May 22-25 - Tamarindo, Costa Rica

The lady that I caught a ride with from El Coco, Karen, acted a little as a tour guide as we drove through. Since she had lived in Costa Rica for a year she knew about the area, the politics and how it had changed in the last couple of years. She also shared some of her stories about the people she had met here and things she had done. On her way to Playa Flamingo she had to stop in Playa Hermosa for a few hours for some meetings, so I decided to go check out the beach. Rental cars in Costa Rica apparently have different license plates than locals and are often targeted for theft so we left the car in a parking lot with security. I walked from the parking lot to the beach, taking a few wrong turns on my way there because I seem to have problems paying attention when people give me directions... The beach was nicer than Playa del Coco, and it turned out to be one of the nicer days since I've been here so it was a great day for just laying around.

Playa Hermosa

I met up again with Karen around 2 and we took off to Playa Flamingo. She had been told of a short cut to Playa Flamingo that she had never used and wanted to try. However she did warn me that she didn't know exactly where she was going and we may get lost. We did, but it turned out to be good because I saw a lot of small Costa Rican towns that weren't full of hotels and gift shops. I found it interesting too that the soccer fields always seem to be the center of the towns (how it should be :P). We also passed one of the big fancy resorts going up. I don't remember the name of it but it looked like a cathedral and and was enormous. And we saw tons of monkeys in the trees as we drove by.

Tamarindo beach

At around 4pm we arrived in Playa Flamingo. Karen dropped me off at the intersection where the road turns to Tamarindo where I could catch a bus. I waited around for an hour on the side of the road and no bus showed up. Finally I decided to grab a ride from a local with another couple who said he's drive us to our hotels for $2 per person.



Tamarindo is really touristy, more so than El Coco. It's also a surfer town. Although I know it's not rational, I felt apprehensive about being in another surfer town since my last experience in a surfer town (Saluyita) was not a pleasant one. Even the hostel I chose turned out the be a surfer hostel. It had surf boards for rent and private and group lessons. It wasn't nearly as nice as the one in El Coco but wasn't not bad.

Sunset at restaurant

The first night I just grabbed some food from the grocery store and hung out at the hostel.
The second day I decided to give surfing a try. I went out for lessons in the morning for two hours. It was incredibly fun! The instruction was great and I was able to stand up after my second try! I also had my ass handed to me by a couple of big waves in a row where I was tossed around, but I survived. However it really tired me out. Surfing itself was also really tiring and I now understand why surfer tend to be so fit. After an hour and a half of surfing and getting beaten up I was totally exhausted and could barely get up on the board! But I'm really glad I tried it.

The beach

That same evening I went to have dinner at a restaurant on the beach. I had some delicious squid with rice while watching a beautiful sunset. The picture couldn't quite capture the exact color though, but it's close.
The next day was the nicest day since I landed in Costa Rica. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was HOT. Perfect day for the beach! Which is exactly what I did, hung out at the beach and did absolutely nothing. It was wonderful.

Saturday morning I caught a shuttle early to go to Monteverde. Tamarindo was fun but I don't think I would go back. It was very touristy and Americanized, and personally I preferred El Coco. But I guess it's the place to be if you wanna learn surfing so I'm glad I tried it :).

May 17-22- Playa del Coco, Costa Rica

I picked El Coco because of the reviews in my Lonely Planet book, it was close and there was a direct bus from Liberia. There was also a really cool looking hostel that was online that I wanted to check out. I wasn't sure what to expect because I typically don't like really touristy towns.

I arrived at Playa del Coco at about 10:30am. It was already hot and humid so I wanted to find a hostel quick so I could get to the beach. Already it was looking like one of the touristy towns that I wasn't too fond of because of all the gifts shops along the sides of the main street. After checking out one of the hostels along the main strip and finding that there were no other people staying there I wandered off to find the hostel I had seen online. I had to walk about 300m from the strip to find it, which doesn't seem like a lot but when you're carrying a pack and it's hot and you just really want to get to the beach it seems longer than it is. Luckily there was a really friendly retiree from the states in a gulf cart that stopped and gave me a ride. I was starting to like El Coco a little more by that point.

