Tuesday 16 July - Monday 22 July

Coasting through Costa Rica

Casa Colon Hostel is a beautifully renovated colonial home situated on a main road in the centre of San Jose, having not inserted any ear plugs before we dropped into bed, we didn't get too much sleep before the traffic and hooting started. After a hearty Costa Rican lunch served up by the sweet ladies in this gorgeous hostel, we headed off on foot to pick up our rental car. First stop - the funky little town of La Fortuna to see the Arenal Volcano. Navigating using the google maps we'd downloaded proved futile, as there were no route markers on the roads which google kept referring to, so we had to follow our noses. We wound up and down and around the twistiest and turniest roads through mountains into the clouds and back down into abundantly green valleys and we did eventually, with some luck, find it. We stayed in a tented camp in Arenal Backpackers Resort, which was clean and neat with great showers, and they made the yummiest food. Fab burritos!

We met some crazy Dutch b******s on the first night, Maya & Boris - brother and sister - who had us rolling on the floor at their sloth impressions and drunken breakdancing attempts. They said when we spoke to them in Afrikaans that it was great cos they could understand us but the language sounded like it was pre-historic Dutch. Fancy that. Haha. Nothing to do with our delivery ; )

The highlight of the trip has to be our ziplining canopy tour in the Arenal Ecological Park - we got to do 11 ziplines high above the forest canopy with the longest one measuring 980m. My knees were shaking so badly before the first one, but once that was under my belt - you couldnt stop me (literally)...man I came in hard and fast - what a breathtaking, adrenaline filled experience. Gary got some cool footage on the Go Pro. Defo recommend!

On Day two we went for a hike below the Arenal Volcano and got some amazing shots of it as the clouds cleared (we hadn't seen the volcano up until now as the entire mountain had been shrouded in thick mist), apparently you only have a 25% chance of seeing the volcano sans the clouds, so we were lucky. The major bummer was that its still advertised as an active volcano that you can go and view the lava spurting from which is spectacular at night, but upon arrival, we were told that the volcano had been dormant for four years now and you weren't gonna see more than steam. I think people should be informed of the "Dormant - Active Volcano" before they bother coming all this way to be disappointed. The hike was great anyway with new wildlife we'd never come across - coati's and kiskadees. We're gonna have to start a bird list now...bird nerds.

We met two American ladies who we gave a lift to after the hike who took us to where all the locals enjoy the hot springs from the volcano - saved ourselves $75 and got to enjoy the same thermal river that the people down at the spa were paying to enjoy! Natch.

Next stop - the mountainside town of Monteverde. Again, google maps proving useless, we had to take a little detour as part of the road around Lake Arenal had collapsed - keeping in mind that we're driving a Toyota Yaris - the detour took us up a rocky mountain road, that I would only feel comfortable attempting in a 4x4, and so half way up the single lane track - a HUGE truck comes round the corner heading downhill straight for us...we had no choice but to try and pull into the muddy mess on the side of the track - we thought we'd be stuck for sure - the truck missed us by millimetres as it careened down past us, and we luckily managed to get back on track. Was not looking fwd to pushing us out of the mud. This was the beginning of 40kms of bumpy, lumpy, rocky, potholed, muddy road - with knuckles white and necks strained trying to find the safest navigable route. We were both in much need of a drink when we finally got there.

Monteverde, a cute little mountain village has a plethora of eco-pursuits to entertain one. The highlight for us was the night tour in the rainforest, as most of the animals are nocturnal, you have a better chance of spotting them. We initially stomped around in the dark with the most pathetic flashlights and saw a tarantula, a few spiders and bugs - it was looking like it would be a disappointing tour, but we ended up packing so much into the last half hour - a toucan, a quetzal (Guatemala's national bird - very rare), 3 x pit vipers, a sloth and a rare oilbird. We were very happy with our catch. We also took on a strenuous hike called Cerro Amigos up to Monteverde's highest point...my word, it was seriously tough...the track zigzagged up the mountain with a 45degree gradient - my achilles tendon started to play up on the way down (an old injury), so Gary had to piggy back me half way down the mountain - what a boytjie!

Lastly we hit up Manuel Antonio on the pacific coast where we enjoyed swimming on the beautiful beaches and another hike in the national park - another 3 sloths and a pit viper spotted in 1 day! Gosh those sloths are cute.

Back in San Jose we had drinks and dinner at Casa Colon hostel again before setting off to the Tica Bus station for an overnight bus to Panama City.