and sculptures. On the second floor were a number of huge murals by the famous mexican painter, Diego Rivera. When we went to exit the building nobody would let us and we were slightly confused. Eventually a guard escorted us out and we noticed a whole bunch of police around the zócalo. About ten more vans full of police drove up and then 5 to 10 buses pulled up and a whole bunch of protesting miners poured out. They marched up to the government building and started chanting. They handed pamphlets out which showed their demands that the government recover buried miner's bodies and end the miner strikes. After we took the metro to the huge Chapultepec Park, home to a number of interesting museums. We went to the Mexican Zoo, which was free, and saw a bunch of cool animals such as panda bears, giraffes and my first jaguar in Latin America. We returned to the zócalo just in time for another protest, this one by the Zapatistas. They were draping signs on the government building demanding that the army leave Chiapas and the police came through in full riot gear and pushed the protesters away from the building. It was a tense situation but things didn't escalate.

The next day another group of us from the hostel returned to the park with the museums and went to the huge Archeology Museum. It is full of amazing artifacts from across Mexico including from the Mayan, Aztec and many other cultures. It is impossible to see the entire thing in one day but I was still amazed by some of the tombs of kings and stones statues. After we walked up one of the main streets in the city through the business section and saw the highest building in Latin America and a number of impressive statues, including the signature Angel of Independence. We then took the subway to Tlatelolco square. This used to be the second of the Aztec's twin cities and there are a number of ancient Aztec ruins here as well as a church that dates back to the time of Cortéz. But nowadays it is more well known as the site of one of Mexico's more recent massacres. In 1968 the Mexican government was trying to put on a good face for the '68 Olympics and were cracking down on protests. At Tlatelolco square the police started firing into the crowd and many people were killed. The news was supressed by the entire media and to this day nobody really knows why the police started firing or how many were killed but most people think it was 200-400 people.

The next day I had come down with Montezuma's Revenge, or in other words, diarrhea. It was the first time I got it since my travels began but I would have preferred to avoid it altogether. I spent the day just hanging around the hostel. Luckily there was a huge rock concert being held in the zócalo so I watched that for a while. There was also a huge protest where thousands and thousands of people marched miles long through the streets around the zócalo. It appears that there is never a quiet moment in the center of Mexico. Later in the evening I felt a bit better and went to the Lucha Libra. This is Mexican wrestling made famous by the movie Nacho Libre, where all the wrestlers have colorful masks and are highly acrobatic. It was a big night for the wrestling and the stadium was packed with fans. When everyone started chanting for a wrestler, you knew they were popular and when they booed they were unpopular. The show ended with a cage being set up and 10 wrestlers locked inside until all had climbed out but one. The entire show was entertaining and obviously extremely popular in Mexico.

The next morning we left Mexico City. I could have spent many weeks there and not have gotten bored because there was so much to see and do. It was much cleaner than I expected and I can definitely see myself returning again. The next city we headed to was Guanajuato, about 4 hours northwest of Mexico City. This was an old mining town and, even though it is now the capital of the state, the town still feels that way. The buildings go right up the side of the mountains and the streets are very crooked and narrow. The town is riddled with tunnels under and through the mountains were most of the vehicular traffic passes through. These arching tunnels look like they used to be mine shafts dug out of the stone. Above the tunnels, the city is full of gorgeous colonial buildings and the houses on the mountain sides are painted every colour of the rainbow. In the morning I was exploring the city and bumped into a parade going through the streets. There was bands playing and many different types of dancers including Aztec dancers, machete dancers and people with huge paper mache masks. After the parade I went to the Don Quixote museum. The town is famous for its annual Don Quixote festival and has statues of Don Quixote, Sancho Panchez and Miguel Cervantes. The museum holds a large collection of Don Quixote themed art from around the world including art from Dali and Ocampo. I also climbed one side of the city, through the twisting streets, to a huge statue which gave a great view of the city.

We continued west, passing by a huge statue of Christ on top of a mountain marking the geographical center of Mexico, and arrived at the city of Guadalajara. With four million people it is the second biggest city in Mexico. The cathedral in the zocalo was very impressive, with an interesting mix of neo-classical and gothic architecture. The government building was also interesting with a huge, very dark and disturbing mural that recounted the history of Mexico and another mural on the ceiling of the government congress. The next day we headed north along the Pacific Coast, first passing through the blue-green fields of agave in the town of Tequila, and finally arriving in Mazatlan, a beach town. We only spent a few hours in Mazatlan but saw the endless beaches and the numerous resorts. It was extremely popular resort for Americans in the 80's but now there are mostly Mexican tourists.

After Mazatlan we took a night bus to Los Mochis and immediately got on the morning CHEPE train. This train travels through the Copper Canyon and it's the only access to some parts of the canyon. The Copper Canyon is actually a group of different canyons formed by different rivers and in many places it rivals the Grand Canyon in size. The train moved very slowly and the first couple of hours it was only flat desert that we were crossing. Eventually we came to a long tunnel and emerged into the canyon. The vast canyon was amazing and there was brilliant blue water in the river. The train continued up the canyon, hugging the cliffs and passing through tunnel after tunnel. There were more than 100 in total. The scenery constantly changed from small tributary canyons with no sign of human habitation, to the bigger canyons where you could see for miles. The views were great but the train was very slow, so slow in fact that a baby was born on the train before we could make it to the nearest hospital! We got out at the small town of Divisadero. There is an amazing lookout from this town where three massive canyons meet. We were approached by a friendly local who invited us to stay in his cabanas. The cabanas were extremely comfortable and we were served dinner in his family's beautiful wood house. The next morning we set out early to go hiking in the canyon. We hiked along the rim of the canyon and were amazed at the views. Every corner opened up entirely new vistas and we often ended up on the top of massive cliffs overlooking the canyon. We went down the sides of the canyon when we could but we didn't have time to descend to the bottom of the canyon, thousands of feet below. We ran into a number of wood huts in the canyon but never any people. The only person I saw on the hike was an older Tarahumara Indian woman walking up a steep path. The Tarahumaras still live traditionally in the canyons and she had on an extremely colorful traditional dress on. All in all, it was the most impressive hike of my life.

We returned to Divisadero to catch the last bus to the town of Creel. Creel is the base most people use to explore the Copper Canyon. We stayed at a backpacker's hostel called Margarita's that offered an incredible deal. For only 8 bucks you had a place to stay, breakfast and dinner and they were good traditional meals as well. The next day we rented mountain bikes and headed out to see the sights around Creel. There are no massive canyons near Creel but there are plenty of valleys being farmed by the Tarahumara's and lots of rocks and pine trees that made biking easy and fun. The bikes were in excellent shape with great tires and shocks and it was endless fun jumping off rocks, sliding down hills and slaloming through the pine trees. We saw the Valleys of the Mushroom, Frog and Monk and each valley had rocks shaped like it name. We finally arrived at Lake Arareko which, with the rocks and pine trees, looked exactly like a lake in Northern Ontario. We returned to Creel down the highway and were exhausted when we got back.

The next day we decided to go camping at the bottom of one of the canyons and invited another guy from the hostel to come with us. We took a bus to the Urique River and were dropped off on the bridge. We made our way down to the bottom of the canyon and made good progress at the start. Then we ran into a narrow section of the canyons and the steep walls falling directly into the deep river stopped our progress. I managed to scale the rock walls with my stuff and get to the other side but the other two got stuck and had to retrace their steps and find a way up and over the canyon. While they were gone I found a great sandy camping spot with shade from pine trees and some small cascading waterfalls on the river. When they arrived we decided to set up camp for the night there and headed off down the river leaving our packs back at the campsite. We walked for about 3 hours up the canyon with towering cliff walls and not a single person or building to be seen. The only sign of civilization were the ample quantities of cow patties along the river. We did run across one lonely group of 3 cows getting a drink from the river. It was very hot but the river was refreshing to dip in. We returned to the campsite and I set up my hammock and the other two made a fire in the sand. The next morning we hiked back to the bridge and hitchhiked back to Creel.

We caught a bus directly to the city of Chihuahua in the afternoon. As we left the canyon we entered into the Chihuahuan desert, very flat with a few rocky mountains poking up. The flat areas were brought to life with irrigation and farmland stretched on and on. Many of the farmers in the area are Mennonites who came down from the US and Canada to escape military service. Chihuahua was very hot and dry but it was a pleasant city with many parks, beautiful buildings and museums. There was a rich sense of history as the city was the site of an exile government and the base for Pancho Villa during the Revolution in the early 1900's. We left Chihuahua the next day to head to the border city, Cuidad Juarez. It has far more than a million people and is one of the biggest cities in Mexico and combined with its companion city in the US, El Paso, it makes up one of the biggest border towns in the world. We decided to walk across to the US and headed across one of the bridges over the Rio Grande. The river was bone dry because so many people need the water for drinking and irrigation. The fence along the river was intimidating and there was a bunch of graffiti under the fence noting how many people have died trying to sneak across the border and other cries for an open border. Since we were Canadian we had no trouble crossing, they didn't even check our bags and we arrived in the United States of America.

Back to Canada VI

2008-06-04T11:01:00.016-06:00

The next day we left the Caribbean coast for the last time and headed west to the ruins of Chichen Itza. These are probably the most famous Mayan ruins and were recently voted as one of the seven new wonders of the world. The main attraction at the site is El Castillo, the Castle, a four sided pyramid that is perfectly aligned with the sun. Every spring and fall equinox the sun is aligned with a face of the pyramid and the shadows form a serpent slithering down the side. Directly north of the pyramid is a cenote, or water hole, and this is where the Mayans believed was the home of the rain god and sacrifices to the rain god were performed to prevent droughts. They have recovered over 30,000 remains at the bottom of the cenote and many more were destroyed beyond recovery. There are many other temples, buildings and carving throughout the site, including a huge ball court and an astronomical observatory that was used to calculate the position of El Castillo. After Chichen Itza we continued west to the city of Mérida, the largest city on the Yucatan. It was Sunday evening and the central park was alive with live music and people dancing in the streets. The city has a very colonial Spanish feel and is home to the oldest cathedral in North America. We checked out the government building for the state which was full of huge beautiful murals which told the history of the Yucatan in a compelling way. We also found a theater near the center park that was providing a free concert. We watched several members of the Mérida orchestra perform popular older Mexican music. After the concert we caught an overnight bus south and out of the Yucatan.

The bus arrived in the town of Palenque the next morning and I had managed to get some sleep, despite the frigid temperatures on the over air-conditioned bus. We checked into hostel that was situated in the middle of the jungle, surrounded by trees and streams chock full of rain water. We headed to the nearby ruins of Palenque which is known as the most beautiful of the Mexican Mayan ruins. The ruins were situated atop a group of hills in the lush jungle and were mostly built by a king who reigned for 69 years and his son. Most of the temples were actually burial locations for rulers and important members of Palenque and one of them contained an empty sarcophagus that was open to the public. The main attraction was a large Palace that contained a tower unlike any other Mayan ruin. There was also a stream diverted by the Mayans through the city that flowed off the hill in a beautiful waterfall.

The next day we went to a couple of waterfalls outside of Palenque. The rain that continued to come down had turned them into huge torrents of water. The first was a single impressive drop and you could walk behind the waterfall if you didn't mind getting completely soaked by the spray. The second was known as Agua Azul, Blue Waters, but the rain had turned it into Agua Chocolate. It was a series of powerful cascades that were almost overflowing. I walked the path that followed along the river and the cascades and rapids continued for 2 or 3 kilometers. There was a Mayan village along the path on the other side of the river and I watched as a group of kids used a little tram hooked up to a cable to pull themselves across the fast moving river, the only way to access this village. The end of the path came to a beach with a view of the river bursting out of a narrow canyon. I tried to follow a faint path through the jungle to find a better view of the canyon but it disappeared after about 15 minutes. We finished the day by arriving in the mountain town of San Cristobal de las Casas where we got soaked in the cold mountain air trying to find our hostel.

The next morning was still cloudy but no rain and I walked around the city. It was a very pretty colonial town and every time I turned a corner I ran into another church or park. This was the city that the Zapatistas took control of in 1994 and there are still signs of Zapatista support. I took a minivan to the nearby Mayan village of San Juan Chamul. This village was originally Catholic but the traditional Mayan religious views transformed the church until it barred priests from coming and stopped holding Mass. The town is very serious about preserving its religion and will expel any villager that changes religion. There are local religious police and they dress in thick white wool coats for ceremonies. The wool coat is popular there because the sheep is one of the most common farm animals. I had to pay a fee to enter the church and was forbidden from taking any pictures. The church had no seats of pews and instead had a layer of pine needles on the floor. There were sculptures of many different saints throughout the room and most of them had rows of candles burning in front of them with villagers praying in front of them. Some of the interesting beliefs of the village include the belief that Christ never rose again and they have an image of him buried in a coffin. They also believe that the bubbles in Coke carry away sins and they use Coke in their religious ceremonies.

The next day I took a tour to the nearby Canyons de Sumidero. This was a river that ran through some incredibly high cliffs. Some of the cliffs towered a kilometre directly over the river. It was my first experience of cliffs this massive and it was awe-inspiring to say the least. My sense of perspective had trouble dealing with the massive distances and a soaring vulture that appeared to be high above the cliffs ended up being barely halfway up the side of the cliff. In addition to the canyons the river itself was also full of wildlife. We saw a number of crocodiles including a nest of about 50 baby crocodiles. We also saw a bunch of spider monkeys hanging out on the trees sticking out of the cliffs. At the end of the river is a huge 300 meter high hydroelectric dam that keeps the river deep and calm in the canyon rather than the rapids it used to be. The four dams on the river provide Mexico with 30% of its total electricity.

That night we took a night bus to the Pacific Coast and the town of Puerto Escondido. The first day we arrived we just relaxed and hung out on the beach enjoying the first little bit of sun that we had seen for a while. The next day we rented surfboards and tried our luck with the waves. The town is famous for it's big waves and we were not quite ready for them and were crushed pretty hard. Even so, it was probably the last time surfing for me for a while and I'll miss it.

We took another night bus to the city of Oaxaca. This city is famous for its chocolate, mezcal and revolutionary politics. In 2006 there were a number of violent protests and the police cracked down pretty hard on them. Now, however, things are much more peaceful but there are still protests going on. When we were there some teachers were holding a three day sit-in in the center plaza and were set up with tents and shelters. There were a lot of communist booths set up as well with the soviet sickle and pictures of Marx, Lenin and Stalin urging revolution. Other than this simmering tension the town was rather peaceful and there were plenty of parks, cathedrals and cafes. The chocolate making section of the city contains a number of chocolate factories and people handing out free samples.

The next day we headed to the city of Puebla, a large city with another pretty center plaza area and a church with an unbelievably brilliant gold altar. We then took a bus to the neighbouring city of Cholula to spend the night. We found a mountaineering hostel in the town because we were interested in climbing one of the three massive peaks in the area. Unfortunately the constant rain eliminating any possibly of making a trek, however it was interesting to talk to the guides at the hostel and I definitely want to come back and climb one of them. In the morning we took a tour of the city and visited a few of the 37 churches. One church is located directly on top of what appeared to be a large hill in the center of town but is actually a huge buried pyramid. The pyramid is the largest in the world by volume and is full of excavation tunnels that indicate a number of different groups have added to the temple. Some of the tunnels are open to the public and we spent a claustrophic half hour exploring them. The church at the top of the pyramid gave a great view of the city and the surrounding mountains.

Back to Canada V

2008-05-27T17:37:00.009-06:00

We left Utila and headed back north. The first night we made it to Puerto Cortez for the night and the next day we crossed the border into Guatemala. We caught a ferry from Puerto Barrios across to Punta Gorda in Belize. The national language of Belize is English and it was strange not to need Spanish anymore. The money is Belizian dollars and the bills, like Canada, have a picture of Queen Elizabeth on them, but she is very young looking on the Belizian bills. We headed to the town of Placencia which required a bus trip and a quick ferry ride to the peninsula. The beach town had a nice beach and a number of good restaurants. The next day we headed north again and stopped in the capital of Belize, Belmopan. Belmopan has a population of about 8000 people and is one of the smallest capital cities in the world. The capital was moved here from Belize City in the 60's after a hurricane hit but very few people moved with it. The government building are here but there are more parks than houses. We watched a really good soccer game and moved on to Belize City.

We stayed the night and left the next morning on a ferry to Caye Caulker. This is one of the many islands off the coast of Belize located along the second longest barrier reef in the world. The reef goes from the Yucatan in Mexico down the entire coast of Belize to Honduras in the south. There were numerous diving and snorkeling opportunities available on the island including full-day tours, manatee tours and a diving tour to the Blue Hole, which is one of the most famous diving locations in the world. However it was too expensive for us so we decided to take a half-day snorkeling tour. The boat went to three location on the reef and the highlight of the trip was called Shark and Ray Alley. This was a place where sting rays were fed and they swarmed around the boat as soon as it arrived. They were all used to humans and we jumped right in with them. You could touch them as they swam by and sometimes they would swim right on top of you looking for food. They sometimes have nurse sharks that come too but this time there was only a lonely barracuda looking for scraps. I did however see a nurse shark later when I was snorkeling through the coral. It is completely harmless but swims powerfully and looks dangerous. The water had many different shades of turquoise and blue which contrasted with the white sand of the island. There wasn't much of a beach but there was a split in the island caused by a hurricane and the deep water there allowed a high diving board to be installed which was a lot of fun.

We left the island and continued north to Orange Walk in Belize. The name is somewhat misleading because there is much more Spanish spoken here and the crop of choice is sugar cane rather than oranges. There is also a large settlement of German Mennonites here that have lived here for 50 years and it was common to see men dressed in overalls walking down the street. Belize is a very multicultural country with the majority a mixture of Mestizos, Mayans and Creoles as well as other immigrants such as Chinese, Indian and the Mennonites. We decided to take a tour to the Mayan ruins of Lamanai. This was an hour long boat ride up the New River, a very flat river, to arrive at the ruins. The ruins were excavated by a man from the Royal Ontario Museum. The main temple was about 35 metres high and gave an excellent lookout over the jungle and river. There was another temple that had a 3 metre high sculpture of a former ruler on the side.

We left Orange Walk the next day and headed to Mexico. This meant we were leaving Central America for the last time and now beginning the North American part of the journey. We arrived in Tulum which has a spectacular beach and ruins. The beach is pure white and the water is gorgeous turquoise. It was surprisingly uncrowded because it is located close to Cancun. However the ruins are not so quiet. One of the few ruins on the coast, the Tulum ruins are smaller and more compact than the other ones I have been to but still very impressive. A wall surrounded the entire area and a number of buildings, such as the palace and the castle, sit atop the cliffs and overlook the turquoise ocean. The first Spaniard to spot Tulum, which was still occupied at that time, noted in his journal that he passed by a town that reminded him of Seville, in Spain.

The next day we continued up the Mayan Riviera to the city of Playa de Carmen. This place is second only to Cancun for tourism and we spend the afternoon enjoying the gorgeous but crowded beach. We then took the evening ferry to the island of Cozumel where we managed to arrange through friends a place to stay with a local of Cozumel. The next morning we arranged to scuba dive with a local company. We got on the boat and we headed south along the island. The entire coast of the island was full of huge resorts of every kind but the turquoise of the water was still amazing. We arrived at the Colombia Reef and dived in. The reef was a massive formation of coral and we swam through a number of caves of coral where colorful fish peeked out at every corner. Then we would come back out to open ocean and the endless blues and floating fish were a stunning contrast to the dark of the cave. As we went to the surface at the end of the dive we were joined by a large sea turtle that was also rising to grab a breath of air. The second dive we took was a drift dive. Cozumel has many currents around the island and the abundance of corals make it one of the best places for drift diving. We got into the water and the current took us over the coral. It was possible to relax and watch the coral and fish pass by and the only thing to worry about was avoiding being drifted into coral formations. We probably covered 2 or 3 kilometers in the 40 minute dive and passed over a number of parrotfish, pufferfish, rays and even a shark was spotted.

