Crabby Birthday!

The next day after having spent my birthday zip lining in the rain, I woke up achy and unable to move. A result of the damp weather Id experienced and me getting one year older...


The alcohol from the evening before also wasn't helping my brain to function properly. But it was OK as the sun was finally shining and I was setting off to my next destination in Costa Rica - Santa Teresa which lies on the Pacific coastline. 


I caught a shuttle bus from my accommodation in Monteverde, Cabinas Eddy which is run by a lovely Tico (local Costa Rican) called Freddy and his family, to Puntarenas where I caught a ferry to cross over to the Nicoya Peninsula where Santa Terasa is situated. 

Catching the ferry to the Nicoya Peninsula

After a bone shaking bus journey we arrived in Santa Teresa which Forbes magazine voted having "one of the ten most beautiful in the World". If I were a surfer then I would have to agree. Seeing as Im not then yes Ill say its stunning but not as good as the Caribbean coastline for swimming - I went for a dip just as the sun was going down (beautiful) but gave up half way as the rip tides were so strong that I almost got dragged out!


The town (it really isn't that big) is next door to another surfers paradise called Malpais which literally means bad land in Spanish. It got this name as in the summer all the rivers and streams dry up which make it hard to live in. This clearly hasn't put off the supermodel Gisele Bünchen and her husband building a private hideaway retreat in the hills. Their presence hasn't however improved the pot holes in the roads or taken away its  undeveloped feel.


I stayed one night in Santa Teresa. Mostly being because I don't surf (not ideal when all there is to do here is just that), the area required an ATV to get around (I didn't have one) and the influx of sea crabs was ridiculous.

How the locals get around...

I feel I need to stress my point a little more on the last reason. Given it was the start of the rainy season in Costa Rica I had got used to seeing the odd sea crab crawling around. What I hadn't expected was to have them crawling on my bed during the night! I had been reading before going to sleep and suddenly heard a tapping noise behind my head, curious to know what it was I turned around only to come face to face with a sea crab. To say I was freaked out was an understatement. The night turned into a game of musical beds with me moving a grand total of three times into three different beds in an attempt to flee the crabs. The final straw was when I was in the top bunk - yes that's right the TOP BED OF A BUNK BED - and two cheeky crabs crawled their way up the bed post and behind my head. Needless to say I got next to no sleep that night. The following day when I complained to the hostel I was told that I had been lucky (?!) as there had been fifty in the kitchen. Er not quite the response I was expecting. I can only imagine they were all wanting to wish me a Crabby Birthday. Sorry I couldn't resist...


The next day I made my way to Montezuma which whilst still known for its nearby surfing beaches, is more of a healing arts and yoga destination. It was certainly more happening in terms of things to do than Santa Teresa and Malpais. The town is known locally as Montefuma as fumar is the verb to smoke in Spanish - a reference to the amount of smoking (the grass kind) that takes place by the people who visit. I cant say I noticed anyone smoking so no idea where this comes from!


I decided to stay at the Sano Banano hotel mainly because it had received good reviews on TripAdvisor.co.uk (I've relied heavily on this website during my travels) and it had a sister hotel called Ylang Ylang which had an awesome outdoor pool and other facilities I could use : D


I did an excursion to the nearby Tortuga Island which as the name suggests is famous for its Turtles. We only managed to see the top of one whilst we travelling there by speed boat so I was unable to get a picture but it was cool. There were also dolphins swimming next to our boat. Such incredible creatures. 

Squint and you´ll see dolphins! 

There isn't much to do on the island itself, therefore most of your time is spent in the water snorkelling. They take you out by boat to other nearby smaller islands and you snorkel off there. Id not snorkelled properly before (I don't count paddling in cloudy shallow water in Key Largo, Florida as real snorkelling) so I was slightly nervous but it turned out fine. Once Id managed to control my breathing using the snorkel I managed to marvel through my mask at the tropical Finding Nemo type fish swimming beneath me. The visibility wasn't great but I think its certainly given me more confidence in the water. So much so I think possibly (with time and also acceptance that I will need to get my entire head submerged) I may consider trying some diving in one of the other Central American countries...stay tuned!

