We said goodbye to the paradise beach and zoomed by speedboat to the peninsula surf town of Mal Pais.
Kirsty had been here before, so it was all very easy and familiar. Mal Pais Surf Camp is a very special place. It is the friendliest place we have stayed at on our travels, everyone talks to everyone. Most people are beginner surfers, so the atmosphere is really relaxed, everyone sharing their surfing attempt stories, wipeout stories, standing up without falling over stories...all good. The waves were much more beginner friendly and I feel like my surfing really progressed, hooray. It always feels like a battle of survival though, big wave coming straight at me...yikes, in the wrong place, turn round and ride it in or get mashed like in a washing machine. Good fun. After 3 days of this I felt pretty battered and bruised though and I was ready to have a break!
We had one brilliant evening where we ran up to a 5 star villa resort, they had a swim-up bar in an infinity pool, overlooking the whole coastline - amazing sunset. You barbeque your own food, then drink more cocktails in the pool.
We decided our next stop would be Nicaragua. The buses around that peninsula are really limited, so we jumped on one of the shuttles and headed for Nicaragua.
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
New Year 2010!
At the beach house we slept, surfed, played tennis, played cards,
played articulate, played drinking games, laughed a lot, body surfed,
football, napped, cooked, looked at iguanas, looked at monkeys, looked
at tucans, ate out at amazing places, took a lot of surf photos,
celebrated New Year, played golf, Internet, got happy, got sad. 2
stories from the week make the cut: 1) Kirsty and her fungi. 2) Will
and the intruder.
Full details coming soon.
played articulate, played drinking games, laughed a lot, body surfed,
football, napped, cooked, looked at iguanas, looked at monkeys, looked
at tucans, ate out at amazing places, took a lot of surf photos,
celebrated New Year, played golf, Internet, got happy, got sad. 2
stories from the week make the cut: 1) Kirsty and her fungi. 2) Will
and the intruder.
Full details coming soon.
Sent from my iPhone
Bocas Del Toro, Panama
We decided to squeeze in a little trip to a group of islands called
Bocas Del Toro, about an hour east of the Costa Rican border. Big
queues at the border, but a good opportunity to make some new friends
- everyone was going to the same place. We stayed on Isla de Colon,
the main hub. It was scorching! The hottest place we've been so far.
We decided to rent bicycles and cycle 15 km to a beach on the other
side of the island. These bikes were creaky and rusty but we were
confident they would make the journey. All was good until the road
turned to deeeep gravel, and the hills. Kirsty's bike wouldn't go into
the easy gear so we switched. After about 10 minutes I realise that I
can't actually turn the pedals! Oh no! We still had 8 kms to go until
the beach. Two policemen stopped on their motorbike to try to help us
with their Swiss army knife - they failed. We ended up running with
one bike, freewheeling down the hills, legs out the sides, while the
other person rode the ok bike. We switched over a few times and
managed to reach the beach just before sunset. There was a minibus
waiting ready to head back to the town, they driver was happy to throw
our bikes on the roof, but he was leaving in 13 minutes! Quick! We
were absolutely dripping in sweat after our mini duathlon, we ripped
off our clothes and sprinted into the water. Quick photo session
before jumping in the minibus. The reason we had headed to the beach
was to look at starfish, but we didn't have time to go and search for
them.
That night we met 3 Brazillian blokes. Alex owned a yacht and had been
sailing around the Caribbean for the past 15 months. Alex was a keen
surfer and had 6 surf boards on board, also scuba gear and fishing
equipment. They offered to take us out on the yacht the next day. At
first we were sceptical but after dinner together we had decided that
they were safe friendly guys just wanting to hang out. So next day off
we go, beautiful yacht, cruise up to deserted beaches, snorkelling
with the tropical fish, surfed off the boat, we decided not to dive as
the conditions weren't great. Perfect day, sailing back we saw
dolphins. We got back and totally crashed out; we got fried in the hot
hot sun and after cycling and running the day before and surfing all
day...shattered!
Day 3 we went on an organised boat tour to see a few different
islands. First stop Dolphin Bay...picture 15 speedboats, all zooming
across the bay looking for dolphins. If I was a dolphin I would not
hang out there. Anyway we saw a few before heading off to some other
islands. Then it chucked it down with rain, the warmest place was in
the ocean. Headed to another island for lunch and we totally froze.
Last stop was red frog beach...famous for red frogs!
The coolest bar that we found was a sunken shipwreck with decking
around it, spotlights in the water, you could see all the jellyfish
and fish swimming around. We never made it to the illusive Aqua
Lounge, on the neighbouring island - they had one of those big
hampster ball things.
Next morning our goal was to go from Panama back to Costa Rica,
through San Jose and down to Andrew's beach house just west of Jaco on
the Pacific coast. A full day of boats and buses.