The next day we caught the ferry back to the mainland and headed north to Cancun. We got there after dark but were in time to experience the famed nightlife of Cancun on a Friday night. It was a little bit disorienting being surrounded by crowds, lights and American restaurants and bars after being in Central America for so long but it was fun. We went to a bunch of different places, including taking in a Mexican rock cover band playing in the Hard Rock Cafe. The next day we witnessed the start of the rainy season as the remnants of two tropical storms blew into the area and poured down rain flooding the streets in the morning. Up until this point we had been extremely fortunate with the weather, travelling with the dry season up Central America, completely avoiding the rain and enjoying days of sun. Now we would have to deal with lots of rain every day. It cleared up enough in the afternoon that I could explore the Cancun beach. The beach is a thin peninsula about 15 km long that is packed with resort after resort. Some of the resorts are huge and most of them are designed to bring to mind Mayan pyramids. The beach itself was white sand with turquoise water but the storms had whipped up the waves so that it was impossible to swim. I walked about 5 km down the beach enjoying the surf and the different hotel designs. When I finally decided to walk back to the road I nearly got lost passing through a huge hotel. Cancun was fun to experience but I don't think I could spend too many days there.

Back to Canada IV

2008-05-21T12:45:00.006-06:00

The next morning we continued our backtracking into Honduras to the city of La Ceiba and from there took a ferry to our final destination, the island of Utila. Utila is part of the Bay Islands and is famous for its cheap diving schools. We ran into a Canadian diving instructor on the ferry over and decided to stay and take a course at the school where he works. I planned to take a 4 day Open Water Course and Greg, who already had his, was going to take the Advanced Open Water Course. The first day of the course involved watching 3 hours of boring videos and some homework however it gave me some time to explore the town. Every other place seems to be a diving school but there are also lots of restaurants and hotels. There is one place where they built an entire bar up a tree.

The second day of the course was the first day in the water. We just went out to the dock at the hotel in about 2-3 metres of water where we practiced some different scuba diving skills such as taking the mask off underwater and practicing breathing properly. It was really cool breathing underwater and it was hypnotizing watching the bubbles rise to the surface of the water. I learned that my breathing is very inefficient because I ran out of air at the end of the lesson and had to ascend early. The next day was our first open water experience and we took the boat in the early morning out to the nearby reefs. We descended to a sandy area in the reefs and practiced a few skills before we headed out to explore the reef. I experienced my first problem with my ears when we descended to 12 metres. I was unable to equalize my ears properly and had to hang out above everybody at a shallower depth. The reef was pretty cool. It was a little bit dead because the areas was used by a lot of beginner divers who would bump into the coral but there were fish of every color and many different types of coral. We got out of the water and went to a different location where we dove in again and did some more skills. In the afternoon we did our 50 question final exam for the course and I passed with 50 out of 50. The next day was the final dives for the course. We did two more dives which were more skill-intensive but we got to see some cool creatures such as a stingray and a bunch of squid. After the day was over we could celebrate obtaining our open water certification. It's a lifetime certification and it means that I can dive to 18 metres without an instructor.

The next day I went out on two more complementary dives. I really enjoyed myself and was able to overcome the problems with my ears. I saw a huge spotted eagle ray and a seahorse and really started to feel comfortable diving. It's fun when you are able to control yourself underwater. A deep breath in and you float up and over the reef, exhaling and you sink back down to the floor. I had so much fun that I decided to take my Advanced Open Water course as well. The Advanced course consisted of 5 'adventure' dives. The next day we took the morning boat out and the first dive was the Deep Dive. We went down to 30 metres where it started to get quite dark. We did some experiments with eggs and air bottles seeing the effect of the water pressure. At that level the pressure is 4 times that of air and your body starts to build up nitrogen bubbles so you can't stay down for too long. You also use up your air 4 times as fast and I didn't do a good job of conserving my air and I had to share my instructor's air when I ran out. For deep dives there is a spare tank hanging under the boat and I was able to use that while we waited at 5 metres for the nitrogen to dissipate. The next day we did a navigation dive and used compasses to navigate underwater. Later that day we did a night dive which we explored the underwater only using flashlight. There were lots of fish with really big eyes and I saw a blue Moray Eel as well. The next day I did the last two dives and I was alone in the class because the others had done their dives earlier. The fourth dive was a Wreck Dive and we went down to 30 metres again to explore a sunken wreck. It was a cargo ship that was sunk to create a reef and it was pretty big. It was already almost completely covered in coral and there were a number of big fish hanging out in the boat. The last dive I did for the advanced course was the Buoyancy Dive. This was my choice because I wanted to practice floating correctly so I could move through the water with ease. After this dive I had finished my Advanced course and I now can dive to 30 metres and have much more freedom where I can dive.

The next day I got two more complimentary dives and this time we saw a sea turtle. It was just a small turtle but we got to follow it for about 15 minutes as it swam through the coral and nibbled on little bits of food here and there. The second dive we saw a big barracuda and another spotted eagle ray. After finishing these dives I had done 13 dives in 6 days and my ears were glad for a rest. Coincidentally, that night the dive center was having a party for two recently graduated divemasters and I could pretend they were celebrating my achievement as well. Everybody staying there got on the boat and we cruised around the bay for a sunset tour. When we got back they had prepared a huge pot of the local fish soup which was excellent and there was night beach volleyball and plenty of music for the rest of the night.

Back to Canada III

2008-05-06T20:06:00.006-06:00

After climbing Volcano Tajumulco we decided it was time to leave Xela. We spent most of the day on a bus. From Xela we took a bus to Santa Cruz de Quiche. Then we took a minibus to the town of Uspatlan. We tried to catch another minibus to Coban but we missed it and had to wait around for an hour and a half for the next one. The bus went through a beautiful river valley with steep cliffs on either side and the road was excellent. Eventually we came to a long lineup for construction. We were warned we would have to wait up to an hour but luckily we were let through almost instantly. The bus directly in front of us was the same one that we had just missed an hour and a half ago. The road now degenerated into a dusty road as machines worked alongside the road chipping off pieces of the cliff making it wider. At some points the bus was forced right to the edge of the cliff on a narrow road. We made it to Coban safely however and planned to explore some of the caves and waterfalls in the area.

The first place in Coban we went to was the nearby caves Rey Marcos. Getting there consisted of a couple of quick minibus rides and a fifteen minute walk. We were the only visitors there but we were greeted by a friendly guide who gave us helmets, headlights and boots. It was a steep uphill walk to the caves and they were initially very tight. Luckily for my claustrophobia the caves eventually opened up and we arrived at an underground stream that we had to wade up. We came to rooms of stalagtites and stalagmites beautifully formed from limestone. The guide stopped us in one rooms and said we had to turn back but he mentioned that the cave system continued for miles into the earth. The final room was considered sacred to the Mayans so we turned out our lights and sat in silence in the total darkness. I kept waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness but they never did. It was a fascinating few minutes but I was glad to get back to the light.

After returning to Coban we took another beautiful winding road through the mountains to the town of Lanquin. We checked into to the hostel where we took the last two hammocks in the place. The next morning we signed up for a tour and were taken on the back of a pickup to Semuc Champey, a series of caves and pools. We started in the cave and we were only given candles. The caves were a series of deep pools that we waded chest deep through most of them. At one point you could scramble up a rope and the last stretch involved about 50 meters of swimming. It was difficult swimming while holding a candle especially since one shoe kept trying to fall off but I managed. Anybody who dunked their candle were quickly relit by the others. The last pool we reached was quite deep and we were allowed to scramble up the side of the cave and jump in. Directly outside the cave was a river and we took a huge rope swing and jumped into the water. My technique was poor, resulting in an impressive face plant. We spent the next half hour slowly floating down the calm river in inner tubes. After we got out we had an opportunity to jump off the bridge. It was at least 30 feet up and being the first person to jump meant that I had to trust the guide's advice on where to land. Luckily it was deep enough. The next part of the tour involved the pools. These were amazingly green limestone pools that form a bridge over a raging river that is forced underground for about 500 meters. We climbed to a lookout and had a great views of the 5 or 6 green step-like pools, the white limestone cliffs and the river pouring through the valley. Where the river entered the cave was particularly dangerous because there was no way to avoid being sucked under if you fell. The pools themselves were fantastic for swimming and you could dive from one pool to the next. The guide took us down a rope ladder to the last ledge where you could jump about 40 feet into the emerging river below. When we returned to the hostel I walked to the nearby Lanquin Caves, yet another group of caves. I got there at sunset just in time to see tens of thousands of bats pouring out of the caves. It was one of the most enjoyable days of the trip.

The next day was very relaxed as we went on a two hour inner tube ride through small rapids and I played volleyball most of the afternoon. The evening meal at the hostel was an all you can eat Italian buffet so I stuffed myself with as much pizza and pasta as I could. We left Lanquin the next day and headed north. We stopped at the Candelaria Caves for one last caving experience. The entire north of Guatemala is limestone and riddled with caves. These particular caves are one of the largest but also relatively unknown. Many of the older people we met didn't speak Spanish and our guides for the trip were three kids. We took inner tubes about 30 minutes down to the river and the current took us directly into a cave. These caves had massive ceilings and once and a while light would shine down, eerily lighting the cave and water. Eventually we emerged back into the sunlight and our guides took us on a walking tour of the caves. Most of them were huge cathedral-like caves and many times I felt like I was on a movie set. After the tour we took another minibus to the town of Sayaxche for the night.

The next morning we decided to go to the Mayan ruins of El Ceibal. It involved an 8 km walk in the tropical heat but the price, free, was right. The ruins were only partially excavated but there was almost nobody there and it was interesting hiking through the deep jungle and stumbling across an excavated temple or astronomical observatory. The clouds of mosquitoes, however, reminded us that we weren't in the mountains anymore and we should get some more repellent. When we were ready to leave we were lucky enough to meet a Guatemalan family who gave us a ride back out of the park. We headed to the town of Flores for the night. Flores is a pretty town located on an small island in a lake in northern Guatemala. It is the base most people use for visiting the Mayan ruins of Tikal.

We hung out in Flores for the morning and then caught a shuttle bus to Tikal. We bought an entry ticket after 3pm which meant that the ticket was good for the next day as well. The Tikal Ruins have five massive temples which were all built within a century. The first two temples face each directly east and west in the center plaza and there are other large structures north and south. If you clap directly in the center of the plaza the echo sounds like the quetzal bird's call. Temple 3 and Temple 4 are to the west of the plaza and face it and Temple 5 is to the south and also faces the main plaza. Temple 4 is the biggest and at 63 meters it is a very popular place to watch the sunset and the sunrise over the other temples. The entire area around Tikal is a huge national park and Tikal is filled with jungle animals and birds. We saw many spider monkeys, coatimundis, agoutis, toucans, parrots and two big birds, the ocellated turkey and the crested guan. After exploring some of the park we climbed Temple 4 and watched the sun set over Northern Guatemala. We were kicked out of the park when it got dark and arranged to set our hammocks up in the camping site outside of the park. We were planning to get up at 5am to watch the sunrise but it was cloudy so we slept in. I got up at 6am when it got light and went in. Everybody else was up on Temple 4 so I had the park to myself. The birds were out in force and there was chirping, chattering and cawing everywhere. At one point there was a crested guan and a toucan having a loud, agressive discussion. It was very awe-inspiring to be walking among these huge monuments listening to the jungle waking up. After leaving the park we got into a pick-up game of soccer with some of the shuttle drivers that were waiting around and then headed back to Flores.

We headed south to the town of Rio Dulce for the night. The town is near the small Caribbean shore of Guatemala and is a transportation crossroad with both a heavily used river to the Caribbean and the main highway between Guatemala and Tikal. In the morning we headed to some limestone pools nearby. Getting there involved a combination of hitch-hiking, minibusing and an hour of walking. The pools were the familiar limestone green and the waterfalls were truly impressive including a huge 40 foot one. There was an excellent ledge for jumping here and we spent most of our time jumping and diving into the pool. The park was off the tourist track and we had the park to ourselves for the entire day. Returning the same way we ran into a full minibus and we had to sit on the roof of the bus to get our ride.

The next day we took a boat down the river Rio Dulce to the Caribbean coast and the town of Livingston. The river was wide and very calm and there were 100 foot limestone cliffs before we reached the Caribbean. It was the first time on the Caribbean on this trip but we plan to stay on it for the next few weeks. The town had no roads and was focused on the water. It appeared to be a popular stop for yachts sailing around the Caribbean and was full of good restaurants. We left on a boat the next day for Puerto Barrios, the only Caribbean port Guatemala has. From there we got a bus to the Honduran border and stopped at the beach town of Omoa. It was still early in the day so we hiked a couple of kilometers to a nearby waterfall, which was pretty but not very clean. After I visited the restored fort in the town. It was built by the Spaniards to protect the gold route but it took a long time to finish. It was captured often by pirates, the final time in 1820 but is carefully restored and interesting to explore.

Back to Canada II

2008-05-03T23:21:00.010-06:00

We left El Salvador by heading up the Pacific Coast to Guatemala. The views from the cliffs were impressive and the road was surprisingly good compared to what I was used to in Costa Rica. In Guatemala we headed to Antigua, the old capital of Guatemala. It is by far the most popular city with tourists in Guatemala and probably all of Central America. The first day I arrived I went to a local club were the had a live salsa band. The drummer and singer was one of the surviving members of the Buena Vista Social Club in Cuba and the music was excellent. The next day I went up Volcano Pacaya. The volcano is quite active right now and we weren't allowed to climb all the way to the top but they did allow us to go on the lava fields. There were lots of pockets of glowing red lava that you could walk right up to as long as you could stand the heat. You could look down cracks in the rocks and see the glowing red as well. Some of the rocks we were walking on were molten lava the day before and in many places you had to move quickly to avoid melting the bottom of your shoes. The soles of my shoes had melted bits of rocks in them and the middle had started to crack but they held together.

The next day we decided to try a more challenging hike and climbed the Volcan de Agua, the volcano that towers above Antigua. It is 3750 meters or more than 12,000 feet and is almost as high as Chirripó in Costa Rica. It is named volcano of water because it once held a lake in the crater and the water broke out and destroyed the city. Now however it is completely dry and there is a soccer field in the base of the crater. We climbed with an Australian staying in our hostel and we started from the town of Santa Maria, about 30 minutes from Antigua. It was a completely Mayan town where the first language is the local Mayan language and the children don't learn Spanish until school. The trail led up through fields on the slope where we met numerous pack horses making their way down the mountain. After four hours of hiking we arrived at the summit. The view was cloudy but we could sometimes make out Antigua or Santa Maria. There was a bunch of radio towers on the peak and we ran into a technician fixing one of them who offered us a ride back to Antigua when we got back down the mountain. His job involved traveling all over Guatemala fixing different problems and it usually involved trekking through forest or jungle to get to the machinery.

The next day we left Antigua. We headed to Guatemala City first and quickly took in the central park and other sites before heading to Lake Atitlan. There was a lot of construction on the road and despite our bus drivers best attempts to pass everything when at all possible the trip took a long time. We finally arrived at the lake just after dark and took a ferry across the lake to San Pedro. It was a full moon and there was a night time party on the shores of the lake in the moonlight. Lake Atitlan is a clean clear lake surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. It is very beautiful. The next dayI decided to climb the San Pedro Volcano which looms above the town. The volcano is located in a national park and is about 3000 m high. It was a steep climb up and much of the trail consisted of stairs built into the side of the mountain. The trail wound through fields of coffee, corn and beans before entering the cloud forest at the top. The peak, however, was also covered in clouds and there was no view of the lake except at the beginning and end of the trip. Coming down was much easier as gravity did most of the work as we ran down. We hung out in the town another day with people we had met in the town before heading out on Wednesday.

We took the bus to Xela, the second biggest city in Guatemala, where we were planning to organize a trip up to Volcan Tajumulco. We had decided to do the trek with a group called Quetzaltrekkers. They are a group of volunteers that provide organized treks to different parts of Guatemala and Nicaragua. All the proceeds from these treks are put into different organizations. In Guatemala the proceeds went to organizations that help street kids get an education and try to get off the streets. We found Quetzaltrekkers and signed up for the weekly trip up Tajumulco on Saturday. We had two extra days before the trek so we went to the nearby hot springs in Fuente Georginas. They were high up in a cloud forest 45 minutes from the city where the hot water oozed out of the cliff walls. The deep green mineral stained water was collected in a series of pools that gradually got cooler as they drained down. The location was very beautiful and the water was more than hot enough to ignore the chilly temperature of the air. Xela is at 2300m (7500ft) and is quite chilly at night and the hot springs are even higher and cooler. The next day I went to the markets at San Francisco which is the second biggest market in the country. Almost all the streets were filled with hundreds of stands selling all kinds of products. The only streets that were empty of stands were a loop for cars and buses to arrive. The bus that I took to and from San Francisco was packed with people and the goods they were trying to sell. That night there was a meeting with Queztaltrekkers to determine what equipment to bring. I decided to borrow a winter coat, a toque, a sleeping mat and a bigger backpack to take with me. I was also given a tent to carry as my share of the load. There were 15 signed up for the trip so the individual loads were smaller.

The next day we had to get up at 4am to join the trek. Unfortunately Greg had come down with a flu overnight and the first thing he did after waking up was vomit. However he was determined to do the trek so he came anyway. The group of us got on a local bus with all of our stuff and headed two hours to the town of San Marcos. We had breakfast there and then got on another bus to the foot of Tajumulco. The start of our trek was 3000 meters in altitude. We hiked all morning up the volcano enjoying an excellent view of the surrounding countryside. We stopped for lunch at the halfway point. Greg was still really sick and was vomitting the whole way up the mountain but he was determined to get up to the top so he continued to climb slowly at the back of the pack. We reached our camp at around 4:00 pm at 4000 meters. We set up the four tents and the rest of the camp. There was a short optional hike up a smaller peak to see the sunset. The clouds had moved in a bit and the sun was setting behind Tajumulco but the colours were amazing and we watched the lights slowly turn on in the villages and towns all around the volcano. We returned to camp just in time to eat a filling pasta dinner. We all got to bed early to prepare for the summit the next day.

The guides woke us up the next morning at 3:30am. I had managed to keep myself warm enough in the frigid night but I had trouble sleeping due to trouble adjusting to the altitude so I was happy to get up and get going. We brought our warm clothes and headed up the rocky summit. It was only about an hour of scrambling until we reached the peak, 4220m (13 845 ft), the highest point in Central America and my new personal highest point. We got into our warm sleeping bags and watched the sun rise. There were hardly any clouds and we had a great view of Guatemala. We could see from the volcanoes of Lago Atitlan to the mountains of Mexico and the colours were amazing. The wind was bitter though, and we soon headed back down to camp. We had a big breakfast and headed back down the mountain, enjoying a great view the whole way. The guides said that this was one of the clearest days that they had seen. We were very fortunate to have such good weather as well as hiking with a really interesting and friendly group of people, both the guides and the other trek members. We ate lunch in the town at the foot of the volcano and headed back to Xela on local buses. Greg didn't eat much because he was still feeling under the weather but he had stopped vomitting and was very happy that he had made it to the top.