Tortuga Island

One of the rock islands we snorkelled off

I found Nemo and his friends!

Lunch time consisted of the most delicious Marlin fish cooked for us by the chef of the tour group. Its a tough call but I think that the food in Central America could be turning out to be tastier than that in South America...lo siento America del Sur!


The rest of the time spent in Montezuma was spent chilling out on the beach, watching films that were shown each evening by the hotel (subject to there not being a power cut) and making the most of the free access we had to the sister hotel Ylang Ylang which had a swimming pool and private beach. Its a hard life : D

Ylang Ylang beach hotel garden facing the sea...

...which was quite rough!

The beach you had to walk down to get to Ylang Ylang

Is it a bird? is it a plane? No, its citygirltravels!

Dionne Warwick: "Do you know the way to San Jose?"


Citygirltravels: " Yes, I do Dionne, but I don´t recommend going there..."


Yes, yes, before you say it I know the lyrics to this song are referring to San Jose, California, but they fit in so aptly with our second destination in Costa Rica - the capital San Jose. 


I had decided to swing by the nations largest city as I thought it may be a good base to set off to other parts of the country from. Whilst it has good transport links (by this I mean road infrastructure as the buses themselves are by far the worst I've experienced thus far in Central America), there really isn't anything else to see or do in the city itself. Being an ugly city also didn't do much for its already waning appeal to me. 


Interestingly since arriving in Costa Rica I've noticed that pretty much every building has the most insane amount of security on it - every building looks like Fort Knox and has razor wire all over it. Something I found a little hard to get our heads around considering Costa Rica is all about Pura Vida and is, according to the Happy Planet Index  meant to be one of the happiest places in the World to live?! Perhaps it is to do with Costa Rica abolishing their military in 1948...


One place I did enjoy visiting in San Jose was a restaurant called Veggie House which as the name suggests only serves vegetarian food. I always find that veggie restaurants pay so much attention to detail when it comes to serving their food. I think this is to distract the fact that you're just eating vegetables and no meat or fish so they have to make up for it with intense flavours and colours in their dishes. Either way the food here was delicious and I highly recommend their veggie wrap.

Presentation is key at Veggie House...

The bad boy veggie wrap! delicious

Leaving San Jose I headed to Monteverde (Spanish for Green Mountain) which is a major ecotourism destination in Costa Rica. The area is best known for its Cloud Forest Nature Reserve which consists of 26,000 acres of tropical rain forest and is home to many species of plants, animals and insects. The forest is characterized by nearly 100% humidity throughout the year and receives four metres of rain each year! Wet stuff. 


The journey to Monteverde was at night and as such the scenery was ethereal as the bus climbed higher into the cloud forest. I half expected to see the cast from the film Lord of the Rings thundering towards me on horseback. 


The weather changed dramatically between Puerto Viejo, where I had originally started on the Caribbean coastline of Costa Rica, to San Jose and Monteverde which are situated inland and at altitude. The temperature dropped easily by 5 or more degrees centigrade and I was suddenly victim to the rainy season. Not that I was complaining mind, it made a refreshing change to feel cool again. 


Monteverde itself, isn't very big but what it lacks in size it makes up for in activities and restaurants. One eaterie I visited was the Treehouse restaurant & café  which as the name suggests is actually built around a tree! Amazeballs. 

Hanging out at the Treehouse

The main activities in Monteverde centre around the Cloud Forest which is what the area is famous for. I decided to do what is known as a Skytram and  Skywalk. 


The Skytram is a guided tour where you take a tram up to the Continental divide (the mountain range which divides the pacific and Atlantic coast) and look out across the Gulf of Nicoya and at the Arenal volcano. Unfortunately for me the weather was a little drizzly but I still managed to see a sloth in the trees (my first one!) and admire the tropical forest from above. 

Going up in the Skytram

Gulf of Nicoya in the distance

Look closely to the right of the middle of this pic and you´ll see a pair of Sloth eyes staring back at you!

