hopefully 3 times lucky

We left the ohh so beautiful mal pais today and travelled back to montezuma, with the intention of going to the cabo blanco park. But...by the time we got there it was too close to closing and they wouldnt let us in. DAMN second time we've come to cabo blanco and not been able to go inside. We were going to take the jet boat to jaco tommorow morning, but, now we think we will rent a car and take the ferry to punterenas and then onto jaco.

i'm stuck!

in mal pais. We just love this place...will be staying until we have to go. Went into cobano today to go to the bank to get money cause we ran out! Scary thing in a foreign country. We paid 83 bucks to rent a 4x4 and drove to cobano. They have a man trap and guards with shotguns at the banks here...no foolin around

After our hour long bank advenure....interac cards do NOT work here...except in major cities where there are candian banks.

We drove on to montezuma and down to cabo blanco, hoping to go to the nature reserve here, but...alas it is close don mondays and tuesdays. We then drove to isle de cobano...which is this cool little island that they use as their cemetary...only problem is that you can only get to it at low tide....and we arrived pretty much precisely at high tide. Ohh well...We took some serious back roads back to mal pais and drove onto playa hermano and caught some beautiful sights. Sushi tonight and beers were great. Waking up at 5am to catch the sunrise tommrow.

more surf and turf

We're surfing up a storm! Bought rashies for both of us today. We're sporting some volcom style now. Picked up a pair of boardshorts and flip flops...still searching for a good deal on a surfboard...but crappy air canada will charge me 50 bucks extra to bring it home. Fokers.

Ate some killer sushi today, we had marlin sashimi which was to die for. Eating sushi in costa rica is against doctors orders but....well...hopefully what doesnt kill us......

The food and people of costa rica are amazing...I am confident we will be returning.

We are in love with mal pais and santa teresa, and, may stay here the rest of our trip...although the locals tell us jaco is pretty cool.

serendipity

So, did some warm up sufing yesterday, drank some beers.mm mmmmm i like thi stown.

but... reason for this post is the crazyiest thing happenend. Alison and I were walking down the street in mal pais and she mentioned that a friend of hers was also in cost a rica and that we should look him up. Not more than 2 seconds later this guy ride sup on a bike and asks if we know where to cash travellers cheques. Al ison realizes it was him.

what are the odds of that

surf town

We left early from samara beach and drove to montezuma. Q uite a long drive, but, only by costa rican standards. 3.5 hrs

montezuma seems t o be filled with a bunch of former surf h ippies/rastas that got too stoned to leave. Chillin little place, but, would be better known / is better known as monteFUMA.

Onto the waterfall! We took the 20 minute hike to the waterfalls outside montezuma hoping to see monkeys but only saw real ly cool red crabs. A bomb and I swam under the waterfall and sat on the rocks on the underside of the falls.

We chilled, grabbed the best dinner we've had since we got here! Wow, cucarachas scurrying across the floor but they make a mean mushroom, shrimp bow tie pasta dinner. Ali had a massive ceasar salad as well. The restaurant also serves as the local movie theater so we caught the motorcycle diaries. Great movie.

We said a hearfelt goodbye to tres and cliff grabbed a sleep and headed onto mal pais / santa teresa. T his place is surf paradise.

Off to catch some waves

rattle rattle rattle

The road to Monteverde is a GOAT PATH. The locals have been petitioning the government not to pave the road because they want to keep the general tourists out and only have the really dedicated ones arrive. Keeps them texans out!

It was 3.5 very very very bumpy hours from La Fortuna to Monteverde. We were both feeling much better! Although alison´s bum hurt a bit from the injection still.

Arriving in Monteverde we felt a bit like walking dollar signs. As soon as we pulled in we were acosted with suggestions of where to stay. We resisted and went with the lonely planet suggestion La Pension Santa Elena, a nice little hostel run by an american lady and her brother. While the driveway smelled like a septic tank, the bed wasnt that comfy we really liked the vibe the place exuded and the lady who ran the place was really helpful in finding good places to go, eat etc. Most often the hostel doesnt matter nearly as much as the people running it.

That night we took it pretty easy.

Next morning we went zip lining....wow..this is fun...you zip along a 1.5cm, 1600 meter long cable over the jungle canopy. Kinda scary, but, the view is exhillarating. We met some really nice travellers and ran into the cute little british chick and her boyfriend again(they stayed at the same hostel as us in la fortuna). The funny thing about travelling is that you end up running into the same people randomly over and over throughout your trip. In between zip lining we did this thing called the tarzan swing. For me it was more like the crush your nuts swing, but, none theless really fun. You jump off this 20´ platform, free fall for a few feet then swing out over the jungle only to be snagged by two ticos at the bottom.

After the zip lining was over we did the hanging bridges, which was OK.....

We sat outside the hotel drinking beers and canned cuba libres for the rest of the day.

The next day we awoke and took another really bumpy journey filled with fire ants, bickering men (our buddies trey and cliff) and photo raping. We photo raped many locals, which is when you use a 200mm telephoto lens to take peoples picture without them knowing. Photos turn out better this way.

We´re now in samara beach, on the nicoya peninsula and have finally made it out surfing. In between getting our sunburn and setting up my hammock for the first time we managed to lock ourselves in our room. The ticos definately do NOT understand fire safety as the deadbolts require a key from the inside and auto-lock behind you. Luckily, alison managed to yell some spanish out the window and our señora came and let us out.

We just ate a HUGE platter of beef, chicken and pork and expect to be on to montezuma or mal pais tommorow.

pura vida!

Getting better...better all the time

Alison is much better this morning, is up and walking about. I think the medicine ¿ a sleep has fixed her. We´re off with our friends tray and cliff to monteverde. Dont know when we will update next.

Thank god for modern medicine.