Nicaragua and Costa Rica!

In July I headed to Costa Rica. My friend Tanner is living in San Jose teaching English. He needed to leave the country for 72 hours and was planning to travel for a bit after. When he posted a note on Facebook looking for a travel buddy I jumped at it, of course!

I got in and we headed to his host family house for the night before going to Nicaragua the following morning. On the bus we met Jen and Joel who we would then hang out with while in San Juan del Sur. We also met Mark, the Mikes and Richard at our hostel.

San Juan del Sur was beautiful and cheap! We hiked and hung out at the beach. The food was great, the mango daiquiris were better! Delicious! On the 4th of July we all hiked up to the grocery store and bought all the fixin's needed for burgers. It was a great way to spend the day, burgers and beer with some really fantastic people.

We went from San Juan del Sur to Tamarindo, Costa Rica. We travelled with Pernilla and Kwesi. Since we were meeting Tanner's friend Laura to pick up his car we decided to cab it to the border and then catch another cab on the other side. I have crossed a few borders in my travels... But I couldn't have been more grateful to have Tanner there to negotiate the exchange of money to the kids that pushed us to the front of the line, to get us to each of the lines necessary to get our exit stamps from Nicaragua and our entrance stamps from Costa Rica.

We got to Tamarindo and were all exhausted. The hostel was a great little spot with a pool and a cross eyed golden lab named Diego. We rented a surfboard between the four of us everyday and spent our time at the beach. One of the days a monster storm rolled in and the humidity fried my camera. It took a few weeks but it is finally up and running again, just in time for Yosemite.

La Fortuna was probably my favorite. It was frustrating that EVERYTHING you did cost money, but it was worth it. Each trail you hiked cost ten dollars, but hiking in a cloud forest is something you will never forget. It took us a couple of days before the clouds cleared enough to see Arenal, the volcano just outside of town. We ran into Mark, a guy we met in San Juan del Sur, on our second day in town. We hiked up to a crater lake in the rain one day. It was crazy fun! Mud everywhere and super steep! It was a good day. The next day we went to Down to Earth Coffee and hung out with Matias. He's a great coffee grower/roaster in La Fortuna. He makes some of the best coffee I have ever had! On our way back to San Jose we drove him and his wife and went to where they roast their coffee.

On our last day we went up to Irazu, a volcano right outside of the city. It was freezing but beautiful. 

It was a great trip!