The Skywalk involved venturing into the forest via trails and suspension bridges. All good except I did get a little freaked out by the height and swaying of some of the bridges! Our guide was great and explained all about the forests including the reason why you always see so many Tarzan like vines hanging everywhere - they are actually called sinker roots and they get water from the ground up to the top of the tree which cant access water.

Rainforest!

Suspension bridge

The next day we caught a Jeep taxi (they´re the only vehicles that will get you there) to The Biological Reserve of Monteverde Cloud Forest. Once again I set off on a hike into the jungle, albeit this time with even more rain. The trails were great but due to the weather I had to stop a few times and shelter under the canopy of a tree so as to not get so wet. The wildlife in the forest was amazing, everything from creepy crawlies to exotic birds. One bug we saw was HUGE, literally flying around like it had its own rocket pack on. I've no idea what species it was but it looked straight out of Pixars film A Bugs Life. 

Jurassic Park. OK OK I lie, its the Cloud Forest Nature Reserve - but doesn't it look like the film?!

Once again, as with the Skywalk and the Skytrek, the entrance fee for the Reserve was overpriced. Costa Rica it would seem is true to its name, you have to be rica (rich) to do anything here.


Surprisingly I did manage to find one excursion which was, *shock horror*, free! The Hummingbird Gallery was a park which far outdid the forest not just because it was gratis but because awesomely I could literally feel the flapping of the birds wings whilst they were feeding from the bird tables! The noise of all of their wings flapping was ridiculously loud and like being stood next to an engine. 

Hummingbirds weren't however the most awesome thing about Monteverde. No, I had deliberately chosen to visit this Cloud Forest for another reason: zip lining.


You may recall in an earlier blog that I did a zip line across the Mendoza River in Argentina. I had such a great time (despite getting stuck half way across the ravine) that I was desperate to do it again, this time in the home of zip lining, Costa Rica. 


After much deliberation I chose to go with a company called Monteverde Extremo. Our reason was straightforward: they had a zipline called Superman, where you fly like the Super Hero himself on your front above the forest. 


What I hadn't factored in was that in addition to the Superman cable and the other zip lines (there are twelve in total) there is also a Tarzan Swing (A swing of 30 metres, reaching a height of about 50 metres) and a Rappel (30 metres high)...


Thankfully the day got off to a good start - it was my birthday - so I was ready and raring to go. Alas the weather wasn't feeling the same and it rained pretty much the entire day which meant that most of our vistas were shrouded in cloud (they don't call it Cloud Forest for nothing you know). I didn't mind the lack of vista as it meant I couldn't see how high we were at times and the rain meant I had a valid reason for shutting my eyes : )


My main concern was ensuring I made it across each zip line successfully. After the incident in Mendoza I didn't fancy getting rescued again...


Everything was going swimmingly until I started to slow down on one cable, thankfully I quickly curled my body up into a ball and managed to make it to the end in time. When it came to the Superman cable, the instructors therefore demanded that I did this cable with my arms by my side to ensure I went as fast as possible. Usually you do it with your arms stretched outwards (They should really call this cable Mighty Mouse not Super man in that case...) but as I am so small they were worried my arms would cause drag and slow me down! I wasn't taking any chances so I dutifully obeyed.


The experience of flying was AMAZING albeit massively surreal. Everything below me looked fake, the trees resembled broccoli and the cows looked straight out of a Hornby model railway set. 


With regards to the Monkey Swing and the Rappel, well they went as well as could be expected. I cant say I enjoyed throwing myself voluntarily off the starting stand into a drop of 50 metres but the swing itself was OK once I managed to open my eyes and stop screaming! The Rappel was actually rather fun once I got comfortable and it was great to see the trees to up close. 

Grimaced smile as I head off on one of the zip lines...

I unfortunately didn't get any footage of the Superman Cable and the Monkey Swing but you can check out the Extremo Canopy Tour YouTube videos here to get a feel for what I did!


To reward myself for being brave and also to celebrate my birthday I went for a few drinks at The Hidden Canopy Treehouses Boutique Hotel. It is the first hotel in Monteverde offering treehouse chalets in the cloud forest canopy. 