Back to Canada I

2008-04-16T18:49:00.009-06:00

My last day of work was the second of April and I left Bagaces to travel back to Canada on the following day. I headed to Nicaragua and arrived in Grenada after dark. I checked into the familiar Bearded Monkey hostel for the night and talked with a number of interesting travellers including one from Woodstock Ontario. The next morning I headed to Leon and I met up with Greg, who is also travelling back to Canada, in one of the hostels. The next day we signed up for volcano-boarding on the Saturday and visited some of the sites in the city, including a bizarre folklore museum set inside an old Somozan prison that was used to torture dissidents in the 60's and 70's. The volcano boarding was quite an experience as we climbed a brand new 100 year old volcano just outside Leon. The trip to the volcano was in a back of a pickup truck and we went through rural Nicaragua, down many one lane tracks covered in thick volcanic dust. The volcano looked like a huge black rock sticking out of the farmland. We were each given goggles, bright orange coveralls and board modified to be a tobaggon and we lugged them up to the top. The top had an active crater that was warm and was actively leaking sulfuric fumes. We took our sleds to the steep black slope of the volcano and were given a quick course on proper volcano boarding technique. Then each of us took turns sliding down the entire volcano. You could brake as much as you wanted with your feet but you also could reach up to 60 kph going straight down. I attempted to be the fastest one down by avoiding braking as much as possible but I managed to wipe out near the bottom and tumbled down the volcano. I managed to get back on the board and finish the slide but when I peeled off my coveralls I noticed that my legs and arms were covered in deep scratches from the crash. I had by far the worst injuries of the group and as a prize I was given a free Volcano Boarding hat. After the boarding we ran into Justin, another ex-Bagaceno, who had also finished work at Saco and was heading up the Pacific Coast to Guatemala surfing the whole way. The next day I ended up attending a rooster fight in the afternoon. It is a common event in both Nicaragua and Costa Rica but I had never attended one in Bagaces. There was a small ring on this farm just outside Leon and the spectators would place bets on the winner of each match. Normally neither rooster is killed but I didn't enjoying watching the fights and soon left after watching the locals place bets and cheer on their roosters.

I left Leon on Monday with Greg and we went to the Honduran border. We caught a bus directly across the southern bit of Honduras to El Salvador and spent the night in San Miguel in El Salvador. In the morning we went to the northern mountain town of Perquin which was the guerrilla's capital during the El Salvador civil war from 1979-1992. It is very peaceful now and has a sobering museum dedicated to the war. There were many powerful photos and weapons relics from the war (including parts from an American helicopter shot down) as well as the room where they used to broadcast the guerrilla radio broadcast. There was also a trail up the nearby Cerro Perquin where there was a great view of the mountains and were remains of a guerrilla encampment including trenches and foxholes. Returning to San Miguel in the afternoon we then travelled to the capital of San Salvador. The next day was spent hanging around the capital. I looked for a camera to replace my broken one but I decided I would continue to use Greg's pictures for now. Also, one of my wounds on my upper thigh was beginning to bother me because it was constantly rubbing on my shorts. I went into a pharmacy to find a bandage and ran into a couple of friendly medical staff from the nearby Green Cross and they invited me to the clinic and thoroughly cleaned the wound and bandaged it up properly.

The next day we headed to the nearby Joyas de Ceren which was an ancient Mayan village that had been perfectly preserved by a volcanic eruption, similar to Pompeii. The citizens had managed to escape but all the house's pottery and even the food had been preserved. It gave a good insight into the day-to-day life of a regular Mayan village, rather than the great buildings of the other Mayan sites. After we headed north to the mountain town of San Ignacio near the Honduran border. The next morning we caught a steep bus up the mountains. It was only 10 km of well-paved road but the trip lasted an hour because it was so steep. It was only another hour and half hike from the bus to reach El Pital, the highest mountain in El Salvador. It was fairly cloudy and there wasn't much of a view but the peak was directly on the border between Honduras and El Salvador and it was fun to jump from country to country. We quickly returned to the town and managed to catch a ride with a pickup truck back down to San Ignacio. We caught a bus back to the capital and spent the night in San Salvador again.

The next day we headed down to the Pacific coast to spend about three days on the beaches of El Salvador surfing and hanging out on the beach. The first beach I stayed at, Playa Tunco, had more tourists and hotels and restaurants. It had a famous surf break at Zunzal that hosts a number of surfing competitions every year. The main break was too advanced for me but I managed to find a smaller wave to surf on for a couple of hours. After a day at this beach we headed down the coast to another quieter beach, Playa El Zonte, where we strung up our hammocks in a house of people we had met in San Salvador. This beach was popular with surfers but there were hardly any other type of tourists and the town was still a normal small Salvadoran village. We spent two days there practicing surfing on the smaller waves. It wasn't the best for surfing directly on the break of the wave but the surf was so powerful there was no problem getting up in the whitewash. We took pictures of each other surfing as well as some of our bigger wipeouts. It was a lot of fun but I was glad when we left because the front of my chest was being rubbed raw by the surfboard. The salt water healed my volcanic wounds but I managed to add to my injury list by scraping the top of my foot on a rock leaving large gashes across the foot. I also managed a nice sunburn but it was refreshing spending a few days on the beach.

El Salvador is a very small country and it is extremely easy to get around. You rarely have to wait more than 15 minutes for a bus to any part of the country and you can cross the country easily in 6 hours. There are a lot less tourists here than in Costa Rica or neighbouring Guatemala but the people are extremely friendly. They never seem bothered by questions about buses or directions and go out of their way to make sure you get to where you are going. The war seems to be a distance memory to most of the people here but there are still serious economic problems and we were constantly warned about being careful in certain areas of San Salvador. We never encountered any problems in the country and I definitely enjoyed my stay.

Darien II

2008-03-31T16:25:00.010-06:00

We managed to catch the boat leaving from La Palma to Garachiné and headed down the rest of the estuary. The estuary continued to open and soon we couldn't see the far shore as we hugged the southern shore. The entire coastline was pure jungle except for one small village and a lodge located in the Punta Patiño Reserve located on point sticking out into the sea. The last part of the trip was spent crossing open water and the wind picked up the boat's spray and blew it over the passengers. Luckily it was hot enough that I didn't mind the soaking as long as my bag was safely stowed away in the front of the boat. Of all the passengers in the boat probably the most miserable was a rooster somebody had brought along. He occasionally crowed his displeasure even though it was the afternoon, nowhere near dawn. Finally, after about a 2-3 hour boat trip we pulled into the town of Garachiné and now we had to figure out how to get to the nearby Sambú. It was only 20km away and the people on the boat told us that there was a road connecting the two communities. We managed to find somebody in town who would drive us down the very poor road to Sambú. Arriving in Sambú we were immediately spotted by an army officer who took down our information. He gave us a name of the community's tourist organizer and mentioned that she could arranged all of our guides and boat that we needed to get up the river.

We got a good look at the community as we walked. It was actually two separate communities on each side of the river connected by a bridge. The one we arrived at was Sambú and it had was more of a latino village with more concrete houses as well as the town airport. On the other side of the river, accessible only by a pedestrian bridge, was Puerto Indio. This community was mostly and Indian village and had the traditional Indian houses, bamboo huts which were perched high off the ground to avoid flooding in the wet season. Many of the older Indians wore the traditional colorful clothing and had their entire torso covered in jagua tattoos, where the skin is temporarily stained blue by a type of fruit called jagua. We easily found the woman we were looking for because everybody knew where she lived. She was a very friendly, young Indian who assured us that she would arrange everything we would need for our trip. She also invited us to spend the night in the building next to hers which was being used as a classroom. We each had hammocks so it was no problem to string up our hammocks between a couple of bamboo poles in the hut. After settling in we tried to arrange a way out of Sambú on Friday. First we went to the airline where we knew there was a flight out on Fridays but they said that was no domestic flights this Friday because it was Good Friday. We then learned that there was no boats out on Friday for the same reason. At this point we had no choice but to plan to return on the Wednesday by plane. This did not leave us much time to explore the river. Luckily, as we returned to our hammocks we ran into our host and a friend. He was headed back to La Palma on Thursday and offered to take us, which we gladly agreed.

The next day we set off in a piragua, a shallow dugout canoe with a motor. We had two guides go with us up the river. The guy in the back handled the motor and the guy in the front had a long bamboo pole that he used to pole the boat through parts of the river that were too shallow to use a motor. The two communicated silently with signals as the man in front would point out the shallow parts and any floating debris. It was only about 50 km as the crow flies but the winding river and the shallow parts meant the upriver trip took 6 hours. We passed four or five Indian villages but the rest of the trip was through pure jungle. Often we would jump out to help drag the piragua through a particularly shallow current. At one point we passed a group of Indians fishing and we picked up a couple of catfish-like fish that we would eat later that night for supper. Eventually we arrived at our destination, the village of Pavarandó, the last village on the river where further boat travel was impossible. After Pavarandó there was another 60 km of untouched mountainous jungle to the Colombian border. Our guide said that it would take months just to walk to Colombia.

We arrived in the village and were setup in a hut that was reserved for visitors. We set up our hammocks and we watched as they picked fresh coconuts and bananas and brought them to us to eat. We talked with the community representative and he arranged our food preparation and some other things to do in the town. After having our supper of fish it was arranged that we would get jagua tattoos from the local artist. Our presence attracted interest from the entire town, especially the children, and our hut was soon full. The jagua paste went on very light and it was difficult to see the tattoos. After waiting for it to dry we washed it off in the river and it was so faded that it seemed like it didn't work. However the next morning my skin was stained bright blue and it stayed stained for at least a week after. Our plan the next morning was to hike in the jungle. The community had arranged a guide for us and his dog tagged along as well. We followed a trail that led up a nearby mountain and was contructed to maintain a pipe of water that led down from a spring high up on the mountain. The jungle was extremely thick and we managed to see a Geoffrey's Tamarind, a tiny monkey that only lives in Panama. The guide's dog also scared a gray fox, a cat-like fox that lives in trees, off a tree, giving me a good view of the animal. At one point we veered off the trail and the guide hacked his way through the jungle with a machete until we reached a small stream where there was a refreshing swimming pool. We didn't have time to climb the entire mountain so we headed back to catch our boat ride back down the river. We had another meal of fish and said goodbye to the villagers. The trip back downriver was two hours quicker and the river's current did most of the work in the shallow areas.

Arriving back at Puerto Indio in the late afternoon we learned the bad news that our ride had left due to an emergency and we were now stuck without transportation until Monday. On Thursday our host tried to arrange for us to go back with a government official who had arrived to give out the monthly money to the students for school supplies. Unfortunately he did not plan on returning to La Palma but said he would take us if we paid for the gas there and back. This was not a cheap way because gas was $5 a gallon and it was a big boat but we didn't have any other option. The boat was extremely fast and we sped out of Rio Sambu back into the Pacific. We made it to La Palma in only two hours. In La Palma we again had trouble arranging a boat in the holidays but eventually we made it back to the mainland and Meteti. We spent the night in Meteti and caught a bus to Panama City at 4am. The bus was nearly empty as few people were travelling but the trip was bonejarringly rough and it was almost impossible to get any sleep.

Back in the city we tried to get a hostel in Casco Antiguo again but it was full again. However we managed to find another really nice hostel called Moon's Castle with a great view of the Panamanian skyline. It was brand new, it didn't even exist the last time I was in Panama, but it was packed. There was plenty of interesting people there and the next door neighbor was an extremely rich mansion that was owned by the same man who owned the ports in Panama as well as many in Asia. They were hosting a dinner party that night and we watched the guests arrive and eat out on their huge outdoor balcony from our tiny balcony in the hostal. We stayed a couple of nights in the city and saw some of the sites before making our way back the 20+ hour trip to Bagaces.

Darien I

2008-03-28T13:36:00.006-06:00

Last week was Semana Santa or Easter Week so we had a week off from work. I decided to go to the Darien Province of Panama with Greg, a friend from work.

We left right after work on Friday, catching the bus to San Jose. We intended to catch the bus to Panama City that night but it was full of travelers taking advantage of the holidays. We ended up staying in a hostel in San Jose and tried to set out the next morning. The buses were full in the morning as well but we managed to get a bus to the border. The border crossing went much quicker this time since the lines were short and we didn't need to get our bags checked. We hopped on a bus headed for Panama City, arriving in the city at midnight. We found a hostel where I had stayed before but unfortunately it was full so we were forced to stay in the Casa Grande, which is overpriced at $3 a night. The next day we caught a bus to the Darien. It was 6 hours of bumpy roads in a packed bus so we were happy to get out. We then took a half hour minivan bus ride down to the nearby port. All through the day we were constantly stopped by police and army posts and they took our passports and wrote down all our information. The Darien Province is almost completely jungle and Colombian guerrilla troops and drugs are fairly common. There have been quite a number of foreigners being taken hostage and searching for these lost people is extremely difficult and expensive for the Panamanian army. This means they try to keep a close track of all foreigner movements in the province so they have a better idea of where to look. A week before, the army had arrested 6 FARC guerrillas in a river near where we were going and the FARC released a statement warning that they would get revenge. So the army was being extra careful. Luckily, the river we were going to was considered safe so we had little trouble getting through the checkpoints.

At the port we hopped on a motor boat and headed out into nearly unspoilt jungle to the capital of the Darien, La Palma. The boat travelled down the estuary of a river towards the ocean and the waves and gentle rolling hills reminded me of canoeing in the lakes of northern Ontario, only with jungles trees rather than pine trees. After a quick 30 minute trip we arrived at the docks of La Palma. It is a one street town and reminded me of towns such as Bastimientos and Tortuguero, small towns revolving around boat travel. La Palma actually did have a road that led about 30 km to a nearby town but it was not connected to the rest of the Panamanian road system. After asking around we found a nice hostel run by a friendly grandmotherly lady that everbody in town called 'Maestra', the spanish word for teacher. We were the only foreigners staying that night but we ran into an American eating supper there and he had spent a long time in La Palma helping to build a sail boat.

The next morning we got up early and headed down to the dock to try and find a boat to the Sambu River, our original destination. We had no idea how much it would cost and the guide book indicated that it would be more than $100 to get somebody to go. However talking to 'Maestra' and other locals we learned that it would be better to take a boat to the town of Garachiné, which was much closer to the river. We managed to learn at the docks that there was a boat to Garachiné on the Monday and it showed up after only a few minutes. Unfortunately the boat wasn't returning to Garachiné until 11am so we had the morning to kill. Back at the hostel we ran into the American again eating breakfast and he invited us to see the boat. The boat was built by an American former Peace Corps volunteer who decided to return to La Palma and build a boat with the Indians of the Darien. Here is the website for the boat. They sailed the boat all the way through the Panama Canal, the Caribbean and the Eastern Coast of the States up to Maine. They brought as crew members seven Indians who had never been outside of the Darien and it must have been quite an experience for them. The purpose of the trip was to raise awareness of the Embera Indians in the Darien as well as indigenous people throughout the world. Right now the boat is in dry dock and the owner in the States is trying to raise money to refurbish the boat and put a better engine in it. They plan to sail it to Europe for the next trip. We also saw the shop where they built the boat and it was still being used continuously by the local carpenters. Soon it was almost 11 and we had to head back to the town dock and catch our boat.

2008-02-22T13:43:00.007-06:00

Two weekends ago I went back to Nicaragua to the beach at San Juan del Sur. There was a Harley Davidson gathering going on in the town and there were lots of motorcycles around from all across Central America and probably some from the States. I went on Saturday night to a bar where they had a live band. They covered a lot of old rock, such as Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones and they were really good. The guitar player especially was impressive.

Last weekend I took the Monday off of work to go down to the Caribbean for three days. I left Friday afternoon with a friend from Bagaces and arrived late in San Jose. We woke up early to catch the 6:00 am bus to the Caribbean but we arrived slightly too late to grab a seat and were forced to stand the whole way. We got off in the town of Cahuita at about 11 am. Cahuita has one of last living coral reefs in Costa Rica so we decided to go snorkeling. We arranged a three hour tour with a local guide and headed out on his boat to the national park. There were a lot of waves which made the water somewhat cloudy but the reef was still full of fish. We saw a couple of manta rays and the floor was covered in big black sea urchins. After the tour we got on a bus to Puerto Viejo, which a half hour further south down the coast, where we found a place to stay for the night.

The next morning was cloudy and slightly drizzly but we rented bikes anyway. The bike rental place was the same place I went to the last time I was in Puerto Viejo. When I came in July the owner talked about his opposition to the Central American Free Trade Agreement and his plans for traveling to a protest where the president was speaking. However this time he was in a middle of an epileptic fit and was in no mood to talk. His neighbours had come over and were helping him and had called an ambulance. They were nice enough to rent bikes to us anyway, and we headed off after they assured us that they didn't need any help. We headed south along the coast and soon reached a large group gathered at the side of the road. We investigated and soon saw a sloth sitting on the ground right there. It must have come down to go to the washroom, which it does once a week, and was close enough to touch. It was the closest encounter with wildlife in Costa Rica yet. We continued along the coast and the surrounding jungle grew more and more thick. At times the sky was filled with vultures, more vultures than I had ever seen together at one time. I don't know if this was normal there but I wondered how they could find enough food to feed all of them. Eventually we came to a group of howler monkeys and started to take some pictures at the side of the road. However, looking closer at the jungle, we noticed that the undergrowth was one huge spider web and there were tens of big spiders all through the web. It seems that the jungle has no problem supporting large amounts of creatures. Continuing down the road we arrived at Manzanillo, a popular beach, which marked the southernmost extent of the road. This entire area at the edge of Panama is preserved as a reserve and seemed to attract a lot of Ticos on vacation. We were hungry and managed to find a very friendly, family-owned place, Soda Miskito. It was owned by an older Caribbean couple who cooked up some authentic Caribbean food. The husband, George, was very friendly and chatted with us while we ate. He brought out some of his special homemade chile sauce made from banana vinegar among other things. It was extremely spicy but very good. He promised to make a big batch for us to take the next time we came. After eating we returned to the beach and followed a jungle trail for as long as our bikes could take us. This area also had a coral reef which was vaguely related to the one in Cahuita, but lacking snorkeling gear, we were unable to see very much. The beach was very quiet despite there being a couple of howler monkeys hanging around and it was easy to spend an afternoon there. We returned the 11 km back to Puerto Viejo before dark and took the bikes back to the rental place. The owner was back from hospital and he was himself again. He told us he didn't remember anything from his fit and didn't understand where it had come from because he was taking his pills. He was just happy he hadn't bit his tongue that time. We thanked him for the bikes and went to get a sushi supper.

The next morning we tried to get our tickets early, but unfortunately we were too late again. Instead of standing the whole way we decided to get tickets to Puerto Limon and then take a bus to San Jose. This ended up working perfectly as we made the connection quickly and easily and we both had a seat for the entire trip. Eventually after 8 hours on the bus we made it back to Bagaces.

2008-02-03T14:32:00.001-06:00

Last week I took four days off work to visit Chirripó National Park with a friend from work. The park is one of the most popular in Costa Rica because it contains the highest peak in the country, Cerro Chirripó. The only way to spend a night in the park is to reserve a bed in a lodge near the peak. January to April is the dry season and the most popular time to climb the mountain. This meant that January 29th and 30th were the only available days in the entire four months.

