Montezuma was a shuttle-ferry-shuttle ride away from La Fortuna, on the east side of Costa Rica in the Nicoya province. It used to be a fishing village but is beginning to get steadily more popular with eco-tourists, yoga hippies and backpackers. It's a small town with a few nice nearby beaches, a handful of restaurants, supermarkets and a bunch of souvenir shops. There were also apparently some quite nice waterfalls in the region (not that we opted to go see...

From the cloud forests of Monteverde we headed to La Fortuna, a town situated by Volcano Arenal. The bus ride winding down from Monteverde and then the small launch boat we took across the lake were was absolutely breathtaking and reminded me a little of the Lake District except with a blinking big volcano in the distance! What is so fascinating is that no one realised it was a volcano until 1968 when it suddenly erupted. It very sadly wiped out a nearby village...

So after a magnificent time spent on the islands of Ometepe and in Nicaragua in general, it was time for us to cross the border over in to Costa Rica. Border crossings are generally a bit more stressful as you have to factor in a few different modes of transport (as most transport companies won't travel over the border itself), change money without getting ripped off, keep track of passports, etc, and this crossing was no exception. We started at 6am with a t...