The staff do not usually let any one other than guests who are staying there drink in the main lodge but after charming my way in they spoilt me rotten with complimentary cake and drinks, and not to mention countless portions of nachos plus two rounds of Happy Birthday sung to me (the second version was a random American one...) by all the guests and the staff! The views were spectacular and service I received (albeit only for drinks & food as I didn't stay the night) was amazing so if you´re looking for somewhere special to visit/stay during your time in Monteverde then Id highly recommend here. The owner Jenn is also the hostess with the mostess and will thoroughly ensure you have a lovely time. 

View from the main lodge - check out the cloud!

Costa Rica A.K.A. Cost A Lot

The journey to Costa Rica involved catching the boat back to Almirante on the Panama mainland. From here (once again with boat stroke) we caught a shuttle bus to the Costa Rican border. The crossing was very straightforward and involved walking across a bridge that looked straight out of an adventure film with its wobbly wooden planks over to Costa Rica. 


Another shuttle bus was waiting for us on this side to take us to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca where we were staying. 


The scenery en route to Puerto Viejo (as it is known to the locals) was very similar to Panama albeit with more jungle and wildlife. During our journey an iguana the size of a dog (seriously) ran in front of our 4x4 to cross the road. Thankfully our driver saw it in time and managed to miss it. I imagine Costa Rica needs iguanas this big to eat all the giant spiders we saw en route - their webs were hanging on pretty much every bush and telegraph pole! Monkeys on the other hand have their own walkway to get across the road...

Monkey crossing....

Having been travelling all morning our stomachs were rumbling so we headed straight to a bakery/cafe called Bread & Chocolate in Puerto Viejo which my travel friend Gigi had recommended. We ate the most delicious bacon sandwich I've had outside of the UK and it even had Heinz Tomato Ketchup on it! Needless to say we returned here quite a lot during our stay. 

Best BLT outside of London

Being on the Caribbean coastline, Puerto Viejo quite aptly had rather a lot of Rastas walking around. I've also never seen so many pictures of Bob Marley in one place! (Apparently many Africans came over by way of Jamaica in the 1800s to help build the Costa Rican coffee rail roads). The Caribbean connection also made its way into the food we ate - rice, beans, plantain and hot sauce which I've discovered I can now no longer live without...


The beaches in Puerto Viejo were beautiful and stretched all the way down the coast. I discovered the beaches here are famous in the surfing community for the biggest and most powerful wave in Costa Rica known as Salsa Brava. It turned out we were visiting during the wrong month of the year to see it, but that was fine as it meant I could swim without the fear of drowning. 


We hired bicycles (mine couldn't have been any more girly pink) and cycled the five miles along the quite flat road through the jungle to Playa Cocles which I think is by far one of the most stunning beaches I've seen. 

Pretty in pink

Its a stunner

*sigh*

En route to the beach we couldn't help but stop at the Chocorart Cacao Farm which is run by a Swiss couple. Unfortunately the farm was shut for tours but its chocolate factory was open for a quick drink of Arazá juice (a fruit native to the Brazilian rainforest which tastes AMAZING) and to scoff a couple of chocolate truffles : D

Nom nom nom...

Arazá juice

These are amazingly where cocoa beans come from!

Id heard Puerto Viejo had a reputation as a bit of a party town but I cant say we saw much of it whilst we were here. I think this was due to it being low season. One night a group of us from our hostel had a few drinks at Rocking J´s hostel which really wasn't at all rocking. Thankfully Tasty Waves Cantina further up the road was a bit more lively. 

The next day, despite having drunk a few too many Cube Libres the night before, we thought it a good idea to go to Cahuita National Park which is a forty minute bus ride north of Puerto Viejo. It actually turned out quite the hangover cure walking through the jungle and along deserted beaches. You´ll be pleased to know that after my previous jungle freak out on Bastimientos Island, I made sure I was fully prepared clothing wise and covered up against any insects. 


