La Fortuna

Cuando uno llega a Costa Rica despues de haber estado en Nicaragua, el cambio es notable. Poro como son las casas, los coches, la disposicion de las calles, enfin, por una impresion general, se nota que es un pais con mas recursos economicos. Eso si, significa que todo es mas caro aqui...
La Fortuna es bastante turistico y de echo es raro ver todos los anuncios de los tours en la calle...y es que hay mogollon de tours para hacer cualquier tipo de actividad. Que si tirolinas, rafting, caballo..., nosotros hemos cedido y hemos pagado un tio para que nos lleven a una caminata nocturna para ver el volcan arenal. Es un volcan activo que escupe lava continuamente por lo que por la noche ofrece un espectaculo asombroso. Despues del rulo, nos paramos en un rio que pasa cerca del volcan por lo que el agua estra caliente, que gustito. Hemos sido previsores y nos hemos llevado unas birras para tomarnos en las bañeras de agua, que lujo, hemos hecho mas de un envidioso. 
Cerca del pueblo hay una cascada bastante chula a la que fuimos en bici. Alquilamos dos bicis pero solo devolvimos una y media: Annemarie se cargo la suya, arranco el desviador y la patilla. La rueda trasera se quedo enganchada de milagro.

San Jose

Bueno, es bien facil, no llevavamos ni media hora en la ciudad que ya le habian robado la mochila a la pobre Annemarie...Pasaporte, camara, billetes de avion, tarjetas, ... desaparecidos en un abrir y cerrar de ojos! 
Al llegar al hostal " Tranquilo Backpackers", dejamos nuestras cosas en la entrada para preguntar si habia sitio para pasar la noche. Estabamos 4 ahi ya que habiamos estado charlando con dos españoles muy majetes. Entre que estamos charlando y tal, cuando nos quisimos dar cuenta, una mochila habia desaparecido...Asi que esa noche tuvimos que, a parte de cambiar de hostal, ir a la jefatura de la policia para hacer una declaracion. Al ser Viernes, hemos tenido que esperar hasta Lunes para poder ir a la embajada de Inglaterra a ver que podian hacer para el tema del pasaporte. Como Irlanda solo tiene una embajada en Mexico, es la embajada Inglesa de Costa Rica que envia todos los papeles y los $150  para solicitar un nuevo pasaporte de emergencia. Entre 7 y 10 dias de espera...jummm. Venga a llamar para cambiar los vuelos Panama City - Quito y decidir a donde ir para esperar la llegada del santo pasaporte. Ni de coña nos quedamos aqui 10 dias mas, San Jose es bastante feo, no hay gran cosa que hacer y es bastante inseguro asi que ...

Cahuita

Despues de los malos rollos de la capital, bienvenido a la playa caribeña! Cahuita es bastante pequeño y tiene algo especial. Compartimos una habitacion con Patrick, un americano que conocimos en Nicaragua y que nos hemos vuelto a cruzar aqui.
Hay un parque protegido que recorre varios kilometros de playa y jungla. El paseo es precioso, vemos perezosos, monos de cara blanca y variedad de pajaros. Merece la pena. Viene bien estar fuera del meollo de la gran ciudad.
Andando mas alla, nos tiramos toda una mañana bañandonos y haciendo body surf con las olas. La playa que tenemos enfrente es preciosa, de arena negra y palmeras por todos lados. Hemos comprado unos mangos de camino y con los cocos que traiamos con nosotros, nos pegamos un festin de fruta en la playa.
De cahuita nos vamos un poco mas al Sur, acercandonos a Panama.

Puerto Viejo

Aqui si que hay mas turismo. Gente que viene aqui para surfear y estar en las playas tropicales.
Pillamos un cuarto en una casa. Vista Verde, con una cocina bastante maja para poder prepararnos lo que nos apetece cocinar! Durante los 3 dias que vamos a pasar aqui, vamos a aprovechar para cocinar y descansar. Digo eso cuando tambien es verdad que todos los dias nos hemos movido bastante. Alquilamos unas bicis y nos fuimos dos veces a Manzanillo que esta a unos 11km. De ahi hay un paseo recomendable por la jungla hasta Punta Mona. Hemos visto a mogollon de ranitas rojas, caracteristicas de Costa Rica.
Una de la simpatias de Puerto Viejo: los atracos por la noche. Patrick que se quedo en otro hostal fue atacado una noche y le propinaron una buena paliza. Unos franceses que estaban donde nosotros volvieron tarde una noche y les habian robado a punta de pistola...Al dia siguiente, uno de ellos tenia un moraton en forma cicular en el pecho, ahi donde el ladron le iba dando golpes con el cañon para que espabilaran y le dieran la pasta...
El Lunes por la tarde pillamos un bus para volver a San Jose a por el pasaporte de Annemarie. De ahi esperamos agarrar un bus para ir a Panama City.

San Jose - A Panama

Al final nos hemos tirado toda la mañana para recuperar el pasaporte, ir a la estacion de buses para que nos digan que no hay sitio para ir directamente a Panama City hasta Enero, y pasar por Copa Airlines para ver el tema de los billetes. Al final, el tema del robo de la mochila se puede resumir con pocas palabras. 2000 pavos y 10 dias bloqueados en Costa Rica. A ver si al menos podemos ver con el seguro si hay manera de hacer algo con el nuevo billete que hemos tenido que comprar...
Como no hay sitio para ir a Panama, volvemos a hacer 4 horas de bus para ir hacia el Sur, dormir en Puerto Viejo y cruzar la frontera con Panama al dia siguiente para ir a Bocas del Torro. El paso de la frontera es bastante original. Hay un viejo puente que separa los dos paises. El bus te edja de un lado y pasas andando por el puente hasta entrar en Panama...