The park is on the other side of San Jose and we had to leave from Bagaces at 5 am. It was a four hour trip to San Jose, a three hour trip to the city of San Isidro and a two hour bus trip up a dirt road to the little town of San Gerardo. We arrived at 4 pm and immediately confirmed our reservations at the park ranger station. Walking to the town we got a ride from a friendly couple from Arizona who were the proud new owners of a hostel in town. They had just bought the 'Casa Mariposa' a week earlier and were very enthusiastic about it. We decided to spend the night there. The hostel was great and we met a bunch of friendly people who had just gotten back down from the mountain. There were three Canadians and an American and they warned us to expect it to be cold up top.

We left the hostel at 7 am the next morning and headed into the park, which was conveniently located next to the hostel. The trail was extremely well maintained but it was uphill all the way. Every kilometer there was a signpost detailing the kilometer number and the elevation at that point. A kilometer could sometimes involve a gain in altitude of 300m or sometimes only a handful of meters. After 7km we arrived at a rest hut where we met a number of fellow hikers. There was a couple from Germany, a guy from Denmark, a guy from Spain, and a father and daughter from Costa Rica. We continued on and the climb continued fairly smoothly until we reached the 13km mark. At this point the trail became much steeper and the combination of tired legs and thin air made this last kilometer feel like ten but we finally arrived at the lodge at 1 pm. At 3400 meters of elevation the lodge was very chilly. The lodge was a lot bigger than I expected. There were long hallways of rooms with two bunk beds in each room. The lodge accommodates up to 60 people and the solar panels on the roof provided power until 8 pm. There was even two computers with satellite internet that were free to use for any visitors. After resting for a couple hours I decided to acclimatize myself to the elevation by climbing a nearby peak, Cerro Crestones, with some interesting rock formations. The valley in which the lodge was located was soon in the shade but I remained on the slope with the sun. The climbing and the heat from the sun kept me quite warm and there were a bunch of lizards also enjoying the sun lying out on rocks. But in the shade it was still quite cool as demonstrated by sheets of ice hidden in dark crevices. This was the first time I had seen natural ice in Costa Rica. The peak was a huge pillar of rock and gave a great view of the surrounding mountains. I returned to the lodge just as it was getting dark and started to bundle up for the cold night. I put two sweaters on, my rain jacket and I had my sleeping bag and I managed to be just barely warm enough during the night. Unfortunately, the combination of the elevation, the cold, and a lingering sinus infection meant that I snored like a chainsaw the whole night and my three roommates were not impressed. The next night I ended up with a room to myself.

The next morning we got up at the crack of dawn to head to the summit. There was frost everywhere in the morning and any water was covered in a thin layer of ice. The sky was perfectly clear as we made our way along the valley until we arrived at the bottom of the summit. The hike was 5 km but we didn't see the summit of Chirripó until the last kilometer. It was a very steep clamber to the top but with the end in site it was a quick climb. The sky was almost perfectly clear and you could see the lakes surrounding the summit, the Talamanca mountain range heading off to the east, the Caribbean sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. At 3820 meters (12 533 feet) this is the highest point in Costa Rica and the highest point of land that I have ever been on. The sun was warm and there was almost no wind so it was comfortable enough to spend an hour or so enjoying the scenery and filling out the mountaintop log book. There was even a little volcano junco hanging out on the summit waiting for spare crumbs. After descending we decided to take a different route back, one that led to another mountain peak. It was a steep scramble up the side of the mountain but eventually the path reached the top of the ridge. It continued along the ridge until arriving at the peak of Cerro Terbi, which is the third highest in Costa Rica at 3760 meters. One side looked over the valley where the lodge was located and the other side gave a great view over the south of Costa Rica. The trail back down to the lodge went past Cerro Crestones which I had visited the day before. The plan was to eat lunch and then climb the second highest mountain in Costa Rica, Cerro Ventisqueros, but I had slightly twisted my knee coming down the mountain so I decided to rest for a couple of hours. I ended up falling asleep and waking up at sunset. So I decided to just have supper and call it a night.

The next morning we set out at 6 am down the mountain. Going downhill was much easier and it only took us 4 hours to descend back down to the town. Back in town we had a big lunch, the first meal that didn't involve tuna or crackers in 2 days. There were no buses leaving for the city of San Isidro so we managed to hitch a ride with a Tico bringing fresh fish down from the mountain. We didn't get back to Bagaces until almost midnight after many hours of riding the bus and waiting for buses. The ice and cold of the mountains was not what I consider to be the typical Costa Rican experience but the stunning vistas more than made up for the discomfort.

2008-01-24T15:18:00.000-06:00

This post will be a wrap up of trips that I have been on for the last month. In the middle of December I returned to Rincon de la Vieja National Park near Liberia. The original intention was to climb the volcano again with some of my friends but we arrived late in the morning and decided to just visit the waterfalls instead. There were two waterfalls and I had never been to one of the waterfalls so I didn't know what to expect. It ended up being a steep 2km climb that went almost halfway up the volcano. It was a good thing we had decided not to climb the volcano because, given the trouble on this trail, we would not have made it. We finally arrived at a beautiful valley with multiple waterfalls pouring into the inaccessible depths. Walking up the river a few hundred meters we found another smaller waterfall with blue mineral stained waters and it made a good but very cold swimming pool. Later we took a much flatter and easier trail to the other waterfall. This one was much bigger and warmer and the blue was brilliant. On the return trail we ran across three boa constrictors lying by the path. These were the first wild boas I had seen and this picture is of me showing one off. Here is a movie my friend made of the trip.

After returning from Canada after Christmas I managed to make a trip to the Santa Rosa national park before work started. I went there in March of 2006, the second week I was here, but it was a bit different this time. It's just the start of the dry season so everything is still green and the wind keeps everything a lot cooler. I went with the American surfer from Saco and we met another traveller, a German, in the Liberia bus station who was also going to the park. We arranged a taxi to the main campsite, 13 km from the beach, where we were intending on camping just as it was getting dark. However the German wanted to make it to the beach to meet his friends so we started to walk down the rough road. Luckily it only took about 1 or 2 km of walking in the pitch black before a pickup truck showed up. They were willing to give us a ride and we all climbed in the back.

The campsite when we arrived was packed with people. The last time I came there was only one other group but this time is the holidays for the Costa Ricans. I set up my hammock tent and met the German's friends who were all studying in a University in Heredia near San Jose, mostly biology. The next morning I took a walk through the dry forest and it led to a watering hole which had almost dried up already. There was still a small pool where a bunch of water birds were hanging around in but the rest was cracked and dried clay. In the afternoon I walked the other direction down the beach until I arrived at Witch's Rock, the famous rock formation where surfing is excellent as this clip from the movie Endless Summer 2 demonstrates. There was nowhere to rent a board so I couldn't surf but there were two boats there from Tamarindo bringing surfers. I wandered up an inlet looking for wildlife, but I didn't see much, not even a crocodile. I found a path through the woods that led back to the campsite so I decided to take it rather than return all the way to the beach. Unfortunately, halfway back the ground was littered with thorns which were not pleasant on my bare feet. By the time I made it back, my feet felt like pincushions.

The next morning we headed out of the park, walking uphill the 13 km back to the ranger station. Luckily there were clouds and a faint drizzle and I had lots of water which made it a much more pleasant trip than the time I went in March. When we arrived in the main camping area we ran into a couple from Quebec who were here on a vacation. They agreed to drive us back to the highway which saved us another 8 km of walking. At the highway we were lucky and quickly caught a bus back to Bagaces.

Last weekend I decided to test out my new waterproof camera. On Saturday I went inner tubing in a place nearby Bagaces. I had been twice before, but this time I could take photos and videos of the trip down the river without losing my camera. It was somewhat complicated to film and stay on the tube at the same time and one time I flipped off when I hit a rock going backwards. I managed to avoid bashing the camera against the rocks by cushioning the blows with my body. My camera survived and I proved that it really was waterproof.
The next morning I went to Playa Conchal on the Pacific coast. It is a beautiful white beach with the sand consisting of crushed up shells. Being the summer vacation down here, the beach was quite crowded. The beach was in a sheltered area so the waves were not nearly as powerful as those at Tamarindo but they still broke powerfully against the sand. There was a rocky area nearby that was good for snorkeling so I took my camera out to try and get some pictures. The waves prevented the water from being very clear but there were still fish to be seen. It was significantly less impressive than in the Kuna Islands but I did take some pictures and the camera seemed to work fine underwater.

This past Wednesday I went to Liberia to watch a soccer match between Liberia and La Liga from Alajuela. La Liga is probably the second most popular team in San Jose behind Saprissa and so the stadium was packed. The stadium is basically just a field with a bunch of grandstands surrounding the field but the crowd was very enthusiastic. Liberia was the better team in this match and they surprised La Liga by winning 3-1. The crowd had some La Liga supporters but most of the crowd left happy.

Second Panama Trip II

2007-12-12T14:08:00.001-06:00

We returned from the Kuna Islands to Panama City the next day with a four hour trip down the river and up the bouncy mountain road. We got back by noon and had showers as soon as we could. We then went to the Metropolitan National Park where we had a good view of the city and tried to find some of the native Geoffroy's tamarin monkeys. We saw one of these tiny squirrel sized monkeys living as a pet on the Kuna islands but were unable to find a wild group. That night we stayed in a different hostel, one that was closer to the heart of the 'new' city. It was full of international restaurants and nightspots. We ended up eating at a sushi restaurant with hundreds of different types of sushi. It was also the last night for one of my friends because she had to get back to Costa Rica, taking a bus leaving at 11:00 pm.

The next morning we decided to head to the town of Santa Fe, a small village in the mountains west of Panama City. On the way we stopped at in the town of Natá to see the church there. The church was built in 1522 after the Spanish decided to establish a city after defeating a large Indian settlement. The inside and outside of the church were well maintained and restored. We continued on to the city of Santiago where we ate the traditional Panamanian soup, sancocho. The next bus we took climbed a beautiful mountain road to Santa Fe. We arrived in town just as it was getting dark and managed to find a hostel. It wasn't in the guide book, but it had been recommended by someone we met in Panama City. It was a gorgeous hostel. It looked like a mountain cabin and had a great view. The rooms were cheap and, most importantly, it had hot showers which was perfect for the cool mountain air. The family that owned it were French and they were very friendly and gave us a bunch of suggestions about places to see. We decided to do a long hike so we went to bed early.

The next morning we headed out on a hike to a waterfall. The first 5-10 km followed a dirt road that rose and dropped steeply from valley to valley. Eventually we arrived at the trail head that led to the waterfall and the Santa Fe National Park. The trail was full of butterflies of many different kinds. It crossed a number of streams before leading to the river and a very impressive waterfall. Unfortunately there were a number of huge rocks and a steep cliff that prevented us from getting a close look but the spray of the falls kept everything damp, even at a distance. We stopped to have lunch and later I decided to try to make my way across the rocks to get a better picture of the falls. This was the wrong decision. I stepped on one particularly slippery rock and plunged 10 feet into the water to the amusement of my friend. I got out as quickly as I could but it was too late for my camera. At first it wouldn't turn on at all but later after it dried out it seemed to work fine but would only take black photos. Luckily I was able to salvage the pictures I had taken but my camera won't be taking any more. Since I was wet anyways, I swam up the river to the base of the waterfall and was suitably impressed by the power of the falls. The return trip involved many more butterfly sitings and even a bright green snake streaking through the grass. Once back on the road we returned a different way and ran into hundreds of yellow and white butterflies flitting around the banks of the river.

The next morning we went to the local coffee making factory where the manager gave us a free tour of the premises. The locally grown coffee was brought in, separated into higher and lower quality batches, dried out in the sun and in the heat and then roasted. The roasting room smelled incredibly good. The beans were then ground and packaged. They were sold around the world, mostly to Germany and they were also available in Panama and locally. I also visited an orchid garden where the owner hosted an orchid festival in August that attracted people from all over Panama. This time of the year there weren't many orchids blooming but it was an interesting experience. Later in the day I decided to go inner tubing. I had met a kid on the bus and he rented out inner tubes to go down the river. I found his house and got a tube. He gave me instructions on where to stop and I set off by myself. It was the end of the rainy season so the river was quite full and fast. After about 10 minutes another large river joined creating even larger rapids. I managed to make it almost all the way down this section but the last mini waterfall flipped over my tube and threw me out. I had forgotten to take my hat off at the beginning so it was knocked into the river. I tried to swim over to grab it but it got swept away in the fast current and I never saw it again. Meanwhile my tube had gotten stuck in a whirlpool and I couldn't swim back to get it. I had to get out on the shore and make my way back to the tube and then carefully swim rock to rock across the current until I could jump into the tube and free it from the whirlpool. The rest of the trip was a bit more leisurely as the river spread out and I could enjoy the beautiful scenery and the water birds in solitary peace. Once I got out of water I had a 5 km uphill walk back to town carrying my tube but it was well worth it for the tubing.

This was my last day in Panama as I had to get back to work. I left my friend behind because she had another week of holidays and I made the long journey back. It was 5 hours back to Panama City where I caught the 11:00 pm bus, 15 hours back to San Jose, and 4 hours back to Bagaces. After a full 24 hours of riding on a bus I went straight to sleep.

Second Panama Trip I

2007-11-30T10:33:00.000-06:00

I took a week off from work to go to Panama. I left on Friday night with two of my friends. We arrived in San Jose at 10:30pm and just managed to catch the last bus to Panama City leaving at 11:00pm. Luckily it had three extra seats. The bus had reasonably comfortable seats and I managed to sleep until we arrived at the border at 5:00am. Unfortunately the border didn't open until 6:00am, so we were forced to wait in line for an hour. The Panamanian side was no better as acquiring tickets to cross the border and waiting for baggage checking took up another hour or more. The ride through Panama was another six hours but we were served meals and they played movies so it wasn't too bad.

We took a taxi to the part of the city known as Casco Viejo, famous for its colonial buildings, where we found a hostel. We spent the rest of the daylight wandering through the streets, admiring the cathedrals, buildings and monuments in the town before finding a pleasant restaurant to eat at. The next day we took the bus up to the Miraflores Locks on the Panama Canal and watched a big boat pass through. We then returned to the city to look at the ruins of Panama Viejo, which was the site of the original Spanish settlement. We climbed the ruins of the cathedral which gave an excellent view of the ruins and the city of Panama behind. Returning to our hostel, we arranged a meeting with a tour guide to the San Blas Islands who would take us out to the islands.

The next morning we got up at 5 am and we were picked up in a jeep. There were four other people already in the jeep: a couple from Vancouver and two girls from the US. We went east out of the city along the Pan-American highway for about an hour until we reached a dirt road. The road has been recently improved and now it is possible to make the trip in only 2 hours. Previously it would have taken 7 hours of hiking through the jungle. The road rose into the jungle covered mountains and it provided excellent views of the countryside when the clouds cleared. The ride was extremely bumpy, however, and I was glad when we finally arrived at the end of the road. The guide's brother and a boat were waiting on the river and all of our stuff was loaded onto it. The boat made its way up the river and we began to pass a number of dugout canoes manned by the local Indian tribe, the Kunas. At one point we passed a collection of huts and our guide, Germaine, mentioned that it was the local cemetery and we shouldn't take pictures of it. The Kuna people inter their dead in hammocks in a room with offerings left to the spirits to provide smoother passage to the afterlife. Eventually we came out of the river into the Caribbean and the San Blas Islands. We headed to the island of Cartí where our hosts lived. It was a densely populated small island that had 2000 people packed into huts that completely covered the island. We were taken to the far end of the island where our host family lived and we were provided two huts to stay in. One had a bed in it, so the couple from Vancouver took that one, and the other had five hammocks strung up in it. It was very primitive and reminded me of when I lived a couple months in the shack. The floor was dirt and the shower was outside. The outhouse was perched over the sea and you could stare into the toilet and watch the hundreds of tropical fish swimming around in the water below. It was around 11 am by this point, so after we got our stuff packed away into our rooms, Germaine brought us to his boat and took us out to a small island covered in palm trees to spend the rest of the day. The island was so small that it only took about 5 minutes to walk completely around it. Germaine brought us freshly caught and fried fish for our lunch. We spent the day swimming, lying in hammocks, and talking to Germaine about life living on the islands. All of the Kuna people speak the Kuna language and most of them understand Spanish. Germaine's spoken Spanish was excellent and he also spoke a little English but he was much more comfortable speaking in Spanish. He was studying tourism in Panama City and worked in a hostel in the city.

After returning from the beach we had a chance to look around the town. Most of the huts were traditionally constructed with reeds and palm leaves, but some, such as the school and the clinic, were concrete and were built by the Panamanian government. They had a generator on the island that provided electricity between 6 and 11 at night and some houses had a TV, which Germaine mentioned was a new development. The island was full of kids playing games in the street and many of them said Hola or Hello as we passed. At night I got to experience a night's sleep in a hammock. I was pretty uncomfortable in the morning, but I got a decent amount of sleep.

The next morning we set out on a more extended expedition to another group of islands. After an hour boat ride we arrived at Dog Island. This was another beautiful palm-filled tiny island and this one was surrounded by coral reef. There was a sunken ship just under the surface offshore of the island so I took advantage of the opportunity and I went snorkeling for the first time in my life. It was fantastic. The water was incredibly clear and floating above this huge ship teeming with sea life was awe-inspiring. There were so many different kinds of colorful tropical fish swimming about in big schools and small ones. Some were long and skinny, others were round and flat and all of them were brightly colored. I also saw a large barracuda hanging out in one compartment of the ship. It was as long as me and I kept a close eye on it until it decided to take off. Another cool siteing was seeing a group of squid. There was about 10 squids of varying sizes hovering over the white sand. At first I just thought they were funny looking fish swimming backwards but when I looked closer I could see their tentacles. I was so impressed by snorkeling that I spent all afternoon snorkeling around the island. The reef completely encircled the island and I followed it all the way around. The reef itself was a different experience than the boat. The depth varied greatly, some times it was difficult to avoid touching the coral because it was so shallow and other times the bottom dropped out and the coral disappeared into the depths. One of the American girls wasn't quite so lucky in avoiding the coral and got some nasty stings on her hands. It was amazing the amount of life in the sea. At times I would be surrounded by a huge school of fish and there was so many different kinds. Unfortunately I was so engrossed in snorkeling that I forgot my back was exposed to the sun. It was mostly cloudy, but that was all that is needed to give me a nice red sunburn. But the snorkeling was still worth it.

