Arenal, Costa Rica
On Boxing Day, we had to be jump-started in the morning because we had left our fridge running too long on the batteries the last couple of days! A friendly Landrover jumped us, and we were soon on our way north through Costa Rica, up to 3,500m elevation along the continental divide, and then through [...]
Bahai Majugual, Nicaragua
In the morning, we returned to the coast (via a main paved road this time), passed through San Juan del Sur, and continued north up the coast where there were some beautiful white sandy beaches and great waves. We camped for three nights at Bahai Majugual which is a hostel/campground run by an Australian guy. [...]
Carate, Costa Rica
We arrived at the Osa Peninsula by late morning and stocked up with groceries before heading along a rough road to the other side of the peninsula. The end of the road brought us to a small town called Carate – well I’m not sure if it’s really a town. More like an extremely small [...]
Granada, Nicaragua
Today we paid our first police bribe. We were stopped at one of the usual police checkpoints along the highway and the policeman started being really picky about seeing our vehicle papers and licence and passports etc. When he found that everything was in order, he suddenly said that Robin had done an illegal pass [...]
Granada, Nicaragua
We decided to spend New Year’s Eve in Granada – the small town that we visited in November. New Year’s is a huge celebration here in Central America, and we didn’t want to be stuck in southern Honduras overnight, so we stopped at Granada – a place where we knew we could park the truck [...]
Jaco, Costa Rica
We set off for the nearby beach town of Jaco, where Ben and Lisa found a good deal on a two-bedroom apartment. The apartment is in a small complex of attached ground-level apartments with secure parking and a swimming pool right outside our front door. It’s just outside Jaco – just too far to walk [...]
Marriott Hotel near Jaco, Costa Rica
We set off early in the morning and caught an early ferry over from Peninsula de Nicoya across to mainland Costa Rica. The ferry ride was just over an hour long, and we sat in a nice air-conditioned seating area the whole way – it is very humid here, and you can’t help but sweat [...]
Matapalo, Costa Rica
We returned to the little port town of Pto Jimenez and spent one last day with Ben and Lisa before they left for Panama. We camped at the Pto Jimenez Marina – a small property with a nice big lawn overlooking the bay – which was owned by “Captain Bob” … a wonderful 75 year [...]
Monteverde, Costa Rica
Monteverde is a beautiful little settlement at a high elevation in inland Costa Rica. It’s surrounded by picturesque pasturelands where cattle graze and fresh dairy products are produced. The main attractions in the Monteverde area are two cloud forests and a bunch of interesting species that live within them. It’s possible to do tours of [...]
Playa Santa Teresa, Costa Rica
We continued our journey further south and stumbled across a grove of guava trees on a secluded beach at Playa Teresa, near the southern tip of the peninsula. Once again, we stopped for two days and enjoyed the sun, surf, sand, hammock and a campfire. This campsite was amazing! There was a group of howler [...]
Playa Tamarindo, Costa Rica
We spent about 2 hours at the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, although most of the time was spent getting out of Nicaragua. We headed straight to Playa Tamarindo on the Peninsula de Nicoya where we planned to meet up with some landcruiser friends that we had met over e-mail. We arrived in the [...]
Rivas, Nicaragua
We left Granada in the late morning and went to see Valcan Masaya, a huge steaming volcano that you can drive up to (no strenuous hiking involved here). It was very interesting, although somewhat sulphury at the top. We walked around a bit, looked at another crater at the site, and then gave three Swedish [...]
South of Islita, Costa Rica
In the morning, we travelled south and explored the coastline. There are a number of gorgeous beaches on the west coast of the peninsula and we stopped briefly to check some of them out. We continued south and just before dark, we took a 4×4 track towards the ocean and stumbled across a wonderful sandy [...]
Uvita, Costa Rica
We spent our last day in Jaco relaxing at a local coffee shop drinking coffee and playing chess. We also watched a couple more movies (we won’t see tv for a long time after this), and swum in the pool some more. We enjoyed our stay in Jaco, but were ready to move on when [...]