Bocas Del Toro, about an hour east of the Costa Rican border. Big
queues at the border, but a good opportunity to make some new friends
- everyone was going to the same place. We stayed on Isla de Colon,
the main hub. It was scorching! The hottest place we've been so far.
We decided to rent bicycles and cycle 15 km to a beach on the other
side of the island. These bikes were creaky and rusty but we were
confident they would make the journey. All was good until the road
turned to deeeep gravel, and the hills. Kirsty's bike wouldn't go into
the easy gear so we switched. After about 10 minutes I realise that I
can't actually turn the pedals! Oh no! We still had 8 kms to go until
the beach. Two policemen stopped on their motorbike to try to help us
with their Swiss army knife - they failed. We ended up running with
one bike, freewheeling down the hills, legs out the sides, while the
other person rode the ok bike. We switched over a few times and
managed to reach the beach just before sunset. There was a minibus
waiting ready to head back to the town, they driver was happy to throw
our bikes on the roof, but he was leaving in 13 minutes! Quick! We
were absolutely dripping in sweat after our mini duathlon, we ripped
off our clothes and sprinted into the water. Quick photo session
before jumping in the minibus. The reason we had headed to the beach
was to look at starfish, but we didn't have time to go and search for
them.
That night we met 3 Brazillian blokes. Alex owned a yacht and had been
sailing around the Caribbean for the past 15 months. Alex was a keen
surfer and had 6 surf boards on board, also scuba gear and fishing
equipment. They offered to take us out on the yacht the next day. At
first we were sceptical but after dinner together we had decided that
they were safe friendly guys just wanting to hang out. So next day off
we go, beautiful yacht, cruise up to deserted beaches, snorkelling
with the tropical fish, surfed off the boat, we decided not to dive as
the conditions weren't great. Perfect day, sailing back we saw
dolphins. We got back and totally crashed out; we got fried in the hot
hot sun and after cycling and running the day before and surfing all
day...shattered!
Day 3 we went on an organised boat tour to see a few different
islands. First stop Dolphin Bay...picture 15 speedboats, all zooming
across the bay looking for dolphins. If I was a dolphin I would not
hang out there. Anyway we saw a few before heading off to some other
islands. Then it chucked it down with rain, the warmest place was in
the ocean. Headed to another island for lunch and we totally froze.
Last stop was red frog beach...famous for red frogs!
The coolest bar that we found was a sunken shipwreck with decking
around it, spotlights in the water, you could see all the jellyfish
and fish swimming around. We never made it to the illusive Aqua
Lounge, on the neighbouring island - they had one of those big
hampster ball things.
Next morning our goal was to go from Panama back to Costa Rica,
through San Jose and down to Andrew's beach house just west of Jaco on
the Pacific coast. A full day of boats and buses.
Sent from my iPhone
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
San Jose and the Caribbean Coast, Costa Rica
We arrived at the airport LATE, but boyfriend Andrew was there to pick us up, yey. He drove us to his house in Santa Ana, overlooking the whole city - a really beautiful spot, and such an amazing house. After all the hostels and buses, it felt like we had been rescued, taken in, properly looked after!
We stayed 2 nights before heading to the Caribbean Coast for Christmas.
Our first stop was Cahuita (4 hours from San Jose) - a tiny little reggae town with a national park right next to it. After seeing hardly any animals in the amazon, we were pretty excited about seeing more - loads of monkeys and crab-eating raccoons. One bold monkey tried to steal Kirsty's sunglasses.
The next town along the coast is Puerto Viejo. This is where we were for Christmas Day, we had heard that it was a bit more of a party town. Our expensive hostel was swarming in mosquitoes, and they had overbooked, so we managed to move to a nicer hostel more than half the price, hooray. We ate lots of seafood and lay on Playa Negro - black sand beach. It wasn't the nicest beach in the world, and wondered why people raved about this town so much. In the afternoon we went for a walk along the coast and discovered the white sand beach, where all the surfing waves were...and all the gringoes too! Everything made more sense after seeing that beach! We saw dolphins in the sea as we waited for the bus heading for Panama!
We stayed 2 nights before heading to the Caribbean Coast for Christmas.
Our first stop was Cahuita (4 hours from San Jose) - a tiny little reggae town with a national park right next to it. After seeing hardly any animals in the amazon, we were pretty excited about seeing more - loads of monkeys and crab-eating raccoons. One bold monkey tried to steal Kirsty's sunglasses.
The next town along the coast is Puerto Viejo. This is where we were for Christmas Day, we had heard that it was a bit more of a party town. Our expensive hostel was swarming in mosquitoes, and they had overbooked, so we managed to move to a nicer hostel more than half the price, hooray. We ate lots of seafood and lay on Playa Negro - black sand beach. It wasn't the nicest beach in the world, and wondered why people raved about this town so much. In the afternoon we went for a walk along the coast and discovered the white sand beach, where all the surfing waves were...and all the gringoes too! Everything made more sense after seeing that beach! We saw dolphins in the sea as we waited for the bus heading for Panama!
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