We left the island later in the afternoon and headed out even farther to the edge of the archipelago. The strong waves of the Caribbean could be seen crashing onto the reef at the outer limits. There was a lonely palm tree on an island that would have made a good desert island. Our guide took us to his friend's sailboat. It was a German boat and it was sailing around the world with a crew of 3 volunteers. It was currently spending it time sailing people back and forth from Panama to Colombia. The only way to get to Colombia from Panama is to fly or sail because no road connects them. The boat was anchored and was being cleaned but they gave us a tour and showed us they had space for 24. If you want to make the 5 day trip you would have to help out with the sailing and put up with crowded conditions, but it would be fun. After we left the boat we returned to town. Germaine let out a fishing line and every 5 minutes we would stop and pull in a tuna or some other type of fish. One time he pulled in only a bloody fish head. "Barracuda" he said with a smile, and I thought twice the next time I wanted to put my hand in the water. When we got back we had fish for dinner. After dinner we went to the local museum and were given an hour long lesson on the history and culture of the Kuna people by a very dedicated Kuna who spoke both Spanish and English. The religion of the Kuna has a lot of parallels with Christianity with an Adam and Eve story and a Jesus figure but there was also a lot of emphasis on the spiritual world. The world was affected by many good and bad spirits who were always present and many customs were necessary to appease them. The speaker also mentioned a number of times about the spiritual health a person and blamed illnesses on the fact that too many of the Kuna were gradually being westernized by TV and other influences and were forgetting to take care of the spirits. It was very interesting and it seems that this determination not to lose traditions, but at the same time taking advantage of the technology and tourism available, has made the Kuna people into one of the only indigenous Indian group that is actually growing in size. That night I slept very soundly despite the hammock and the sunburn because I was so exhausted from the entire day.

2007-11-16T10:22:00.000-06:00

Last weekend I went back to Tamarindo to go surfing again. I left on Saturday morning and arrived at the beach in the afternoon. I checked into a surf hostel which had a very friendly Colombian owner who was eager to please. I didn't surf in the afternoon but I managed to watch an especially beautiful sunset on the beach with a full rainbow on the other side of the sky. That evening I went to the skate park in town with my friend from work who liked to skateboard. It was a bowl and we met a couple of locals and an American living in Tamarindo who were spending their evening skating. After we went to the bar in Tamarindo with a half pipe inside.

The next day I rented a surfboard from the hostel and headed out to the beach. The waves were perfect for a beginner surfer because it very calm and a big wave broke every minute or so. This meant that it wasn't necessary to fight the waves to get back out and it was easy to rest between waves. The wave height also was perfect. It was just high enough to make good surfing but it wasn't too high that I couldn't handle it. The only problem I had involved the large number of beginner surfers hanging around. I caught so many waves that I got a lot of practice surfing. Before I was just satisfied by standing up and riding straight ahead in the surf, but after an hour or so of practice I was able to control the direction of the board. Sometimes I was even able to surf parallel to the wave, staying on the crest, just like you are supposed to surf. I probably won't get a chance to surf on waves like that again in the near future, but I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Back at my house I have been having plenty of interesting visitors. One day I got off my bed to find a huge bug on my floor with long legs and even longer antennae. Looking closer, it seemed to have claws like a crab. I couldn't figure out what it was, so the next day I looked it up on the internet and found it was a tailless whip scorpion which is entirely harmless but extremely cool looking. Another night my friend discovered a snake coming in through a hole in the screen window. It looked like either a small boa or a rattlesnake without a rattle. It went onto my kitchen table and tried to hide between the spices. It rattled its tail like rattler and raised it head up to strike if I got near, so I proceeded cautiously. Eventually we managed to get it outside using a broom handle and it slithered away in the darkness. After looking it up the next day I learned that it probably was the mildly venomous lyre snake which is not dangerous, but would have bitten.

2007-10-26T15:12:00.000-06:00

Last weekend I went back to the beaches at Mal Pais and Santa Teresa. A new intern from New York, Justin, arrived at Saco about three weeks ago and he is a big surfer and is trying to go to different beaches every weekend. I decided to join him last weekend.

We left just after work on Friday and caught the bus to Puntarenas. We caught the ferry across to the southern end of the Nicoya Peninsula and arrived at 10:00 pm. We managed to arrange a ride to Mal Pais from a bus on the ferry. The first hour was smooth paved road, but the last hour was a painful bumpy 10 km through potholes and soggy dirt roads. When we finally arrived in Mal Pais the rain was coming down very hard, it was midnight and we had no hotel. Rather than search for a place and get soaked we decided to sleep in the minivan that brought us. The night wasn't particularly comfortable but it was free and way better than being soaked outside.

We woke up at dawn and wandered down the beach toward Santa Teresa beach to the north. Eventually we arrived at a good surfing beach and Justin headed out to surf. I talked to some of the surfers hanging around and then fell asleep on the sand. Later we walked back towards the road and ran across a really neat surf camp/hostel. It was only $8 a night and we had a big room with a bathroom and there was a well equipped communal kitchen as well as a TV room. The hostel itself was a big building with a large courtyard. It had a few shops, such as a convenience store and a t-shirt store, attached to the street side of the building. It also had an old softtop surfboard that I could take out and surf with for free. I went back out to the beach in the afternoon and fought the waves to go surfing. The swells were very high so it was challenging to get the big surfboard out into the water but once I caught a wave it was fast and fun. At first I kept stumbling into rocks and getting pulled sideways down the beach but I eventually discovered a nice rock-free area where I had some success surfing. That night we watched game 6 of the playoffs between Boston and Cleveland and the two Bostonians staying there were very pleased that Boston won.

The next morning we went out surfing again and the waves were even more challenging. I had to return to the shore every 15 minutes to rest. Justin was out farther and was catching the big waves as they were breaking. They were as big waves as he had ever surfed and they were easy to catch so he had a blast. In order to get back to Bagaces we had to catch the four o'clock ferry and we were told that the bus would come at 2:20. We got there by 2:15 but no bus showed up. There was no way we were going to catch the ferry with the next bus so we decided to stay another night. Before returning to the hostel we decided to take advantage of the extra day and rent a quad bike. We were slightly concerned about the security of the quad at the hostel, but we were allowed to park it inside the courtyard. All the roads in the area were in terrible conditions from the rain, but the quad had no trouble getting through, even when we had to cross streams. The first trip we took was south to the Cabo Blanco National Park, the first park in Costa Rica. The trail there went along the shore and sometimes it was only as wide as the quad with a steep drop on the side. The shore was rocky and the waves crashing on them was very impressive. Eventually the trail ended at a volunteer camp where there were people studying the wildlife inside the park and we learned that the access point to the park was on the other side and we were technically not supposed to be there. So we had to back track out of the park and we took another trail that led to Montezuma, another beach town. It was dark by the time we arrived in the next town of Cabuya so we decided to return to our hostel. Unfortunately the lights didn't work on the quad so we had to return the whole way with only the help of a flashlight headlamp. We arrived back at the hostel just in time for the headlights to start working. In the hostel we watched game 7 and the Bostonians were again very pleased when their team won the game and the series. Most of the people in the hostel were surfers and there were people from Uruguay, the States and Switzerland. Some people were living in the town and everybody was enjoying the big waves.

The next morning Justin went out to surf so I took the quad out by myself. I went north along the beach and it got more and more quiet and peaceful. I decided to stop at one isolated beach to take pictures and shut the quad off. I took some shots and sat on the beach for a while before returning to the machine. Unfortunately I had forgotten to shift to neutral when I turned it off and, just like the headlights the night before, it refused to shift the gears without the engine on. And I couldn't turn the engine on until it was in neutral. I was planning to make the long walk back to find help but I decided to wait a half hour and see if it suddenly came back to life like the headlights. I waited and was just about to give up when suddenly it came back to life and I managed to turn it on. I made sure that I always switched it to neutral when I turned it off after that. I continued north along the beach until I reached a river crossing the trail. Even though I could have crossed it, I decided to turn back because it was getting late. This time we managed to catch the bus to the ferry (even though it was stuck behind a dump truck that was mired in the mud for a half hour) and we made it back to Bagaces by 9:00.

2007-09-21T11:53:00.000-06:00

Last weekend was the Costa Rican independence day and I took advantage of the long weekend to go to Tortuguero. This is a small town on the Caribbean coast in the middle of a national park. It is famous for the turtles that lay eggs there and the canals that provide the only transportation to the town.

I left on Friday night with two other people from Bagaces and we spent the night in San Jose. The next day we took the bus out of San Jose and headed across the center of Costa Rica, passing through the beautiful Braulio Carrillo National Park. On the bus we met a friendly guy who works as a guide in Tortuguero and he was useful in assisting us finding our way. We got off the bus in the town of Cariari and we bought a bus/boat ticket to Tortuguero. It was Independence Day so the road was blocked off and a parade was passing through. This meant we had to make our way through the crowd and parade to the bus waiting on the other side. The parade was full of kids waving the Costa Rican flag and playing drums. The hour-long bus ride took us through endless banana plantations and, at one point, we had to get out of the bus and walk through disinfectant to get rid of any harmful diseases. The bus dropped us off at the end of the road where the only transportation left was by boat. The boat went down the brown meandering river and the banana plantations quickly gave way to jungle. A crocodile passed in front of us as the rain began to come down hard. After about an hour of river travel reminiscent of Apocalypse Now we came out into a wider lagoon and soon arrived at the town of Tortuguero. Our new guide friend helped us find a place to stay for the night and we arranged two guided tours with him. One that night with the turtles and a canoe trip the next morning. We had an excellent Caribbean style chicken dinner with coconut rice and wandered on the beach. The beach was endless and full of palm trees and was covered in turtle tracks which looked like little tractor tracks driving up on the beach. At 8:00 we met our guide to go see the turtles. Each guide had access to part of the beach and the park rangers would let them know when a turtle was spotted. We found a turtle right away but it had just finished laying eggs. Luckily, another turtle showed up right away. The rules were far more strict than the time I went in Nicaragua. There were absolutely no white lights allowed, only red lights, and we were forbidden to approach the turtles until they had finished making the nests and started to lay the eggs. All in all we saw four turtles show up in only an hour and, despite the strict rules, we got a good view of the egg laying and the crawl back to the sea. These were Green turtles which were about the same size as the Olive Ridley turtles I had seen before.

The next morning we had to wake up before 6 to go on our canoe tour. We had about seven people in a dugout canoe and we left from the national park docks. There were three paddles in the boat so I had a chance to paddle for the first time in about 2 years. The guide had lived there his whole life and had a lot of experience with guiding so he was able to pick out many birds and animals that I would have never seen, as well as expertly navigating the canoe. We saw many kinds of birds including toucans, a real close up of a night heron and a jacana with huge spider-like feet which allow it walk on floating vegetation. We also saw reptiles such as a Green Basilisk which can run on water, baby iguanas, and a caiman, which is like a small crocodile. Plus we saw a couple of different kinds of monkeys, including the long armed and long tailed yellow spider monkeys. After about three hours it started to get hot and we paddled back to Tortuguero for breakfast. Later in the day we took a 5 km walk along the beach to a rocky outcropping known as the Tortuguero Mountain. The beach was full of turtle tracks and the nests stretched the entire beach. On the way back we followed an inland path that went through some woods and the Tortuguero airport.

We returned the next day by catching the boat at eleven. The boat driver was very friendly and acted as a tour guide by looking for wildlife along the way. We saw more spider monkeys, Green Basilisk lizards and crocodiles. One of the neat things that he showed us was nesting bats. They would curl up on logs sticking out of the water and they looked exactly like moss or fungus growing on the log. When I translated to the English speaking passengers that he was showing us bats, nobody would believe me. It wasn't until somebody got too close to them and scared them away that I knew I had translated properly. They immediately flew over to another log and disappeared again. We finished the boat ride just in time to catch the bus back to Cariari and then to San Jose. We had a bit of time to spare in San Jose so we went a nice Mediterranean restaurant for dinner.

2007-09-07T14:38:00.000-06:00

The past few weeks I have been going to different beaches. One weekend I went to an all-inclusive resort. This was only the second time I've been one of these resorts and this time it was near the town of Tamarindo. There were 8 of us that went and we arrived on Friday after work. The resort was right on the beach and had a huge swimming pool with basketball nets and a volleyball net. Unfortunately the entire weekend was rainy so we weren't able to enjoy lying on the beach but the food was excellent and there were plenty of things to do during the day. Some of us rented surfboards and we went out surfing. We were the only ones surfing there and the waves were as good as the waves in Tamarindo so it was a lot of fun. It was also within walking distance to Tamarindo so it was easy to get to at night.

The next weekend I went to Playa Carillo, which is a beach south of Tamarindo near Playa Samara which I had visited before. I had heard this was one of the most beautiful beaches in Costa Rica and I wasn't disappointed. It was a long sandy beach lined with palm trees and there were no buildings near the beach. The town itself was up a hill behind the beach and I stayed in a really nice cabina there. The place was owned by an Argentinian couple and they also had an Argentinian restaurant in front which served thick, mouth-watering steaks cooked in the traditional Argentinian way. The beach itself had lots of picnic tables and shade under the palm trees and the waves were impressive. There was one wave that consistently broke in the same spot. From the beach it didn't look all that big but by the time you got out there it was a massive pounding force. It was fun to try to body surf it but I had to keep retreating to the beach when it wore me out. It was so strong that it ripped off my dead toenail that I had injured playing soccer the week before.

The last couple of weeks I spent here in Bagaces. There have been fiestas here in Bagaces for the last three straight weekends. One weekend they had the first rodeo in a new ring that has just been finished being built next to the new pool. It was an American-style rodeo and it is apparently one of the best places in Costa Rica for this. They had a TV crew down to tape it for broadcasting on national television. There was bull riding, bronco riding, horse control competitions and steer-tying competitions.

Last weekend I managed to find a new house in Bagaces and I moved back down into town. I enjoyed living up in my shack but I am glad to be back in town with reliable water and not having to worry about dirt and scorpions everywhere.

2007-08-07T17:21:00.000-06:00

I returned to Nicaragua yet again, this time going to the city of León. It was a long weekend so I had three days however it takes almost a full day of traveling to get to León. I went with a group of people from Bagaces and we took a direct bus. The border crossing consisted of a lot of time spent waiting around doing nothing and we didn't get to León until after dark. The Canadian guy that I mentioned before got off in Managua to get his tattoo. The plan was to stay in the hostel I had stayed in before but it was completely full. We found a really cheap hostel nearby for only $2 per person. My bed was fine but the others had beds in various states of disrepair causing temporary paralysis in various body parts. This meant that the next day we were determined to get into the good hostel. We ate a long breakfast at the hostel's cafe and checked into the hostel as soon as we could. We were planning on going volcano boarding (sliding down a volcano on a board) through the hostel but unfortunately they had canceled it for Sunday and we had to leave the next day. Instead we took a tour of the city, enjoying some of the many cathedrals in the town. After we took a taxi down to the beach and I enjoyed body surfing in some of the big waves until it started to lightning and I was chased back to the bar on the beach. We caught the bus back to León and it was almost as crowded as the last time I took it but this time I didn't have to hang on to the outside. In the evening we went to a Chinese restaurant and then we headed to a bar where they were playing live salsa music.

The next day we returned to Costa Rica via a number of buses. One to Managua, a city bus through Managua, and another bus to the border. At the border we figured we had a lot of time to get through the passport checking and catch the bus back to Bagaces. However the border was particularly packed because of the long weekend and we ended up watching the last bus leave as we were waiting in line. This meant that we had to take a taxi all the way back. There were five of us so the cost wasn't too steep but it still ended up being a lot more than the bus.

Last weekend I returned to Manuel Antonio which is one of my favorite beaches. My friends from Bagaces took their car but they only had so much space so I took the bus with Greg, the other Canadian. We got a ride in the morning with some friends to Puntarenas and then we waited for the bus at a restaurant by the highway. Unfortunately the bus went by without stopping and we were stuck. We started walking along a bike path on the highway and hitch-hiking but after an hour of walking without a ride another bus showed up. It was going to a different town, Orotina, but it was on the way so we took it. We spent another couple of hours in the town waiting for the next bus and we finally arrived in Manuel Antonio at 7pm, 11 hours after we set out. The first hostel we looked into was full but we managed to find a cabina and meet up with the rest of the group for supper. After we went to a popular bar which was packed. It had two levels and a great view of the ocean and was full of tourists from Costa Rica and around the world.

Our cabina was right next to the national park at Manuel Antonio so we woke up fairly early to go in. The park was full of animals and I saw monkeys, sloths, a coatimundi, and a raccoon on various trails and the beach in the park. The monkeys were extremely tame. I saw one digging through someone's bag on the beach. However the park seemed to be missing the black and red crabs that so entertained me last time. The first time I was in the park the jungle was full of these crabs scampering around everywhere, but I didn't see a single one this time. I don't know whether it was the wrong time of year or wrong time of day but it was strange. The rest of the group came with a Frisbee and we played on the beach. It was the first time I had played Frisbee since I was in Canada and I forgot how much fun it is. After we went to an excellent sushi restaurant for lunch.

Returning on the bus was as complicated as getting there. We didn't leave the beach until 5:30 pm when we caught a bus to Puntarenas. There we caught a taxi to the Pan-American highway where we waited for the bus in a restaurant. The very last bus passed by at 9:45 pm and we managed to wave it down. The bus was surprisingly empty, there was only two other people on it, so we were able to stretch out on the seats and get a bit of sleep. We finally arrived in Bagaces at 11:00.

2007-07-26T15:47:00.001-06:00

I took a four day weekend to go to Nicaragua. I went with the two Canadians from Bagaces and we left early on Thursday morning. The border crossing didn't take too long and we made it to the beach at San Juan del Sur before one. We checked into a hostel that I had stayed before and headed out to explore the town.

We started walking north down the road looking for some nice beaches along the coast. After a lot of walking we decided to hitchhike and quickly picked up a couple of rides that took us closer to the beaches. We weren't exactly sure where the beach was, so we wandered into a group of newly constructed beach houses. The only path that we could see was behind a barbed wire and while we were looking for another way down, a guard carrying a shotgun showed up and asked what we were doing. He showed us a hole in the barbed wire and told us not to come back, emphasizing this by pointing at his shotgun. The beach itself had a few houses around but not a single person to be seen. On the way back we saw a lot of different kinds of new development and even came across a pet spider monkey whose tail was just as useful as any hand. We eventually caught a ride in a big truck that took us all the way back to the town. That evening we ate pizza and ended up crashing early.

The next morning we rented a couple of surfboards and took a taxi to a good surfing beach north of the town. The beach had some big waves and quite a lot of rocks, but there was plenty of space where beginners could practice. It was extremely tiring working my way through the surf to get out to where the waves were breaking, but it was a lot of fun catching the waves. Later in the afternoon the waves started to change and it was harder to catch the waves, but it was still fun. Later that evening, the one Canadian, Greg, ran into his tattoo artist from Canada who was there with his Nicaraguan tattoo artist friend. Greg made plans to get a new tattoo over the next couple of months from him in Managua. I also ran into a girl who had just graduated from Western in genetics and was volunteering in a hospital nearby in Nicaragua. She was born in Argentina and was a big soccer fan. She went to the U20 World Cup Argentina-Czech Republic first round game in Toronto. Those two teams played again in the final which was won by Argentina, so I imagine she was pretty happy about that.

The next day was rainy so we decided to head up to Granada. We decided to stay in the Bearded Monkey hostel which I had stayed before. However it was really full and they only had three spaces left: a mattress on the floor, a hammock and a sofa. We decided to stay regardless and I took the mattress. By a strange coincidence I was not the only Asaph in the hostel. There was another older man from Israel that had the same name as me. I talked with him and he said that my name is relatively common in Israel, but he was the first person that I have ever met with the same name. That evening we went to a very American sports bar and had wings, onion rings and hamburgers, which was a nice change from my normal fare, but seemed out of place in Granada. The whole town is undergoing a very thorough renovation geared to attract tourists and has changed quite a bit since the first time I arrived. There are cobblestoned streets being put in, lanterns and flower pots being put up, and the cathedrals have been repainted. There were even large changes since the last time I had been there in Easter.