The wildlife we saw whilst in the park was amazing. We saw everything from White Headed Capuchins (like Marcel the Monkey from the TV series Friends) to Howler Monkeys, lizards, geckos, hermit and normal crabs. We heard the Howler Monkeys way before we saw them, they scared the hell out of me with their dinosaur like roaring! I later discovered that the novel Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton was set in Costa Rica (although the film itself was shot mainly in Hawaii) which made sense as the countryside here does look very prehistoric. 

Marcel...

...makes a swift exit from the paparazzi

Gordon Ghecko

Inter Milan loving grasshopper?

Whilst stopping to eat some lunch in the park we discovered that hermit crabs are quite partial to BLT sandwiches. A bit of my sandwich fell on the floor and within seconds a hoard of hermit crabs were fighting over it! The scene was hilarious. They also cracked me up the way they greeted each other like Dr Zoidberg in the TV series Futurama.

Woop, woop, woop, woop, woop as Dr Zoidberg would say...

The big fight!

The winner!

In addition to hermit crabs, there were sea crabs everywhere in the park. They ranged from being blue to purple and then orange in colour. One section of the park we walked through was literally swarmed in them. You couldn't move for fear of treading on one!

One of the many crabs crawling around

Check out this ones eyes!

Unfortunately we didn't see any Sloth's which I have to say I was pretty upset about as two of my friends who had previously been to the park had raved about how cute they were. Hopefully elsewhere in Costa Rica we´ll spot some...


You may be wondering why I've made reference to Costa Rica also being know as Cost A Lot as the title of this blog? Well, funnily enough it is because everything from food, to wine to petrol in this country is expensive! I had no idea Costa Rica would be one of the most expensive countries in Central America. We've still got a fair bit to see here but I can safely say I am looking forward to getting to Nicaragua where I've heard it is meant to be much cheaper albeit not as developed as here. You win some, you lose some...   

Jungle Boogie

Our final days in Bocas Town in Panama were spent partying and then chillaxing (to get over the partying). We had deliberately stayed an extra few nights to ensure we made the Full Moon party that was taking place in one of the nearby hostels. 


The Full Moon Party was going well until I (rather foolishly) thought I could compete with a group of teenage travellers who were playing the Cereal Packet game where you pick up a cardboard cereal cardboard box off the floor with just your mouth. Rules found here. Some of you back home may have played this game with me after a night out and will know that in the UK I am really quite good. Smugness aside, I do (normally) have an innate ability to excel at this game. I think alcohol does sometimes have a helping hand...


However on this occasion I was competing with kids (literally given our age difference) who were way more nubile and also not wearing tight skinny jeans - damn you Topshop!


After getting to the final round, some bright spark suggested an hours respite before the final showdown. Big mistake. This just allowed for more alcohol consumption and over exertion on the dance floor. Thus resulting in us all being in no fit state to play the game - me included. I personally think it was all a ploy as the girl who ended up winning was nowhere near the dance floor or bar. Not that Im a sore loser or anything... ;-p


The next day, I hauled my aching body out of bed (note to self, must limber up before and after party games) and said bye bye to Bocas and set off for our next destination - Costa Rica!

Bye bye Bocas!

Welcome to the Jungle!

After a few days in Bocas Town, we caught a boat to the nearby island of Bastimientos where we had booked two nights at the sister hostel of Casa Verde called Palmar Tent Lodge - an eco friendly resort with Safari tents. The resort is situated in-between the jungle and the beautiful Red Frog Beach - named so after the red poison dart frogs that inhabit this part of the island. 

After recovering, once again, from boat stroke, we settling into our basic but slightly damp safari tent. Randomly the tent was made by a British company called Soulpad  and the towels provided to us were also by the British department store Debenhams! They must have known we were coming...

Our safari tent

View from inside the tent looking out

It wasn't long before we were reminded of the fact that we were staying on a tropical island - a coconut fell to a thud outside our tent! The gardener must have forgotten that one when he was doing his rounds of cutting loose coconuts that morning...


Picking coconuts turned out to be a good way of getting free food and drink as there were so many available. Appropriately the lodge had a machete to get them open. I must mention here that one of my travel buddies Tom was the allocated coconut opener. He did a sterling job each time showing off the machete skills he had gained whilst travelling in Africa. (Tom you can give me that $10 for this later...)

