Nicaragua and Costa Rica
From South American Travels in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, Costa Rica on Dec 21 '07
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When we arrived into Nicaragua, one of the worlds poorest countries we really didn't know what to expect but we were to be pleasantly surprised by this beautiful country and its friendly people. We arrived a few days before Christmas so decided to skip out the capital Managua and head straight down to Granada.
Granada seems to be a very up and coming town with lots of outside investment and increased tourism. Although not a true reflection of the country, most Nicaraguans we talked with agreed that their country is definitely on the up and with increased stability will become the new investment hot spot for Central America.
We spent most of our time lounging about on the beaches then taking in the spectacular sunsets
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Having stayed in some dives along the way on this trip we though it was about time we treated ourselves to some luxury over Christmas so we booked into a 5 star hotel for a few nights with swimming pool, gym and the works. We also managed to find ourselves a full blown Christmas dinner in the Safari restaurant ran by and English and Australian couple, which was amazing but still not a patch on mums dinner!
Taking a few more days to enjoy the sights of Granada we then headed down to another tourist hot spot on the coast - San Jan del Sur which offers some of the cheapest surfing in Central America and as a result has a real chilled out vibe with great food, bars and music.
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We finally hit some excellent weather in San Juan so we spent most of our time lounging about on the beaches then taking in the spectacular sunsets in the evening at one of the local bars. After some hectic travelling through Central America so far it was great to relax for a few days and an excellent way to end our time in Nicaragua.
Full of expectations of great weather, golden beaches and tropical animals we headed for Costa Rica and its Capital San Jose. There we met up with Liam and Karen, friends of Sarah's who had flown out to meet us. It was great having a few nights out with people from home again and even better as they came loaded with Galaxy chocolate!
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Leaving the capital behind we moved onto one of many a travellers highlights, Arenal, which is one of the most active volcanoes in the world where you can view the spectacular sight of it spewing red hot lava into the night sky. Excited at the thought of this we all booked a nigh time tour including a relaxing time in the famous hot springs afterwards.
Unfortunately the trip turned into a bit of a nightmare as firstly we had to trek through a muddy forest in pitch darkness and pouring rain, along the base of the volcano. When we reached the main vantage point we could see absolutely nothing. Our guide seemed somewhat deluded claiming he could see flickers of light and but we decided to cut our losses and at least we still had the thermal baths to come.
We arrived into the car park of the hot baths and got out of the van hearing all the happy people splashing around just over the wall. When we started to walk to the entrance our guide informed us that we were actually going to the 'natural' hot springs which basically turned out to be a storm drain with moderately warm water which I suspect was the run off water from the real thermal baths!
Feeling pretty peeved at all of this, though still managing to laugh about it, we promptly left Arenal the next day and got on a bus bound for Puerto Viejo, another popular surfer spot where we were promised great beaches, sun and the warm Caribbean ocean. Unfortunately the bad weather had followed us from Arenal and it rained every day we were there so after a few days we decided to cut our losses on the expensively disappointing Costa Rica and head for Panama.
More pics as usual at http://picasaweb.google.com/hughes.niall
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