The next day was Sunday and we had to head back to Costa Rica. The return trip was relatively uneventful except for the fact that Greg had not had a full night sleep on the sofa and fell into such a deep sleep on every bus that it was hard to wake him up.

This last picture is one of my new house in the woods. I woke up last night with a large scorpion crawling on my face. Apparently I have a new pet.

2007-07-04T17:52:00.001-06:00

The last couple of weeks have been quite hectic. It seems that every night it's somebody's birthday or somebody is leaving or there is a soccer game or there is some other reason to stay out late and drink. In addition, I have been changing houses, so I had stuff all over the place and I was basically a nomad for a week. My landlady had her son come back to town unexpectedly and she needed my room back. She offered another room temporarily if I needed it. Luckily, I knew somebody who was moving to the San Jose area for six months and needed somebody to take care of his house for that time. However, this means that I am now living very primitively. The house is about 2 km outside of Bagaces and is hidden amid the trees and is quite isolated. The house consists of one small room with dirt floor and a tin roof and bars instead of glass for the windows. The bathroom is an outhouse about 100 meters away and the shower is outside and consists of a pipe pouring out water. There are three big friendly dogs that I am taking care of as well. I do have a comfortable bed, electricity, a fridge and running water so its not exactly like camping, but it feels like it. It does mean that I don't have to pay rent and I now have someplace to prepare food, but it also takes about twice as long to get to work. So far I'm enjoying living there, but I'm not sure how long I will be able to. I am still keeping an ear out for potential places in Bagaces.

Last weekend in between house moving I managed to find time to take a three day trip to the beaches of Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean coast. I have been to the Caribbean in Panama and Honduras, but never in Costa Rica so I was looking forward to seeing someplace new. The bus ride was not easy. I first had to take the bus to San Jose and I caught the bus from Bagaces. I had to stand but there wasn't too many people on the bus so I figured I would get a seat soon. I was wrong. I ended up standing on the bus for almost the full four hours and didn't get a seat until we were almost in San Jose. I was hoping the next bus would be a bit better because I guaranteed myself a seat by buying a ticket. Unfortunately I had the only seat in the bus with no window and a huge traffic jam lengthened the trip from 4 hours to 7 and a half hours. Luckily I had a newspaper and the American girl next to me was interesting to talk to.

I finally arrived at Puerto Viejo at 9:30 and managed to run into some friends I had made in Tamarindo. They went to a school in San Jose where they were studying Spanish and one of them had invited me to the Caribbean. I managed to find a place to stay at a nice hostel. There were dorm rooms or you could rent a tent or hammock to sleep for the night. I went back out with my friends and spent the night dancing to Caribbean reggae.

The next day I rented bikes with two of my friends and we biked 6 kilometers to a relatively calm beautiful beach outside of town. It had been raining the day before and in the morning but luckily the sun came up just as we got to the beach. The waves were quite a bit smaller than the waves at Puerto Viejo, but they were still surprisingly strong. They were also the perfect waves for body surfing, so I spent most of the day riding the waves right up to the shore. I also almost got hit by a big fish that flew out of the water right in front of me but I wasn't quick enough to catch it. That evening we went to a Asian Restaurant that had Japanese, Chinese and Thai food. They had all-you-can-eat sushi for quite cheap but I chose the freshly caught fish instead, which was delicious. The next day we went to a very nice cafe which had homemade chocolate and homemade peanut butter and served an excellent breakfast. The bus to go back didn't leave until noon so we still had time to relax on the beach. I really wanted to try surfing, but the only surf shops I could find were right next to the "Salsa Brava", one of Costa Rica's most famous waves, and it was way too advanced for me. We found another beach where the waves were slightly smaller and I tried to go body surfing again. Although I managed to catch some waves really well, the pounding I took getting back out was extremely tiring and I had to go back to the beach to rest.

I arranged to get a lift back with the private van that my friends had hired and the trip back to San Jose was a quick 3 and a half hours. I said goodbye and headed back to Bagaces. Puerto Viejo is completely different than the beaches over here on the Pacific coast. There are a lot of tourists, but it is not nearly as built up and still has the feel of a relaxed beach town. But it still managed to have many great restaurants and places to stay. Hopefully I will have a chance to get back there again.

2007-05-31T16:20:00.001-06:00

The last couple of weeks I have been mostly going to the beaches. The first beach I went to was Mal Pais. This is on the far southern point of the Nicoya peninsula. I went with some friends in their car and it was about a 5 hour drive to the beach. An American who used to live in Bagaces had just moved down to Mal Pais so we went to visit his new apartment. The waves on the beach were huge, some of the biggest I had seen yet, and it was fascinating watching the surfers take the waves. There was a really cool thatched roof bar and restaurant right on the beach and we enjoyed the view of the beach. The next morning we were going to try surfing, but due to a very late night and copious amounts of rain, we decided to bypass on surfing.

The next week another intern showed up where I work. He is from Canada and was really looking forward to surfing. The other Canadian in town also was interested in surfing, so the three of us decided to go to Tamarindo to go surfing. We were all total beginners, and when we were renting boards the guy at counter recommended that we take a "teacher". We didn't want to pay anything extra so we declined. Later we found out he actually said "T-shirt", but by that time we all had raw, red chests. At first surfing seemed impossible. It was very painful lying on a board and paddling all the time and it was extremely difficult to get the board turned around in time to catch a wave. I was out about two hours, developed huge cramps in my legs, swallowed gallons of salt water but only managed to catch a handful of waves. I went back to shore exhausted and very pessimistic about surfing. I rested for about an hour and then decided to give it one more shot. Luckily, it was now low tide, and I was able to put my feet down. This improved matters immensely. Now I could relax between waves and swing the board around quickly to catch a good wave. I learned that surfing is a whole lot of fun. By the end of the day I learned to catch the good waves and how to stand up and surf the wave out. I still can't control my direction and I fall off a lot but falling into the water is almost as fun as surfing. The other Canadians had a blast too, and the new intern actually bought a cheap surfboard at the beach.

The next weekend I biked to the nearby waterfall with the two other Canadians. It has been raining pretty strongly for the last month or so and the road into the waterfall was nearly impassable. There was a tourist bus and another car stuck in the mud. The waterfall itself was about three times more powerful than I had ever seen and the pool underneath was brown and full. I went swimming and managed to catch another cold. Maybe next time I will learn. After we went to Liberia to watch the Stanley Cup final. We managed to watch one period at a bar before soccer came on and we got kicked out.

The next week I managed to injure my knee somehow which significantly reduced my ability to play soccer. Unfortunately, it also happened that this was the week that they started the mini soccer tournament in the company where I work. This meant that I will be unable to defend my title from last year and will have to watch the tournament instead. My knee injury also meant that I couldn't go surfing either. I went with the other Canadians to Tamarindo again, but I was only able to body surf, which is still a lot of fun. The one Canadian managed to snap his board in two and he was not too happy so he joined me in body surfing.

Hopefully my knee will be healed soon so I can get back to soccer, as well as go surfing again. Oh, and here is a picture of my new pet, Killer, snuggling up on my pillow.

2007-05-10T17:39:00.000-06:00

My bike has been slowly wearing down as I have been using it but it wasn't until I moved into Bagaces that it finally decided to stop working. This meant I had a nice 2 km walk into work for a couple of days while it was fixed. I had to get the whole back rims replaced as well as fix the brakes and the gears. It was like a brand new bike and I was so happy about having my bike back that I promptly ran over a tack, popped my tire and had to send it back to the shop. When I got it back the second time I decided to make use of my newly fixed bike and pedal to the nearby Palo Verde national park.

It was 20 km of very rocky gravel roads to the entrance of the park. The road passed through cow pastures, sugar cane and other types of farms. Despite the road it was a relatively easy ride with the wind at my back and more downhill slopes than uphill slopes as the road made its way down to the river. At the park entrance I picked up a map and headed 8km into the park where there was some trails, a campground and a research center. The research center had rooms for quite a few guests and there were quite a few people there. The marsh was almost completely dry because it is the end of the dry season. The park is famous for the huge numbers of water birds that migrate here however it gets too dry for them in March and they all leave. So I missed out on the birds but I managed to see a group of spider monkeys hanging out in a mango tree. This was the first time I had seen spider monkeys and they amused me by swinging around on their long arms and tails and trying to threaten me by throwing branches and mangoes down on me. One even tried to pee on me but luckily they didn't have very good aim. I continued 2km to the river that is the base of the park. There was a big sign by the dock warning about crocodiles but I didn't see any lounging around on the shore. There were some things in the water far away but I couldn't tell if they were animate or not. On the way back I passed the mango tree again but it was now full of capuchin or white monkeys. Having seen howler monkeys earlier at the research center I had now seen all three types of monkeys in Palo Verde. I also saw hundreds of iguanas swarming around the campsites, a couple of coatimundi and some deer. The way back was much more difficult than I was prepared for. Not only was I very tired not being used to biking for such a long distance, but it was against a strong wind with many painful uphill stretches. The trip that took less than 2 hours getting to Palo Verde stretched to almost 4 hours returning and I was relieved to get back to the house. My bike managed to survive the trip intact, however on Monday morning I woke up to find my other tire was flat. I had to walk yet again to work. In this case I was glad to avoid the bike for the day.

The next weekend was a long weekend due to the Mayday holiday. Six of us from Bagaces decided to go to Nicaragua for the weekend and visit the island of Ometepe. The island consists of twin volcanoes rising from Lake Nicaragua. The taller volcano is named Concepcion and is one of the most active volcanoes in Central America. It's cone is bare of trees and you can often see smoke coming from the peak. The other volcano is slightly smaller but is dormant. It is covered in a cloud forest and has a crater lake at the top. To get to the island requires an hour long boat ride across Lake Nicaragua. The lake was quite choppy and the rickety ferry had water rushing in the sides, soaking shoes if you weren't careful. The ferry was packed and there seemed to be a significant lack of life jackets in the boat. However this was offset by the safety feature of signing our names on a list of passengers, preventing them from losing anyone. We managed to arrange a ride to our hostel from a guy on the boat with a pickup truck on the island. The island was very tranquil and rustic with cows, pigs, chickens, horses and goats freely wandering across the road. Our hostel was near the smaller, safer volcano and it was just as rustic. It was right on the lake and we went swimming as the sun set across the water.

The next day I arranged a guided trip to the top of the volcano through the hostel. I went with another Canadian from Oakville who just moved to Bagaces a week ago and is staying about 8 months while he does a co-op program from university. The first stretch was relatively flat across cow pastures. As we entered the forest the path started to steepen. The forest changed from dry tropical forest to rain forest jungle to cloud forest. When we got to the cloud forest the trail became extremely steep. Sometimes it was almost vertical as we climbed exposed roots and wet muddy clay. At the top it was too cloudy to see much but ever once and a while the cloud would clear just enough to see the blue lake in the middle of the forested crater. The climb down gave great views of the other volcano across the length of the island and it was very refreshing to swim in the lake at the end. On the return trip we didn't have a ride. It was much longer 2 hour bus ride with a transfer in the middle. We didn't get back to Bagaces until after dark.

Honduras IV

2007-05-01T17:29:00.000-06:00

I awoke at 5am on Easter Sunday and I had to decide where I was going to go. I wanted to see the Caribbean coast and there were a number of different towns that I had to choose from, as well as the beautiful Bay Islands which are famous for their scuba diving. I didn't have time to visit the islands so I decided to visit the town of Tela.

I found a cheap bus to the city of San Pedro Sula. However, the reason it was cheap was because it stopped for anyone who wanted to get on or off. This made the trip much longer than it would have been but I didn't mind too much. One time the bus stopped and everyone started staring out the window. At first it looked like a traffic accident but the only truck I saw seemed to be parked on the grass undamaged. Then I realized there were two bodies lying on the grass. I imagine it must have been a gang execution and these two had tried to get out of their vehicle and run into the field. The bus stayed for a few minutes until a police officer arrived and started to check on the bodies. It was a grim reminder of the problems in Honduras.

I switched buses in San Pedro Sula and headed to Tela. Apparently I was the only one on the bus going to this town because we passed right by the town when I wasn't paying attention. I ended up having to walk a couple of kilometers back to the town in the hot sun. The town was right on the beach and it was full of Hondurans enjoying the holidays. After finding a cheap place on the beach with a very friendly owner, I went to find a place to rent a bike so I could pedal to some nearby Garifuna Indian villages. The Garifunas are an interesting mix of escaped slaves and Indians that intermarried more than 200 years ago and created their own culture and language. Unfortunately, none of the places listed in the guide book had bikes anymore so I ended up walking on the beach. The beach stretched on endlessly and walking barefoot on the flat sand was a relief compared to the steep mountain I had just been climbing. Its too bad that I didn't have much time left because I was interested in exploring the tens of kilometers of beaches that continue past Garifuna villages and large natural preserves. However I had to turn back to get to the town before dark. I found a small restaurant on the top of small hill overlooking the town just in time to watch the sunset over the ocean. The food in the restaurant was really good and I met a Canadian family eating in the restaurant. The daughter was living in San Pedro Sula teaching English and her parents came down to visit her for Semana Santa. They were enjoying their visit even though they had been robbed at gunpoint on the day they arrived. They were being extra careful and seemed to really like Honduras. Most of the travelers and Hondurans that I met in Honduras mentioned that Canadian travelers are very common but this family were the only Canadians I met. After eating I went exploring the town. I found a bar where they were showing the movie '300' on a projection screen, so I got time to try out the 4 different kinds of Honduran beer. After the movie was over I made my way over to a nearby dance club where I listened to a lot of the same type of music that they play in Costa Rica. Some of the songs I had never heard before but the main difference wasn't the music. Every half hour or so, a patrol of about 6 or 7 soldiers carrying large automatic weapons would come in, walk around the bar, watch the dancing for a while, and then file out. Given that Costa Rica doesn't even have an army and I rarely see police in a dance club, I definitely knew I was in a different country.

The next day I had to start making the long trip back to Costa Rica. I decided to head to Comayagua, a colonial city on the way back to the capital Tegucigalpa. I stopped in the town of El Porvenir (The Future) which seemed to be growing fast with many new developments, lots of American fast food outlets and a Pepsi plant. Unfortunately there was no buses to Comayagua until 5, so I headed back to San Pedro. I found the international bus station and I booked a bus from Tegucigalpa to Managua, Nicaragua for the next day. Then I took a bus to Comayagua. It was a pretty bus ride through the mountains, passing a scenic lake where the street peddlers were selling fresh fish to the bus passengers instead of the usual chips and pops. I finally arrived in Comayagua after dark and took a taxi to the central park. I was sitting in the park enjoying the beautifully ornate cathedral and trying to figure out where I was going to stay for the night when I was approached by three Honduran women. They had noticed me sitting in the park and wondered if I wanted a tour of the city. At first I assumed they were part of city tourism, but I realized they were just regular citizens. One was studying civil engineering in the local university and the other two worked in a bank. They found me a nice hotel to stay in and the student, who had a car, took me on a tour of the entire city. The city was formerly the capital of Honduras until the wife of the President was insulted by the city officials and convinced the President to move the capital to Tegucigalpa. This move actually helped preserve the colonial feel of the city and it has a number of very beautiful cathedrals and plazas. We were even allowed to enter the main cathedral which was full of intricate gilded statues. It is also famous for having the oldest working clock in the Americas. It was built by the Moors in the 12th century and given as a gift by Spain. The driver obviously was having trouble concentrating on both the tour and the driving because she managed to hit the curb, go the wrong way down a narrow one way street, and almost hit a bicyclist all in the first minutes of the tour. But I managed to survive the tour and I got to see a lot more of Comayagua than I had expected.

The next day I had to leave very early in the morning because I had to be on the bus leaving from Tegucigalpa at 9am. The Tica Bus that I was taking is very popular with foreign travelers because it is easier, faster and more comfortable than other buses. I sat beside a guy who was living and studying in Puntarenas, Costa Rica and had went to the Bay Islands in Honduras to scuba dive. I also met a girl from Guelph who was traveling across Central America and planning to spend a couple months working with the turtles in Costa Rica. The border crossing was very easy and the trip was long enough to watch 3 movies. I only had about $15 left to cross Nicaragua, so I had to be frugal, but I didn't want to spend the night in Managua so I caught the bus to Granada where I stayed at the familiar Bearded Monkey hostel. I caught the bus the next day to the border. I was hoping that by arriving on a Wednesday I would avoid the long lines at the border, although it was not to be. The border was less busy than before, but it still took 3 hours to cross. Even after crossing, there were huge lines waiting for a bus. Luckily they called more buses and the wait wasn't more than an hour or two. I finally arrived back in Bagaces where it was raining for the first time in three months. I had managed to avoid getting rained on the entire trip, even during my trek through the cloud forest and the rainy Caribbean beach, but here I was getting wet in bone-dry Bagaces. I didn't mind one bit.

Honduras III

2007-04-23T17:26:00.000-06:00

The next day of my trip was Thursday, which is part of the Easter holiday, and I was worried about finding a bus. I noticed in my guide book that there was a national park nearby that had the highest mountain in Honduras, so I decided to see if I could find buses there. Luckily there was one bus leaving Copan that I managed to catch. I arrived a couple of hours later in the town of Gracias. The small town was founded in 1536 as one of the first cities in the New World and became the capital of Honduras and was used to administer the entire Spanish Central American empire. However now it is just another quiet Honduran town with most of the streets still dirt. The first day I spent exploring the town. Overlooking the town there was an old Spanish fort that was nicely restored. It gave a nice view of the town and contained the tomb of a famous former President of Honduras. There were a number of ancient churches, and the central one was full of people singing Easter songs. There was a large number of Honduran tourists, but I didn't have to much trouble finding a place to stay.

The next day I decided enter the nearby Celaque park and climb the mountain Cerro Las Minas. I wanted to spend the night in the park so I could get to the top early in the morning, but I hadn't brought my tent or sleeping bag. Luckily there was a shelter on the mountain, so all I needed to do was rent a sleeping bag in the town. After buying a gallon jug of water and some food I set out at about 10am. I wandered around town for a while until I finally found the long dirt road that led to the park. The 8 km road was hot and dusty and slowly climbed through Honduran farmland and hordes of exceptionally loud cicadas. Once inside the park, the many pine trees provided shade and reminded me of canoe trips up in northern Ontario. After the park office the trail followed a river. The park gets a lot of rain which provides water to 7 major rivers and to the surrounding towns and villages. There were many signs around asking visitors to avoid contaminating the water. The trail then headed up a series of switchbacks, climbing steeply. At one point I took a 1 or 2 km detour to a lookout of a open canyon with a large 100 meter waterfall cascading down on the far wall of the mountain. It's apparently even more impressive in the rainy season, if you can see it through the clouds. I continued to climb and reached the first campsite at about 3 pm. The shelter was falling apart with holes in the roof, parts of the walls missing, and the only bed was a piece of tin balanced on some poles sticking out of the wall. I debated whether to continue to the second campsite and risk getting caught in the rain, or stay here, where I would probably get wet anyway. After testing out the "bed", I decided that it was good enough to function as a shelter in the rain and I decided to stay.

After eating and watching the birds, a group of four very tired Honduran hikers arrived at the camp. They had camped at the second campsite the previous night and had tried to climb the summit that day but one of the women had injured her knees and they had to turn back. They were all from Tegucigalpa, two were programmers, one was a advertiser and the other a doctor. They were weighed down because they had brought too much stuff, but all that stuff was useful for camping. They made a fire, set up their two tents and had a nice supper. They mentioned that it was quite rare for Hondurans to do this sort of thing for a vacation and most of the people that climbed the mountain were foreigners, but they enjoyed it. That night I balanced on my noisy piece of tin and tried to get some sleep and not wake up the other campers. Fortunately it did not rain and I had a relatively comfortable night.