The wildlife on the island was, as you would expect, exotic. There were two fluorescent green parrots called Bob and Marley who would routinely fly over and attack squawk at you. Alas neither of them spoke, which was just as well, as I imagine both would have sworn given the anger management issues they both had. Ironic seeing as they were named after a chilled out Rastafarian?!

Bob & Marley, or is that Marley & Bob...?

There were other much more accommodating wildlife on the island including geckos which would come and watch you whilst you were peeing or having a shower...slightly unnerving to begin with but quite entertaining towards the end!


Given we were staying at an eco lodge all the water we were using for the toilet, shower, sink, kitchen etc. was collected from the regular bursts of torrential rain. The water therefore required vigorous pumping beforehand. A nice work out to make you even sweatier than you were already. 


Unfortunately for us the owners of the lodge were on leave whilst we were staying. Therefore the staff (I use this word loosely) who were there in their absence were all volunteers. Most of whom were backpackers. They were all very pleasant but given they weren't really getting paid (they just got free lodging and boat rides back to the mainland in addition to discounts on food and drink) the level of cleanliness and service you received wasn't the greatest. Which was a shame as the lodge had a lot of potential. 


Prior to arriving on the island, we had met a guy called JC (not Mr Jesus Christ himself rather an American) who was staying at our hostel back on the Bocas mainline. JC had described quite excitedly that whilst he had been staying at our lodge that turtles were crawling onto Red Frog Beach at night to lay their eggs. Understandably I was pretty excited by this prospect as I´d not seen turtles in that environment before. They were also according to JC  the size of dinosaurs. I didn't believe him until I saw a photo and was pretty much gob-smacked. They were HUGE. 


Alas after spending two nights in a row walking the length and breadth of the beach we didn't see a single turtle. I was, as well as all the other recent arrivals at the lodge,  extremely disappointed. Especially given that those that had been lucky enough to witness the spectacle earlier in the week wouldn't stop raving about it... :(


To try and take our mind off the lack of turtle action, we all decided to walk to one of the other beaches up the coast called Wizard which my friend Adam from back in the UK had said was meant to be beautiful. The volunteers at the hostel said it was an easy forty minute walk to the beach. What they had forgotten to highlight that due to recent storms the end of the beach where the path began was littered with fallen trees and the path itself was thick with mud. It was also quite overgrown and barely recognisable in places. Trecking in Havaiana flip flops and a bikini is not correct clothing for such conditions. As such we failed miserably. 

One of the many assault courses we were faced with...

In the middle of the first batch of fallen trees

One of the slightly clearer and less muddy paths...

The next day we attempted to walk to another beach further down the opposite side of the coast called Polo Beach. This walk started off better and we did managed to pass through other nice beaches to get there (namely Turtle Beach). However my threshold for walking through a jungle with just shorts and a t-shirt whilst insects were crawling all over me was just to too much to bear. The final straw came when a spider dropped out of a tree and landed near me and I freaked out. Massively. After having to take deep breaths through my cupped hands (there wasn't a paper bag nearby) I managed to compose myself enough to get myself out and back to Turtle Beach. Thankfully the beauty of this beach and the warmth of the sea water was enough to shake off my fear and finally relaxed. A true sign I am way too much of a city girl to ever contemplate living in the jungle...

Almost there...

Finally - the calm after the storm

Despite this drama, we did see some interesting wildlife en route that didn't freak me out as much. Namely some hermit crabs, red frogs, and numerous exotic birds. 

Red Frog!

Bob & Marley´s non captive cousins

Not quite wild, but this dog certainly didn't want to go in the sea!

Not the greatest pic, but this is actually a humming bird mid flight 

The time soon came to return back to Bocas Town. I had mixed emotions about returning to the mainline. On one hand I had an amazing time on the island seeing wildlife that you only see on National Geographic. However on the other hand I´d managed to freak myself out over creepy crawlies that in reality are a thousand times smaller than me. Id also managed to get a cold from sleeping in a damp tent so overall I wasn't that sad to be leaving and returning to civilisation. 


Final score? Jungle 1 - Citygirl 0.