We strolled up the road & caught the 9am public bus up to Volcan Irazu (3432m). Unfortunately on the journey up there, the cloud cover starting coming in & by the time we arrived at the top, the views on both sides were blocked by cloud. This was a real pain, as our main reason for going up this volcano was the fact that on a clear day you can see both the Pacific & Caribbean seas. But we took a stroll across to the secondary & main craters, which...

After all our safaris in Africa, we decided against the 6am tour into the National Park & instead headed off back to the mainland through the shallow waters with a captain that didn't seem to be as good as the one on the way out. A bus to Cariari & then another to San Jose (2.5 hours) & we checked into Aldea Hostel owned by a real friendly Swiss guy. We had to be up reasonably early in the morning, so had an anti-social evening with a takeaway & e...

After reading up yesterday, I decided our best bet wasn't to go from Moin (as the boat ride would've cost us a small fortune!) but instead go from Cariari. So we caught an early bus from Puerto Limon to Guapiles (2 hours), then onto Cariari (1 hour) & then after a couple of hours wait, the 3pm bus to the 'ferry' port (1 hour). The last leg was a little odd, with the bus driver stopping outside a couple of houses along the bumpy road, where the people came out...

Rach had done a bit of reading around Costa Rica, but I'd not done any. So that was my chore for the morning after which we planned a route through the country taking in the places we both wanted to see. This plan meant we had to leave Puerto Viejo today & get across (via Puerto Limon) to Tortuguero. We left shortly after lunchtime, thinking the bus journey was about 1-1.5 hours, only to find it was 3 hours! When we arrived, a tour guide offered us a taxi rid...

Our first hot shower in almost a week was fantastic. (That doesn't mean we weren't showering, we'd just had only cold showers for a while!). We then decided after breakfast to hire bikes & ride down to Manzanilla beach that had been recommended to us. It turns out, it wasn't our best plan ever! The beach was over 13km away & in 30+ degrees on old bikes with no gears, it took quite a while & resulted in our skin leaking by the bucket load!! And to rub ...