I woke up at 5am for an early start to the summit. At first it was dark enough to need a flashlight, but the sun was rising behind me so it was soon light. I left most of my stuff in the shelter and only took what I needed. The trail became extremely steep for about 500 meters, necessitating hands as well as feet in parts. Eventually it flattened out again into a large plateau covered in an ancient cloud forest, the largest in Honduras. Huge moss covered trees towered over the ground, blocking out the sun and making the floor almost clear of undergrowth. This made it difficult to follow the trail, but it was much flatter and easy to walk. I arrived at the second camp, where an older man from the States was camping. He had been a CFO of a software company that had been bought out and he had signed a 5 year non-competition clause. Since he couldn't work he decided to take the 5 years and travel the world. He was staying in the cloud forest taking pictures and looking for the elusive quetzal. The cloud forest continued for another hour of walking until there was one final steep stretch to the summit. Unlike most summits I have been to, this one was covered in trees. However there were some great views to the east and south through breaks in the trees because the clouds had not moved in yet. At 2850 meters (9350 ft) it wasn't the highest mountain I had been on, but it was high enough to be very cold. I had a sweater and a jacket on, but I started getting quite cold sitting on the summit. I ate some snacks and headed back through the cloud forest. After an hour, the clouds slowly started rolling in and the forest started looking very mysterious. I never saw a quetzal, or any other type of cloud forest animal, but I found that it was the most beautiful and peaceful forest that I have been to.

I returned down the mountain, passing the Honduran group I had met the night before, who were carefully descending with their limping group member. After exiting the forest I was faced with a scorching early afternoon walk through the open fields back to Gracias. I was thoroughly exhausted by the time I got back to my room in the town. I was planning to visit the nearby hot springs to soothe my aching muscles and meet up with my Honduran friends, but I soon fell asleep and didn't wake up until the morning.

Honduras II

2007-04-17T17:44:00.000-06:00

After waking up the next morning in San Pedro Sula I spent a couple hours exploring the city and looking to buy a return ticket to Managua in case it was too busy to find a bus during Easter. It seemed like a friendly city and I explored a market and the central park. I also needed to find a bank because I had almost no lempiras which is the currency in Honduras. The lempira is worth almost exactly the same as the Nicaraguan cordoba, but they only have bills, no coins. This means that rather than having a pocketful of change, you have a thick wad of bills in your wallets. It felt strange peeling off two 1 lempira bills (about 5 cents each) to pay for a little plastic bag of water but I soon grew used to it. I then caught a bus to the town of Copan Ruinas which is just outside the famous Mayan Copan Ruins.

After a four hour bus ride that went through the cool mountains of central Honduras, we arrived at the valley where the ruins are located, near the border to Guatemala. I checked into a very nice hostel that only cost $4 and was recommended in my guidebook as one of the best in all of Central America. It seemed nice and everybody put their name and nationality on a main blackboard, but it was almost empty when I arrived. I had a few hours left of daylight and I wandered around the town. The town was very picturesque and the central park had a Mayan theme with an old church and a very interesting Mayan museum. I also wandered down some of the country roads and noticed that the town had many taxi tuk-tuks going up and down the hilly roads. I hadn't seen any of these in Central America so far and they are apparently a recent development here, being shipped in directly from India. I found the entrance to the Mayan ruins about 1km outside of town but it was getting dark so I left it until the next day. Back at the hostel I met two friends who were traveling through Central America. One was from Sweden and the other from Oregon and they had come from Mexico, through Belize and had just arrived that day from Tikal, another major Mayan ruins in Guatemala. We found a nice restaurant in town and enjoyed supper. It turned out that the part owner of the restaurant also was the owner of the hostel and he also offered a number of tours and different excursions around Copan and Honduras, one of which my new friends signed up for.

The next day I got up early to get to the ruins right when it opened at 8 am. The entrance gate was covered with very tame Scarlet Macaws, which are the national bird of Honduras even though there are no real wild ones left. The ruins were stunning, ancient temples and intricately carved figures hidden in the jungle. The site is especially well known for Stelae, which are statues, usually of a ruler, and on the back they are covered in Mayan hieroglyphics describing the date and story of the ruler. There are many temples, some only partially excavated with tunnels going inside them, an ancient ball court, and living spaces for the upper class. There is also a hieroglyphic stairway where each step was covered in hieroglyphics. This detailed story tells the history of the city and the rulers and greatly increased our knowledge of Mayan hieroglyphics. In 400 AD, at the end of a spiritually significant 400 year period, a stranger arrived and conquered Copan. Using religion symbolism, he was looked upon as a god and declared his 400 year reign. Him and his descendants built many of the temples and artifacts and turned Copan into one of the great Mayan cities. After 400 years, it appears that the king at that time declared the era to be ended, built a number of buildings signifying this event, and Copan was abandoned within a hundred years. I was practically alone for the first hour of wandering around and it was very awe-inspiring. By the time I worked my way through the entire ruins the big tour groups started to come in and I decided to move on. There was a nature trail through the jungle that led to some excavated houses as well as a lot of unexcavated mounds. I then visited the museum at the entrance. The museum centerpiece was a replica of one of the temples, reproduced exactly as it would have looked when it was built. It was covered in stucco and painted bright red with many designs painted over the walls. I always imagined the Mayans living among dull gray stones, just like the ruins look like now, so this new perspective was welcome. They also had some of the more intricate original sculptures inside protected from the weather as well as some examples of white stucco-covered houses of the nobles.

After enjoying the park I was planning to head to Antigua Guatemala to enjoy the Semana Santa celebrations there but I was told that the town would be crammed with people and it would be necessary to pay over $100 to find any hotel room. I decided to leave Guatemala for another time and just spend the rest of my vacation in Honduras. This meant that I had time to sign up for a 'Hidden Copan' hiking trip that I learned about the night before. Our tour guide was a long time backpacker from Belgium who decided to settle in Copan. It was me, the two girls I had met the night before and a group of about 8 Dutch tourists who had joined the tour at the last minute. We took a group of tuk-tuks a couple of miles outside of town and were warned to prepare for ticks. We headed through a couple of cow pastures, passing under barbed wire fences, and noticed that many of the hills were shaped like temples. Our tour guide mentioned that there were many unexcavated ruins all around, but nobody had the money to uncover them. We continued along a foot path through the mountains and passed through two isolated Indian villages. Strangely, these villages had lost all their traditional clothes and food in the last 40 years while just across the border in Guatemala lived groups with all their traditions. The tour guide was a wealth of information and opinions. He was a member of the Honduras tourist board representing backpackers and talked about the many problems facing Honduras. He explained about one particular project that was intended to improve the lives of these villages. The Japanese government have donated a lot of money for improving the area around Copan in return for exclusive access to the ruins. One of the projects was to provide running water to the villages. The project was started four years ago and was supposed to provide water in a couple of months. Thanks to a lot of mismanagement and corruption there is now just a pump and pipes that are still not connected to anything. The people in the village still have to make a long trek to collect water from the clean stream. He also talked about the major gang problems they have in Honduras. It is the main country that receives cocaine from Columbia and gangs are constantly at war over this lucrative business. The gang wars have made San Pedro Sula the city with the highest murder rate in the world, and Tegucigalpa the fifth highest. We walked right up to the border of Guatemala, and due to the relative remoteness of the area, it was the most popular area for smuggling drugs into Guatemala. A person could get $50 taking a kilo of cocaine across the border, an afternoon of work, taking the same kind of path through the mountains that we were. Needless to say, there is never a lack of volunteers. We returned to the road again where our tuk-tuks had arrived to pick us up and take us back to Copan. I again ate with my new friends in the same restaurant where this time we had some interesting Asian-style food.

Honduras I

2007-04-13T15:41:00.000-06:00

I had an week off again for Semana Santa (Easter Week) and I decided to visit Honduras. I left on Saturday early in the morning and planned to arrive in the city of Leon in Nicaragua by late afternoon. However the first day did not go very well. I arrived at the border and immediately noticed that there were way too many people there. The road was so crammed with cars and trucks that the bus couldn't even make it to the customs office and let us out about 2 or 3 kms away. There was a huge line at the customs office, so long that it snaked around the parking lots and stretched a couple of hundred meters down the the road. I knew that the border would be busy because all the Nicaraguans that work in Costa Rica would be heading back to their families for Semana Santa, but I didn't expect it to be this busy. It took about 4 hours sitting in the hot sun before I got to the front of the line and was able to cross into Nicaraguan side. The station on the Nicaraguan side was also pretty bad and it took another 2 hours of waiting to cross. I met two other travelers in line. One a surfer from New Zealand who had been surfing all across the world for the last 18 years and the other was a traveler from Minnesota. Neither were very impressed by their trip so far, partly from the horrendous line and partly from the high prices in Costa Rica. The surfer was also disappointed by the surfing in Costa Rica because there were way too many tourists and beginner surfers crowding up the waves. She said she preferred quiet solitary surfing and was hoping she would find better spots in Nicaragua and she especially was looking forward to a particular wave called La Libertad in El Salvador. She had spent so long surfing in remote places that she had caught malaria three times. They were both heading to Granada and I helped them get through the border and find a bus.

I continued on to the capital of Nicaragua, Managua, and due to the excessive time at the border I didn't arrive until after dark. I needed a taxi from one bus station to another one with buses to Leon in a hurry so I was glad that there was a taxi right there with another passenger heading to the station. It was only 20 cordobas which is about a dollar and a pretty good price. We were driving along and the driver engaged me in small talk. Then he asked for the 20 cordobas so he could get gas. I gave it to him and he immediately started heading down a side street and asked me for the rest of the fare, which including taxes was 400 cordobas. I was not impressed and started arguing that we had agreed on 20. He asked his "passenger" if she had paid 400 cordobas and she just nodded quietly. Finally after a lot of arguing and random driving through the night side streets he stopped the taxi and got my pack out of the trunk and demanded 100 cordobas for the ride. I refused and he dropped my bag and took off. He was at least nice enough to leave me on a fairly main road so I had no trouble finding a taxi, but I had to overpay 80 cordobas to get to the station. Another hour or two in the bus and I finally arrived in Leon and found a hostel at 10 pm. At this point I was not too thrilled about the trip and I had even lost my voice from the combination of a cold and arguing with the taxi driver. Luckily the trip got much better after that and I didn't have any more problems.

The hostel I found was really cool. It was only $4 and there was a pool table, movies and even an indoor wading pool. I met a lot of interesting people, a Japanese-American, a Basque from Spain and a group of eccentric Greeks who knew how to have fun and I managed to have a good time and forget about the rest of the day. I decided to stay an extra day in Leon because I got there so late and it was a very interesting city. The city had about 12 amazing cathedrals, including the largest one in Central America and it was the home of Ruben Dario, a famous Nicaraguan poet. The next day I took a bus down to the nearby Pacific beaches and I met a guy from New Orleans whose family was Cajun and had lived there for a long time. He was checking the waves out for surfing, but they were too advanced for his skills. There were two or three surfers in the waves and the rest of the people stayed right at the shore because the waves were so powerful. The guy from New Orleans was planning to stay the night at the beach because he had an itchy problem with his bed at his hostel, but he decided to go back to Leon when I told him about the nice hostel I was at. On the way back we waited for the last bus and it was crammed full. I didn't see how they would fit anybody else on, let alone the 15 people waiting for the bus, especially since the New Orleans guy was carrying all his stuff. But they kept cramming and cramming and we all managed to fit, despite hanging half out the door. And apparently it was going to get a lot busier the next weekend. That night I met some more interesting people, a guy from Brazil, a couple of Germans, a couple of Costa Ricans, and an American who turned out to be a friend of a friend in Bagaces.

The next day was a traveling day and I managed to get up at 6am after 3 hours of sleep for a bus. I took two buses to the border and got a bicycle ride across the border to Honduras. I managed to not get too ripped off by the money exchange people and the border guards failed to give me a stamp for my passport. I took two more buses to the capital city of Tegucigalpa, which was a pretty city in a valley from afar, but dirty and disordered up close. I then took one more bus to the second largest city in Honduras, San Pedro Sula. I arrived in San Pedro at about 9 pm and I immediately checked into the hotel across the street. It had a TV and a private bathroom for only about $7 and I even got to share the room with cat-sized cockroach.

2007-03-23T16:07:00.000-06:00

This weekend I went to San Jose with some people from Bagaces. Originally we were planning to go to el Classico, which is a soccer game between the two main teams, Saprissa and La Liga. However, even though it was only a regular season game it was sold out, and the scalper prices were really high. So instead we watched the game at a bar nearby. Saprissa won 3-0 and after the game San Jose was full of people celebrating and honking horns and a few sad looking people in La Liga uniforms. And all this just for a regular season game that didn't really matter!

We also explored San Jose and went to some of the museums. There was a Gold museum that had many different gold relics and other historical artifacts from Costa Rica and explained the Pre-Colombian history of Costa Rica. There was also a art exhibit and a Costa Rican money museum that were quite interesting.

2007-03-02T16:39:00.000-06:00

This weekend I went to Nicaragua with a large group of people from Bagaces. The group that follows the monkeys around had a short vacation and some of them needed to go to Nicaragua as well as some other foreigners in Bagaces. In all there were 10 of us that went.

We caught the bus at Bagaces that went straight to the border, but because it was full we were forced to stand the whole 2 hours to the border. Then the border took a long time because we always had to wait for the slowest person in the slowest line. But eventually we got on a bus on the Nicaraguan side where we headed to the beach at San Juan del Sur. The bus dropped us off at the end of a 20 km road to the beach where we had to wait for another bus but we managed to get a ride. All 10 of us, plus 2 more people at the bus stop, piled into a small pickup truck which already had a driver and a passenger. So there were 14 of us crammed into this truck for the fairly bumpy road to the beach but luckily no one fell out.

We got a cheap dorm hostel and our group had almost the whole room to ourselves. It's the middle of the dry season now, so everything was brown and different from the last time I came but there was plenty of sun and no danger of rain. We spent most of the time on the beach and enjoying the many good restaurants in San Juan Del Sur. The town is very popular with tourists and there were many there enjoying the dry season.

The trip back was also eventful. Three of the monkey following people stayed in town but the rest of us left on Sunday. We managed to get a ride in an SUV which, with 9 people, became very hot and uncomfortable but it beat waiting for a bus in the sun.

Despite a lack of sleep and too much sun it was a fun weekend.

2007-01-26T15:30:00.000-06:00

This weekend I went back to the Volcano Rincon de la Vieja. This time I went with some friends who were designing the web site for a lodge near the volcano. In return for this they got a horseback tour of the outskirts of the volcano and a canopy tour was included. I was invited to come as well.

The horseback ride was interesting and we climbed up the slope of the volcano. Parts of the trip was up a steep road with a great view across Guanacaste and other part involved a muddy trail through the forest. We stopped when we reached the start of the canopy tour. It was a smaller canopy tour than the others, but it was plenty fast. I think they need a better braking system at the end of each zipline because some people ended up smacking into the tree at the end, but other than that it was fun.

We got back on the horses and continued down the trail until we reached a smaller path. Here we had to get off the horses and the steep path led to a pretty waterfall. We returned to the lodge which had a bunch of orange lemon trees that had nice and sour fruit.

Family Trip II: Panama

2007-01-11T17:58:00.000-06:00

My family and I left San Jose on New Year's Eve. The bus left early in the morning to avoid arriving at the border at night because it was to be closed for New Year's. This schedule change meant that the bus was almost empty. There was only about 5-10 other people on the bus. The 7-8 hour trip through the mountains and southern Costa Rica during the day was very beautiful. At the border it was very hectic and I was forced to run around translating for different members of my family as we rounded up all the stamps, tickets and forms that we needed to cross the border. The last 7 hours to Panama City was very tiring but we made it to the city at around 10 pm. It was late, but we managed to find a rather scummy but cheap hotel. There were fireworks going off all over the city, especially over the water. Panama is in the same time zone as Toronto and New York so the dropping of the Times Square ball also signified the new year in Panama.

The next day we took a bus to the Miraflores Lock on the Panama Canal and saw some huge ships going through the locks. On the way back we stopped at the airport and arranged a flight for the next day to the nearby Pearl Islands in the Pacific Ocean. The flight was in a small propeller plane that held about 15-20 passengers. The plane flew directly over the city giving a great view of the skyline. The flight was a relatively short 20 minutes and the landing was fun with the wind adding a lot of turbulence. The island we landed on was quite small with the runway going from one end to the other. There lots of little beaches around the island and the water was a brilliant blue. These islands were popular with the TV show Survivor because they have already filmed here three times. The most popular form of transportation on the island was golf carts and one side of the island was dominated by a resort hotel. We spent a day relaxing on the island but we had to get back to Panama City because my family was leaving the next day.

My family returned to Canada the following day, but in the morning we took a tour of the city. Panama City has three cities. The oldest section is called Old Panama, which is full of stone ruins from the 15th century. This settlement was established to help send Incan gold from the Peruvian coast across Panama to the Atlantic. Pirates came and burned the city and it was abandoned. The second city was established farther south and is still full of beautiful colonial style cathedrals and building. The Presidential Palace and City Hall are still in this section and it is still and important part of the city. The third city is the New City. Due to the Canal, Panama is a very cosmopolitan city and there is lots of money. This has resulted in many skyscrapers and condominium along the ocean front and the city looks far more modern than the larger San Jose in Costa Rica.

My family left on Thursday afternoon but I didn't have to be back for work until Monday so I decided to spend a couple more days in Panama. I returned to the hotel where my family stayed the night before and got one more night, however I wanted to find a cheaper hotel for the next night and I wanted to see more of the city so I walked through the city to the colonial section where I found a really cheap hostel in a beautiful yellow colonial building. I also wandered through the market section of Panama where I picked up some extra clothes because mine were in a serious need of washing. I ate at a neat Cafe that had been around for more than a hundred years and was full of local Panamanians discussing the news.

The next day I took a taxi to the end of the Panama Canal causeway where there was a boat to Taboga Island. The boat kept filling up and when I finally got to the start of the line they suddenly stopped me and said 'no more'. Luckily they had another smaller boat and I just had to wait about 15 minutes for them to bring it over. The boat ride was interesting because the boat made its way out into the ocean between all the huge cargo ships waiting to use the Panama Canal. There was also a really good view of the city skyline. The island itself had a pretty little town and lots of nice beaches. The second oldest church in the Americas was located in the town, which had only sidewalks for streets. The entire interior of the island was preserved as a natural refuge and there was a nice trail through the jungle that led to a lookout post on top of an old US army bunker. The jungle was full of butterflies. There was many types of the brilliant blue morpho butterflies as well as butterflies of many other colors. I also saw some little green and black poison dart frogs. I ran out of water on the way down and when I got back to town I went directly to the nearest restaurant and drank a large pitcher of water. After lunch I went to the beach and found a nice shady spot to relax. Luckily I found a spot quite far from the water because when I woke up the tide had risen right up to where I was sleeping with all my stuff. I caught the boat back to Panama City and returned to my cheap hostel. The hostel was a lot uglier inside than outside, but I didn't mind because it was only $6.

