Another mammoth journey from the top of the peninsula to the very far south and after three buses, a ferry and a minivan we pulled into Montezuma - our much anticipated antidote to Playa Coco. Checked into the jungle cabinas of Lena Lluna for the night high up in the hillside overlooking the village and fell straight to sleep to the startling screams of the howler monkeys outside! We ended up moving in the morning after being woken super early by builders making ...

Crossed La Frontera with a lot less stress this time being the middle of the week and began our days travelling to the Nicoya Peninsula. Reached Playa Coco in the late afternoon after three bus changes from one big bus to a smaller bus, to an even smaller bus and a donation of 100 colones (10p) from a friendly Tico to complete the final legs of our mammouth journey after we ran out of local currency! Sadly Playa Coco was a bit of a let down for us. Really Americ...

Pulled into Monteverde by mid morning after our classic backpacker transfer fondly known as the jeep-boat-jeep.....a four hour journey across the misty Lake Arenal and a very bumpy drive up into Costa Rica's famous cloud forest. Found a homely hostel - desite tales of tarantulas hiding out in beds- owned by a super friendly Ronnie and his cute family. And he was a total legend after it turned out that the well dodgy owner of the Lonely Planet recommended hostel i...

A small, touristy town wiith massive Arenal volcano looming over it and rumours of red hot real lava flowing down the sides! On our first day we abandoned plans to hike to the waterfall, plumping instead for the local watering hole just 1 km down the road. Lovely spot, in spite of the somewhat starey starey Costa Rican chavs loitering about, with a deep blue pool and waterfall. The only realistic way in was by tarzan rope followed by a very undignified scrambl...

Another big, sprawling Latin American city with no great charms and a terrible rep for violence, so we only stopped for one day. Wandered around briefly and went for a great Asian meal with everyone followed by beers in the most unatmostpheric Irish pub ever enountered before trotting back past all the lady boys and hookers lurking on the street corners. And our hostel was in the nicer part of town! And as it turns out, it was well de dodgy...the last after w...