Pool at Pacific Palms Hostel

We found the hostel which was called Pacific Palms Backpackers Resort and is one of the nicest hostels I've ever stayed in. There's a pool with a swim up bar (that unfortunately wasn't stocked when I was there), clean rooms, huge bathrooms and it's super close to the beach. The staff were also really friendly.

Playa del Coco

After checking in, I headed straight to the beach. The sand here is dark brown which is why it's called Playa del Coco. Its also really fine, almost like silt. It's not the nicest beach I've ever seen but I like it. And since I was there during low season the beach was practically empty. The water was alright too. It had some waves but was still safe to swim in.

Joe and Anthony at Coconutz Bar

Several hours later I headed back to the hostel where I met the three other people staying in the same room as me: Javed from Bangladesh and Joe and Anthony from England. We headed out for some drinks and food and just hung out that evening at the bars in town. Playa del Coco is really small, and there is only really 3 bars which are all beside each other. They are also about a 3 minute walk from the hostel.


The next couple of days we basically just hung out at the beach and bars during the days, went out for dinner and then head to the bars in the evening. We met a lot of interesting people in the evenings including bar owners, staff and other travelers. I also ended up talking to a handsome and charming guy from New Jersey for two nights in a row so much that I lost my voice!
On the last night at the hostel, I met a lady who use to live in Playa Hermosa which is a 15 minute drive from El Coco. She was driving there the next day, and then on to Playa Flamingo which was right by where I wanted to go next. So the next morning I packed my stuff and caught a ride with her. I was a little sad to leave the guys I had met at the hostel. I was also knew I was going to miss El Coco too.  I know most of the fun I had there was due to the awesome people I had the pleasure of meeting (as I usually find it is when travelling), but it also had a lot to due with the friendly locals, the nice bars and phenomenal hostel. It wasn't the boring little tourist town that I had first thought it was and I would definitely go back anytime for a vacation!

El Coco

May 15- Liberia, Costa Rica

And it begins again! I left Calgary on the 15th after a lovely afternoon with mom and brother. I had 3 different transfers to make on the way to Liberia in Phoenix, LA and San Salvador. The last flight to Liberia was really nice as it was a small airplane with a max capacity of about 50 people, and there were only 7 people on the flight. It also flew fairly low so I was able to check out the landscape below. After 19 hours of airplanes and airports I finally arrived in Liberia! I took a cab into town which I was relieved to discover had meters (so the drivers can't totally rip you off) and found a hostel that had private rooms. I basically spent the day wandering Liberia for about an hour (it's not very big) and sleeping the rest of the afternoon and evening. I woke up a few times enough to plan where to go the next day. The next morning I checked out and headed to the bus stop for Playa del Coco which to my surprise cost me a little over a dollar for an hour long bus ride!

December 22-25 - Isla Mujeres

After a 20 hour bus ride from San Cristobal, I arrived in Cancun. I met up with a friend from the hostel that I had worked at and we headed out to spend my last couple of days in Mexico on a small island called Isla Mujeres. We basically just took it easy and layed around on the beach the whole time. It was a nice way to finish off this first part of my trip! After flying home for Christmas and staying home for a few months, I plan on flying back into Nicaragua to finish the trip I had planned. Until then!

December 18-20 - San Cristobal De Las Casas

I headed towards San Cristobal after leaving San Pedro. I had booked a flight back home for Christmas flying out of Cancun and needed to get back there for the 25th, and San Cristobal was on the way. We had stopped there back in November on the way to Palenque for a few hours between buses and really loved. I had regretted not staying for longer, mostly because it had a really wicked market, so it worked out nicely that I had to stop there. I decided to stay for two nights so that I could explore the town and do my Christmas shopping at the market. The market was as good as I remembered it, and had a lot of cheap amber since San Cristobal has an amber mine nearby. I picked up a few things, and then just wandered around the town. I had met a really interesting lady on the bus ride down who I met up with on both evenings to have dinner with and share travelling stories. It was a really relaxing few days, but I was excited to leave because I was so excited to come home!