La Fortuna
Our first stop in Costa Rica was the very touristy town of La Fortuna. We travelled there with our new friends, Rowley and Seugmi,(Rowley being the English guy who saved us from hunger on the ferry). It was really obvious that we were no longer in Nicaragua as everything looks so much richer....cars, houses, less armed guards etc. Of course this also meant that everything was more expensive, including the thousands of different tours on offer for tourists. If you have money to spend you could stay weeks here doing everything from rafting to canopying. We however didnt but had to give in to one tour which promised to be amazing. It was a night trip up part of the active volcano, Arenal, followed by a visit to some natural outdoor hot baths. The volcano was out of this world, it constantly spurts out lava so we got to see the hot red lava rushing down the side of the volcano. A few times it made low rumbles and I have to say I got slightly fidgety, wondering if perhaps it was time to go! However thankfully there were no unexpected explosions and it continued to spit out boiling lava. The baths were another way to appreciate the volcano as it is the volcanic activity that heats the water,,,,which we very much appreciated with a nice local beer. Another local attraction is a huge waterfall outside the city, we got some bikes to cycle there but ended up handing back half a bike less, as I accidently broke mine! oops! La Fortuna also introduced us to the famous Costa Rican dish called Casada, its the best dish ever, it includes everything from rice and chicken to bananas to nachos and guacamole....yes all on the one plate. The four of us enjoyed more than one dish of it during our stay in La Fortuna.

San Jose
Well what can I say about San Jose....its dirty, ugly, dangerous and after being there for an hour I got my small bag robbed with EVERYTHING important in it. Yes....my new camera, IPOD, bank cards, tickets, visa for Australia, international licence, vaccation book etc etc and PASSPORT. We had literally stepped into a hostal with two other Spanish guys we met and it was taken from our feet. The hostel, "El Tranquilo" were very unhelpful about the whole incident, however thankfully the police were better. The police explained how there are organised groups that target tourists and how my passport would probably be sold for around 1000 dollars. Anyway, we were both fine so thats all that mattered, after the amount of people we have met who have been held at gun or knife point, what happened to my bag is nothing. After some calls to cancel cards and get information, we found out that the nearest Irish Embassey is in Mexico, and that the British Embassey deals with Irish cases. Inconveniently they took my bag on a Friday night so we had to wait all weekend before the British Embassey opened. They didnt really do much in the British Embassey other than put me on the phone to the Irish one in Mexico and give me a passport form. $150 dollars later all the required papers and photos were in the post for Mexico. We were told that it would be at least a seven day wait before Id get an emergency passport so we started thinking on a good place to wait......there was no way we were staying that long in San Jose.  Another slight problem was our flight from Panama to Ecuador on the 2nd December which we were going to have to miss! 

Cahuita
After the hassle of San Jose, arriving in Cahuita, along the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, was like arriving in paradise. Hard to believe its only 4 hours in bus from dodgeville. We shared a room and spent a few days there hanging out with Patrick, American buddy we had met before in Nicaragua and in the dorms in San Jose. Patrick, who had been given a crash course by a local on coconuts, taught us all we needed to know to be able to pick, eat and drink fresh coconuts from the beach. This became our new hobby for a few days! We spent time on the white sandy beaches and body surfing in the hot caribbean sea. Its not a bad life sitting on a caribbean beach eating fresh mangos and coconuts, def helps to forget about the fact that Ive no passport! :-) We also did a half day walk through the Cahuita National Park which is a fabulous place. The park path is partly through jungle and partly along the beautiful beaches, so quite a treat for the eyes. We also got to see different bird species, sloths (which I didnt even know existed!), white faced monkeys and a nice Eyelash Viper Snake sleeping in a tree. 

Puerto Viejo
The next town along from Cahuita is Puerto Viejo and was our next destination for another few days. Puerto Viejo is basically a small surfing town with a lots of tourists looking for good waves. We found a really cute hostel called Vista Verde. It had a kitchen (better than my old flat in Spain) so we took advantage and tried out our culinary skills. Cooking made a nice change from eating rice and beans, the local dish here...they even have songs about rice and beans?! Apart from cooking, continuing our obsession with finding and eating coconuts, we also rented bikes and did some exploring. We visited Manzanillo, another Caribbean town about 11kms away and also headed into the jungle to find an isolated beach area called Punta Mona. We didnt end up finding it but we did see lots of Red Frogs and got to go skinny dipping :-) The downside to Puerto Viejo is the danger of going out at night. Patrick got a huge blackeye when he was attacked one night and three French guys who we got friendly with in our hostal also got attacked. They were worse off though as they were held up with a gun, which one of them ended up getting hit over the head with. Thankfully we were safely tucked up in the hostel cooking and eating our coconuts. 

San Jose - Panama
Unfortunately the time came to say goodbye to the Caribean coast and head back to San Jose to collect my passport which was due to be in the British Embassey on 4th December. Just a pity our flight to Ecuador was on the 2nd! We got the bus down to San Jose on the night of the 3rd and yes my new stampfree :-( passport was waiting for me the following morning. We took advantage of my new mobile status to go and try to sort out new flights to Ecuador. Unfortunately the airline didnt cover stolen tickets so we had to buy a new flight....ouch on the budget. To summarise my bag getting stolen...we are down around 2000 euro and were 10 days blocked in Costa Rica. The plan was then to get a bus straight from San Jose to Panama city, however due to that option being booked up until January we got the same bus back to Puerto Viejo and took the Caribean border crossing into Panama. The border crossing was actually fun as its not a very commonly used border and consisits of a small 
old bridge which you have to cross by foot to leave Costa Rica and enter into Panama. Goodbye Costa Rica.