Into Nicaragua

Hi again

First thing is I have set up a page on http://www.justgiving.com/froggyridesagain
to see if I can raise a bit of dosh for charity.

Please have a look and .... if you can.

So we´ve crossed over the border into Nicaragua (agwa it´s pronounced at the end over here - and it is their country!).

In Costa Rica I did some diving, but failed in my mission to see Bull sharks, apparently not the right time of year and also the visibilty was terrible. Where the vis improved it was due to currents which were freezing. That´s not on at all!

Met a couple of Austrians, 2roadrunners-on-tour is their blog, who started in June last year at Anchorage, Alaska and are aiming to get all the way down to the tip of South Argentina. They were looking forward to getting further south as it would be a little cooler.

Spent some time at the lovely beach spot of Montezuma, chilled out hippy style spot. Lovely beaches, lovely swimming, all in lovely. One night there went to a nearby town where there was a fair. Some of the guys went on a spinning shaking, twisting platform which would be so banned in UK, Health and Safety people would be aghast. The Costa Rican guys had a whale of a time on it though!

Saw some more crocs from a bridge, one guy´s hat got blown off - he didn´t seem too keen to retrieve it though!

The crossing into Nicaragua took three hours queuing in passport control, not easy in the mill of people trying to hang onto the bike. Further not helped by the computer for the queue I was in crashing when I was 8 from the front, had to go to the back of another queue.

First stop here was at Isla Omatepe, beautiful island in Lake Nicaragua made up of two volcanoes, on of them a very volcanesque near perfect cone. Cycled all the way round it one day, apart from 5km where a pickup offered me a lift - the road had deteriated to volcanic rubble. The girls in the back were really friendly - they have such lovely natural smiles it warms your heart.

I´ve now got to Granada, very pretty colonial city built by the Spanish. Had a nice meal looking out over the central square and cathedral.

Tonight it´s planning where we are going next, I want to get to Utila, an island in the Carribean off Hoduras, where there is a chance at this time of year to see whale sharks. But it´s quite a distance and I´ve got to work out if it´s realistic to ride it all.

Now the plannig will be tomorrow - it has taken 4 hours to do this post and the Justging thing!

Pura Vida

Chris

Into Costa Rica

So another bunch of photos in the wrong order - I'm having a lot of trouble trying to adjust the layout, and it's Saturday night, so cerveza calls!

I've now crossed over the border to Costa Rica and headed to Corcovado National Park, according to National Geographic, 'One of the most biologically intense places on the planet'.

It is situated in the Osa peninsular, the most Southern one in CR on the Pacific side. On the way I went down the most scary descent ever / see the pic of the hairpin bends. Basically straight down the side of a cliff.

I joined a guided trek for three days into the park - this involved a 20km trek in and out, and other hikes on the middle day. The 3 Canadians also on the trip rested the middle day. In some ways sensible, but yours truly wasn't missing anything, so the trek out was a bit of a nightmare.
The trek includes about 6km on the beach, which is very hard going and crossing rivers, one of them well over my waist with the pack on my head!.

Saw crocs, went kayaking and achieved another goal - scarlet macaws. Hopefully even the most ralcalcitrant ornithologist among you will be able to spot which photos they are. Also saw all four types of monkey - howler, squirrel, white faced cappuchin and spider. The noise the howler monkeys make is amazing and they start at 4am!

The second evening a chap was sitting on the steps to the ranger station eating a bowl of pasta when a large , 5 inches maybe, scorpion ran out from a gap and grapped a bug between his feet and ran back again. To say he was a bit put out would be understating things!

I'm now heading up the Pacific coast and have met another cyclist going the other way! Guy from Seattle is taking a year to ride down from Mexico to as far as he can get, possibly Chille. Though he spent 6 months teaching English in El Salvador.

There's a lovely waterfall just near the hostle here which you can slide down, but I had a couple of probs climbing up - though got there in the end.

All the best

Chris