December 1-18- San Pedro La Laguna

Lake Atitlan

Ally and I arrived in San Pedro on a Thursday night. We found a small hotel across from the school that she had signed up for that was reasonably priced. She was starting spanish classes on the coming Monday so I decided to check out the school to see what it was like. My original plan was to spend a few days at the lake because everyone had said it was really beautiful and then to head up to a small town called Todos Santos for spanish lessons. However after a few days here I decided to stay for one week of spanish lessons.
Over the weekend before classes started we kayaked across the lake, went to the local market and hung out with the rest of the tourist taking spanish classes.

Garden at San Pedro Spanish School

On Sunday afternoon we moved into our first homestay. The parents names were Pedro and Deborah. They were super friendly, but the meal portions were really small and I found that I was having to buy extra meals because it wasn´t enough. At the end of the first week of classes, I was still having a really good time so I decided to stay another week if I could switch homestays. There was a group leaving one of the family´s and they said that we would get our own bathroom and the portion sizes were huge so we decided to switch.
On Saturday night of the next weekend there was a full moon party about an hour from San Pedro. We decided to go although it was expensive because there was a zipline that you could do at midnight and because there were a lot of people from the school going. When we got up there it was freezing cold and we basically just sat around and drank for the first hour to try to ignore the cold. After about an hour we went ziplining. It was really fun because you really couldn´t see where you were going on the path or where you were going to be ziplining. There were two, the first being a shorter faster one and the second being a little slower but much longer. I had no clue what to expect because we were walking uphill in a forest. When I jumped off the deck for the zipline, I was still in the trees for about 2 seconds. Then all of a sudden I broke out of the trees and realized that we were ziplining across a valley. The moonlight completely lit up the valley below. It was awesom!

My three favorite people from San Pedro: Jo, Ryan and Ally

After we got back from ziplining, a lot of the people there were already either really drunk or really high. The music sucked and we basically sat around the fire till 6am waiting for the bus to drive us back. That part of the night sucked, but the zipline made it worth it!
That next morning we moved in with our new homestay. It was a new house, the rooms were really nice and as promised we got our own bathroom. We continued on with classes the next week but took it easy in the evenings until the weekend. Unfortunatly on the weekend we ended up getting the same intestinal infection that a lot of the students were also getting. Alli was a lot worse off then I was, but it still wasn´t fun.
I left San Pedro for Mexico on the 18th. I was really sad to leave. The people were awesome and the town was beatiful. It was definitely one of my favorite parts of my trip.

November 28- December 1- Antigua

The bus ride from Lanquin was interesting. We had to stop in Coban for about a half an hour because there was a protest that was blocking the road up ahead. When we started driving again we were stopped by the protest and forced to sit for about another half an hour. They let us through only to get stopped by the next protest maybe two kilometers up the road. Luckily we had a van full of fun and interesting people so it wasn´t that boring. Once they let us through the road block though it was a smooth ride to Antigua.
I arrived in Antigua at night from Lanquin. I had no idea where I was staying so I looked in my Lonely Planet book and picked the cheapest hostel in it and headed there. It was nothing special but it was cheap. I was tired from the long trip so I stayed in the first night and went to bed early.
The next morning I wandered around the city. It was a really old city with old colonial style buildings and a lot of churches. Many of the churches were in ruins from previous earthquakes. When I returned to the hostel there was a girl there that had just arrived in Guatemala that day at the start of her 9 month trip. I invited her out since I was meeting some people that night and we have been hanging out ever since. Her name in Ally and she is a ton of fun.
The next few days in Antigua involved being lazy, going to cafes, and going to the local pub at night. The last day there a took an hour of private salsa lessons which were really needed. I would still like to take more if I can too. I didn´t do any of the typical touristy things in Antigua and really didn´t do a whole lot, but I still enjoyed the city and had a good time. I don´t think I could stay for any longer than a few days though without getting bored, but it was a great place for relaxing, enjoying the sites and drinking at nights.