Costa Rica

First night in CR after exiting Nicaragua... 

Joined by Mouck and Lynn from Canada, and Kevin and Amanda whom were with us for about a week in Nicaragua we make a trip to Nosara.  Boys were stuck drinking beers and minding the surfboards in the back!

 Jillene did a little kayaking trip in the estuary...

A little frisbee on the beach...

More sunsets on the beach with the crew...

Mom and dads place looking great as usual...

Sunset on the bluff...

Just a quick stop over to do some laundry, see some friends, and recharge.  Now we're off to Panama with mom and dad for a week, and then boarding a plane to Ecuador to wrap up the trip.  It's going too fast!!!  :)

San Juan Del Sur

Last stop in Nicaragua... the beach!  Finally at the pacific, but what was awaiting us was very poor surf so we didn't stick around very long.

 

May have enjoyed a few of these...

Great place for sunset...

Great seafood too...

This is Maderas, a surf beach about 5km from San Juan Del Sur... not a lot of surfing going on.

Northern Nicaragua

Back on the mainland.  First stop, Leon.  Nothing like cooling off in a HOT city by drinking some super cheap road pops! 

One thing this city is full of, old churches.  We have pictures of more than a dozen, but I'll bore you with just one.

Then we were off to Somoto.  Highlight here is a Canyon you can swim down in a river.  It would be pretty exciting in the wet season. But in the dry seasons it's fairly tame.  Still certainly enjoyable.

Somoto was a great town though, and we spent 3 nights here.  Found a great little bar as well, as you can see...

Also ended up watching the Super Bowl here.  This was our set up.  Pulled a TV out of the room and sat in the courtyard.

Next stop Esteli... a fairly big city, and although we enjoyed our time here.  Really the best thing we did was visit this waterfall outside the city.  Was a fun afternoon....

Last stop in the North, Jinotega.  Great place for a hike.

On top of the mountain/hill overlooking the city...

Corn Islands

Off to Corn Islands... after the worst boat ride in the world from San Juan De Nicaragua to Bluefields we decided to reward ourselves with a ride on a big cargo ship that was willing to carry people as well.  Cargo gets the priority though as you can see below!

Jillene using the cargo as seat/bed.

First night on Big Corn Island was spent here... But just one quick night. We were off to Little Corn island the next morning.

Our beach at Little Corn... 

Walkway to our bungalows on Little Corn... no roads here.  Just walkways as seen above around the island.

Where we stayed on Little Corn...

Back on Big Corn now for a 3 days... before we flew back to the mainland.  We wanted to see the Big Island.  Our first day back was a gooder; we watch a really fun baseball game that the locals were definitely excited about.

The beach in front of the second place we stayed on Big Corn...

Where we stayed...

More nice beaches...

And the plane we boarded to get home...

Nice picture from above...

Trip Down The Rio San Juan

Okay... time to crap a lot into a little.  Haven't done an update for over a month, and I just don't have the energy to give every place we visited the full attention it deserved.  But we can certainly share a few highlights.  It started with a trip down the Rio San Juan to a town that we really loved... Sabalos

Sabalos is a couple hours down the river from San Carlos, it's given the miss by most travelers heading down whom choose between here and El Costello.  We liked Sabalos the most and ended up just staying here, but visting all.  Above is a picture of 1 side of the town that is split by a river.

Just liked this cow, with the stick tied to his nech... locals told us it was so he didn't/wouldn't get caught up in the barbed wire fence.

Heading down the Rio a little further...

El Costello from the river as we go over some rapids on the way to Indo Miaz, to do a Jungle walk...  Thats an old fort used to protect foreign invaders whom boat their way up the Rion into the heart of Nicaragua.

Indo Miaz... Quite the Jungle.

Walking Palm... we're told they have proved these things can actually move (in some instances up to 10m over a period of years) just to get in a better position to stay in the light.

Caimens... the Rivers full of them, and you see them all the time as you boat down.

A visit to El Costillo to see the fort.

Last night in our favorite bar in Sabalos.  Overlooks the town, with the best bartender in the world.  We spent a couple hours here every night we were in town.

Last stop on the Rio... the odd ghost of a town San Jaun De Nicaragua.  No cars here, because there are no roads to get there.  Can only get here by boat.  Next we were off to Corn Islands, but not until we took the worst boat ride in the world.  If only we had pictures...