Hi friends! So, as promised, I've decided to revive this blog. I'm out on another backpacking trip, and what better way to keep in contact than to update this thing every once in awhile. It's also a nice way to avoid having to make an itinerary so that people can know where I am -instead, they can just read this. :-)
So, to fill in the gaps a bit, I am on a month long trip to Central America with my cousin Amanda. We flew into Liberia, Costa Rica yesterday, and in a month's time will be flying out of Cancun, Mexico. We'll be making our way up through Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, perhaps Belize or El Salvador, and finishing in Mexico. After my extended four month long trip in Asia, only having a month here is sounding like a very short amount of time to cover everything, but we will definitely be doing our best! For those of you who aren't aware, I've been doing my last nursing placement for 40hours a week for the last few months, with 3-4 work shifts/week as well, so I simply haven't had the time to do research on this trip the way I'd like. It's going to be an adventure for sure, and we're really just going to play it by ear.
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| Up at 4am for the flight! |
So. To the good stuff. I am currently writing from Monteverde, Costa Rica. Yes, folks at home, we have arrived safe and sound! We landed yesterday and were quite suprised to see that we were the only backpackers on the flight. Everyone else was made up of families, older people, and people dressed in beautiful clothes with large suitcases and floppy hats. We made a quick change in the airport into our shorts and tanktops (man is it weird to have my legs exposed after this brutal Canadian winter we've had) and stepped out of the airport, into a cloud of 35 degree, sunny, humid weather. All the other people on our flight flocked to the the resort staff who were lined up with name cards and fancy shuttles waiting, while we stumbled outside to the bus stop to pay $1 to ride the non-airconditioned local bus. Saving money already!
Once in Liberia, we found a very simple hotel/homestay with a very sweet owner who spoke NO english, and went venturing out in the city to see what there was to see. We had several findings. One: we were one of the only tourists in the entire city. However, many of the locals looked quite similiar to tourists. This was quite interesting because in asia we couldn't blend in if our lives depended on it. Here, things were not always as clear. However, VERY few people spoke any English. If anyone is thinking of coming to Central America and not just staying at a resort, learn even a little spanish! Two: The streets were very clean and well maintained despite being full of people -also not like asia in the slightest, and Three: Fried chicken and fried tortilla chips seems to be the standard cheap meal to buy here, with nothing green in sight. Unfortunately, this was our introductory meal in Central America.
This morning we woke early and were quite proud of ourselves as we were able to use our halting and fractured Spanish to take local busses (transfers and everything!) to Monteverde, and to get our breakfast before the bus left. Again: turns out any type of Spanish is REALLY useful as English isn't really spoken in Liberia.
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| Pinto Gallo - rice and bean breakfast |
And that is where I am writing from now. Monteverde is at a really high elevation and is where the cloud forest is. From pictures, it looks really beautiful, but I guess we won't really know until tomorrow when we see it first hand. I think the plan is to do some zip lining, maybe a coffee farm tour, and a night walk through the jungle to potentially see some nocturnal wildlife. Costa Rica is great, but I do have to note that the backpacker crowd isn't really here the way that it is in Asia and from what I've heard it is in other areas of Central America, and I think this is largely because of the prices. We're thankfully paying reasonable amounts for hotels/hostels (usually $9 or $10/night) but food and activities are really expensive. We'll have to see how we're feeling in a couple of days, but it might be time to head to Nicaragua sooner rather than later.
Until then.. Pura Vida!
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