The next day I walked around the colonial section of the city and enjoyed the sites. I went into the Panama Canal Museum which was full of extremely interesting information about the history of Panama City and the canal. The exhibits were all in Spanish, however I was able to more or less understand most it and enjoyed looking at the historical artifacts from the Canal's history. In the afternoon I took a bus to Colon on the Atlantic side where I took another bus to the Gatun locks on the Panama Canal. These locks had far less tourists than the other because it was so far from the City. It also had a lot more boats passing through and the viewing platform was very close to the boats, giving a good unobstructed view of the boats. It was also possible to cross the Panama Canal at these locks. It was very impressive walking over the tiny drawbridge and seeing the huge lock doors looming above you. On the other side of the Canal it was possible to walk along the Canal until it reached the dam that created Gatun Lake, which was the largest artificial lake in the world until the 30's. The lake was very peaceful and it was strange to see the large ships sailing through it. I returned to Panama City and got back in time to catch my bus which left for San Jose at 10pm.

The bus back to San Jose was completely full. In fact there were so many people travelling that they had to hire a second full bus to accomodate everyone. I sat beside an interesting girl from France. She was living in Costa Rica as well and worked as a tour guide for a French company. She spent all her time leading tour after tour and they visited some really nice places. A couple, such as Curu beach and Poas I had already been to, but others, such as Corcovado National Park, I haven't. We arrived at the border at about 6 am and it took about 3 hours to cross. I don't know why it took so long, but most of the time we just were waiting around for people to check the luggage. Back in San Jose I caught the bus back to Bagaces and by the time I got back I had been in a bus for almost 24 hours straight. But it was a good trip and I saw much more of Costa Rica and Panama in those 2 weeks.

Family Trip I: Costa Rica

2007-01-11T17:53:00.000-06:00

The two weeks during my Christmas break my family came down to visit for the holiday season. They arrived on Christmas eve and we had a rental car for the first five days. It was nice to see my family but I was kept busy translating because none of them could speak any Spanish.

With the car we were able to visit places that I couldn't visit before. We went to the nearby Volcano Tenorio, which luckily we had a 4x4 for because the road was steep and windy and very poor. By the time we got there it was almost too late to enter the park and we had to rush to see a very impressive waterfall.

The next day we went to the beach at Playa Grande. We intended to watch the turtles come in to lay the eggs but there wasn't enough space for that night so we spent the day on the beach. The following day we headed to the nature reserve of Monteverde which is high up in the cloud forest and is one of the most popular places for tourists to visit. The drive up had spectacular views and bad roads. It was extremely cold (for Costa Rica) in Monteverde and we spent most of the time there in sweaters and jackets. We took a canopy tour which had many ziplines including one that was more than a half mile long. We went on two nightwalks which was a different perspective on the Costa Rican jungle. We had a guide who led us with a flashlight through the trails looking for different night animals. We saw lots of sleeping birds, and different types of insects and frogs. We also came across a bunch of tarantulas living in their nests waiting for insects to walk by. There were also some night animals. We saw a porcupine, a two-toed sloth, and an olingo, which looked like a brown lemur.

After leaving Monteverde we had to return the car to the capital of San Jose. On the way we stopped at the "Crocodile Bridge" where there were dozens of crocodiles lying about in the river including some giant ones. In San Jose we arranged a 15 hour bus ride to Panama City. We were originally intending to leave the next day but there were no seats available. Luckily, the other bus company had a special trip on New Year's Eve that was practically empty. This gave us time to check out the old building in downtown San Jose and take a trip to the nearby Volcano Irazu. I had been to this volcano before but it was very cloudy. This time the view was excellent and we got a great view of the craters and the slopes of the volcano. It wasn't quite clear enough to see the Pacific and Atlantic oceans but it was impressive nonetheless.

2007-01-11T17:46:00.000-06:00

In the weeks before Christmas, Bagaces had plenty of events. The central park was decorated and there was a special ceremony where the Christmas tree was lit with a parade.

It is strange having such warm weather at Christmas time but it doesn't bother me very much. I went with a busload of local Bagaces residents to the beach. It was a specially hired bus that dropped us off at a nearby beach in Papagayo that is used only for that purpose(ie. no cars). Most of the tickets were supplied by local soccers teams so there were plenty of soccer games on the beach. Playing soccer in the sand is fun, but too much results in your feet being rubbed raw by sand.

The week before Christmas Bagaces had the main tope, or rodeo of the year. There was a bunch of events in the town and Bagaces filled up fast. There was bull riding every night and I went on Saturday to watch the excitement. The big day of bull riding was the Sunday and it was even on the local TV. Around the bull ring there were a couple of fair rides brought in and they constructed two temporary bars, including one with two stories. On Saturday there was the main event, the tope. Anybody who had a horse paraded through the streets of Bagaces and there was competitions determining the best horses. Me and some friends borrowed horses for the tope and I was glad that my horse didn't freak out and take off in all the excitement. I'm pretty sure I didn't win any prizes, partly because my horse didn't know how to dance and partly because I had a baseball cap rather than a sombrero but it was a fun experience.

2006-12-07T17:47:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-11-30T17:33:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-11-17T16:13:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-11-09T17:41:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-11-03T15:56:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-10-16T17:37:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-10-13T15:25:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-10-03T17:43:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-09-29T15:29:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-08-22T17:49:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-08-18T15:30:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-08-04T15:31:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-07-24T17:36:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-07-13T17:57:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-07-06T17:43:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-06-30T17:41:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-06-23T16:02:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-06-16T17:06:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-06-09T16:46:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-06-01T17:47:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-05-25T17:39:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-05-17T17:46:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-05-10T17:40:00.000-06:00

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'.

2006-05-02T17:42:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-04-28T15:23:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-04-17T17:34:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-04-12T16:16:00.000-06:00

I had no work this week because it is Semana Santa, so I decided to go to Panama. I was originally intending to go after work on Friday, but I was invited to play indoor soccer with some of the Costa Rican employees. After the soccer game there was a party for two of the employees who are leaving. My soccer playing is very rusty, but I really enjoyed playing despite the amount of sweating I did. It was extremely hot this weekend, with temperatures going to 40 degrees every day. Luckily there is little humidity but it still incredibly hot.

On Saturday there was another party so it wasn´t until noon on Sunday that I finally set off to Panama by bus. It is 3-4 hours to the capital, San Jose, which is at a higher altitude, so it was about 5-10 degrees cooler. When I arrived it was pouring rain. This was the first rain I had seen since I arrived in Costa Rica. I was planning to catch the 15 hour overnight bus to Panama City but the bus was full. I needed some money for Panama so I found a Scotiabank. Strangely, Scotiabank is the major foreign bank in Costa Rica. Panama uses American Dollars, so I took out a bunch. I left the bank and was walking down the street when I heard angry shouting behind me. I turned around and there was a group of guys, one with an aluminum bat and one with a large rock, and they were running towards me. They ran by me and chased down this bus. They started yelling at someone inside and bashing the bus. I guess they have something against buses. Later a taxi pulled up beside me and told me I was in a dangerous area and he had a good hostel to go to. I thought he was just trying to get an extra tip , but he didn´t want any money at all and the hostel was a real good value.

The next morning I found a 9 hour bus to David, Panama which is close to the Costa Rican border. The entire bus route was along the Pan-American Highway. After it leaves San Jose, it continues to rise into the mountains until it reaches the highest point on the entire Pan-American highway, right below the Cerro de la Muerte, the Mountain of Death. Apparently, in the rainy season, this highway is very dangerous, and there are a whole lot of gravestone crosses on the side of the road. The highway then quickly winds back down to sea level where it got very hot again. It followed a large river and I think I saw my first crocodile in the river. The were a lot of banana plantation and also pineapple farms near a Del Monte factory.

We arrived at the Panama border, which was very hectic. Another bus carrying a soccer team from Mexico arrived at the same time, so the line was huge. I got rejected at the border twice, once for not having a return ticket and once for not having a tourist card, but luckily the bus employees helped me out. The first thing I noticed about Panama is that the roads are way better than in Costa Rica. In Costa Rica, the Pan-American highway is two-laned and full of potholes but Panama had a much better 4 lane highway. We arrived in David just after dark and I decided to continue on to Panama City. It was another 6 hour bus ride and we arrived at about 2:30 in the morning. The bus station was huge and provided service across the country. The station was very clean and modern and there was a large mall across the street that was as fancy as any mall I have been to in Canada. After I left Panama City I saw on the news that there were huge crowds of about 200 000 people in the station at the start of Easter Weekend.

Unfortunately the only guidebook to Panama I had was a nature guide so I didn't really know where to go. Panama City is on the Pacific side so since I was at the bus station I decided to take a bus to the Atlantic along the Panama Canal. There are not too many places in the world where you can buy a $2.50 bus ticket from the Pacific to the Atlantic. The Caribbean side has a small city called Colon (Spanish for Columbus) which seemed very poor. The bus terminal was extremely rundown and was a stark contrast to the Panama City bus station. I ate some real good cheap breakfast and headed back to Panama City. The return bus also gave me a short tour of Panama City before it returned to the bus station.

The one place in Panama City that my guide mentioned was the National Metropolitan Park so I took a taxi there. The park is a chunk of preserved jungle inside the city limits and it was quite fascinating. There were huge parades of leaf cutter ants everywhere and when I passed a pond, a bunch of Jesus Christ lizards scampered across the water. There were also many different kinds of butterflies and birds and the trail ended with a great view of the city skyline, the Pacific, and the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal was also interesting. There were hundreds of huge boats congregated out in the ocean waiting to enter the canal and it looked like Panama City was under siege from a foreign navy.

Seeing that I was lacking a guidebook and since I wanted to avoid the Easter Weekend rush, I decided to head back to the western end of Panama where there is an interesting volcano. I'll talk about this next week

2006-04-07T14:26:00.000-06:00

I don't have a lot of time to write because the office is closing early this Friday. The next week is 'Semana Santa' here which is Easter Week.

I didn't go anywhere last weekend, just around Bagaces. On Friday it was Zanda's birthday, so me and Jessica organized a surprise party for her. After we went to the local disco and were out until almost 4am. The dancing here in Bagaces is very different from Canada. Even though dance music is playing, everyone dances in a sort of aballroom dance style. There was only one short time where everybody started dancing like in a Canadian dance club. It was very interesting watching some of the more skilled dancers.

There was also a 'tope' in Bagaces, which is kind of like a rodeo. They have bullfighting, bullriding and other types of events. There are also some 'sabonero'(Costa Rican Cowboy) competitions where there are skillled horse riding competitions. There was a parade, which I missed, and a lot of fireworks. It was sort of similiar to a local country fair.

2006-03-30T12:08:00.000-06:00

This weekend I went to Grenada, Nicaragua with three other fellow interns. Zanda is the one from Bahamas, Pinto is the one from near Barcelona Spain, and Jessica is from the U.S. Jessica used to do the same job as me, but now she has another job here. They all have experience going to Nicaragua and they all speak Spanish much better than me, especially Pinto. It's about a 4 or 5 hour bus ride if you go direct, but we spent a lot longer because we took a number of buses.

We took one bus up to the Costa Rican border post. We got our passports stamped and we walked about 1km across the border to the Nicaraguan border post. There were a lot of people with wads of cash hanging around trying to get us to exchange our money. Also there were people offering taxis and other services. We managed to find our way to a bus with only one guy asking for a tip for 'helping' us across the border. Nicaragua is much poorer than Costa Rica and going from Costa Rica to Nicaragua was vaguely similar to the experience of going from Canada to Costa Rica. There were less cars and more animals on the road. Some of the houses were mere shacks.

The bus continued down the Pan-American highway past Lake Nicaragua. The lake is about half the size of Lake Ontario, but has two volcanoes in the middle and is the only place in the world with freshwater sharks. We also passed a lot of banana plantations, which I hadn't seen in Costa Rica yet. The bus wasn't going to Grenada, but Pinto managed to make friends with a guy who was, so we hopped off the bus near Grenada and caught an old school bus which dropped us off in Grenada.

None of us had a map, so we didn't know where we were, but Pinto kept asking people and, despite a number of conflicting directions, we managed to find our hostel. It was full so we got an address of another hostel and had a nice tour of the city by the time we finally got our room. It was the cleanest hostel I ever stayed in, with a large bathroom and it only cost $5 per person. We toured a little of the city and had really good pizza at the Pizzeria across the street.

Grenada is on Lake Nicaragua so we walked down to the lake in the morning. We also went to the Grenada market which was full of action and made the markets in Busan, Korea seem clean. Grenada is a very beautiful city with many well-maintained and painted colonial-era buildings. There were quite a few tourists from around the world and many of the stores and restaurants catered to the tourists. We sat in the Central Park waiting for our return bus and a bunch of university students came up to us to practise their English.

The return trip was much faster because we bought a direct trip back to Costa Rica, and the bus driver dropped us off right here in Bagaces.

This week the owner of the company had two agricultural university students at his farm for just the week. He has cement handprints by his pool of every intern who has ever worked here, so he invited the two agricultural students, me, Zanda and Pinto to make our handprints. It was interesting seeing all of the different names. There were a lot of Canadians because the Canadian government used to run an internship program through here.

Work still keeps my attention for most of the week and I am still enjoying it. My family got another dog, this one a tiny puppy. Also, every morning there is random cow or two in the yard because the yard is one of the last places in the area where the grass is still green. With the howler monkeys, the mooing cows, the crowing roosters and the barking dogs, I definitely don't need an alarm clock anymore.

2006-03-24T15:26:00.000-06:00

Last weekend I decided to see some of the Costa Rican nature so I went to Santa Rosa National Park which is near the border to Nicaragua. Santa Rosa is on the Pacific Coast and preserves some of the last of the dry tropical forest in the Americas. This time of the year the park is at the driest.

The bus dropped me and a very friendly American at the entrance to the park. The main park headquarters and camping grounds is about 7km away, so me and the American had a lot of time to walk and talk. Apparently he came to Costa Rica about 6 weeks ago to help find a good house for his dad to buy and he's been living it up since. Apparently, the best place to party is the town of Jaco. The whole town parties all night long and nobody gets up before noon and the women and drugs are plentiful. He had been trying to save some money so he had been living in the park for the past week and he was more than happy to tell me how great it was and how it's so isolated that he was living like a wild bush man. All in all, it was a very entertaining walk with this 43 year old guy from Virginia.

After reaching park headquarters the American introduced me to his friend, the park ranger, who spoke English quite well. He seemed very proud of his park and mentioned that the President of Costa Rica would visit the park on Monday to commemorate an anniversary of a battle. Also, on Sunday, all the park wardens from across the country would be arriving to get together before meeting the President. At the main camp I saw a couple of different kinds of iguanas and other reptiles hanging around

I then continued my walk on an extremely rugged road 13 km down to the Naranjo Beach. It was mostly downhill and I had my first monkey sighting in Costa Rica. There was a small group of white faced capuchin monkeys who were hanging out in a tree near the trail. I also saw quite a few different kinds of birds, including a couple of parrots. It was getting close to sunset when I reached the beach campground. The beach and Witch's Rock is a world famous surfing mecca and had consistant large curls when I was there. There were only about two or three surfing groups camping there because it is so isolated. The only way to get there is by hiring a boat, or an extremely rugged 4x4. The beach was very beautiful and the water was surprisingly cold. I watched the sunset on the Pacific and camped out. In the night, there were a bunch of raccoons hanging around and they kept peeking into my tent to look at my food.

The next morning I woke up to blisters on my feet because of my new shoes. I hung out on the beach for a while and explored the nearby forest and lagoon where I was told there were crocodiles, but I only found crabs and deer. The 13km walk back to the main camp was extremely painful. Not only did I have blisters, but it was mostly uphill, it was in the scorching hot sun, and I ran out of water. I was thankful when I reached the main camp and was able to sit in the shade and drink the water. During the walk there and the walk back, I drank 6 liters of water. I have never sweated so much. After resting for a couple of hours I headed the last 7 km back to the highway, but I luckily I caught a ride about halfway.

The park was very beautiful despite being almost a desert because it is so dry and I plan to go back to check out some of the other trails, and also to see how it changes in the wet season. Hopefully by then I will have broken in these new shoes.

2006-03-17T15:04:00.000-06:00

I have been here about a week and a half, and I'm getting used to the heat and having to wake up at 6:30 in the morning. However, my skin is still recovering from the excessive sun here. It still hasn't rained since I got here, and I've been told it probably won't rain until the end of the dry season in late April. However there is plenty of wind, and since it is a dry heat, it is bearable.

Last Saturday I went to a nearby beach called Playa Hermosa with the girl from the Bahamas who works here. This beach is one of the few calm beaches on the Pacific coast. Most of the other beaches have larger waves that are good for surfing. The beach was very scenic, but everything was so dry and brown. We met three girls there from Chicago who are doing a university language exchange program with a university in the capital, San Jose. We hung out on the beach for a while, where I managed to get a bad sunburn despite using lots of sunscreen, and we ate dinner together. In the evening I checked out the local disco in Bagaces.

On Sunday, my Costa Rican family had a barbeque and we played soccer and played with their dog. It's a cross between a Doberman and a Rottweiler, but it is still only 2 months old, so it's relatively harmless. I can communicate a little better with my family now, we even had a very slow and labored conversation about Costa Rica politics.

On Thursday night, the American intern that works here set up a birthday/St. Patrick's party for his girlfriend. I got to meet most of the "gringos" that live in the town. There's the four interns from where I work, three former programming interns that still live here, and a group of about 10 girls and 1 guy who follow monkeys around all day in a nearby nature preserve. They are here for about a year doing this. There were also a couple of native Costa Ricans I met as well.

When I get a chance, I'll try to find an internet cafe to post some more pictures on my photo site but I might not be able to this weekend

2006-03-10T15:55:00.000-06:00

I arrived on Monday on a plane from Buffalo through Charlotte. I was met at the airport by one of my fellow employees, Tatiana. We took a bus 3 hours to the town of Bagaces where I work. The bus ride was interesting to say the least, especially when the driver would pass cars on the two lane road with oncoming traffic. Usually other cars would slow down to avoid the bus, but sometimes the bus had to swerve back into the correct lane.

I spent the first two nights in the owner of the company's house. He and his wife have a fancy ranch house with a pool and a great view. Its the middle of the dry season so every day is hot with barely a cloud in the sky. There are a lot of cattle in the pastures and iguanas hang around like squirrels.

I started work right away on Tuesday. There are about 30 workers and there are 4 other interns. They are from the Bahamas, Spain, Russia and the US. I am working on making a program to run a vision test for people. This company makes the vision equipment you use when they check your eyes at the driver's licence issuers. Most employees speak at least a little bit of English and I haven't been bored at work yet.

The family has three sons ages 12,13, and 15, but the father died recently of cancer and the family moved here from the capital. The family is very friendly and speaks very little english. They live right next to the factory where I work but it's about a fifteen minute walk to the town so it's somewhat isolated. I have a large room and my own bathroom, at least temporarily. The mother cooks my meals and the food is excellent. Soccer is extremely popular here and I played with my family as well as watched some on the TV. The weather is so dry that last night a tree caught on fire by the river next to the house and I was woken at 5 in the morning by a fire engine driving up the driveway. Luckily there was no wind and the fire didn't spread. I was also woken up occasionally by an annoying howler monkey but the rest of the time I could sleep.

It is a nice paradise here, so nice in fact that the two previous intern programmers that worked here now live here permanently, having gotten full time jobs in internet related work. I can't upload any pictures to my photo site from work, so I might have to find a good internet cafe to do it later.