Claire and Vic's Costa Rica Blog

Hey guys,

sorry we havent been in touch for a while-we have been super busy! well where to start...

after the longest journey ever here through Nicaragua and Honduras we arrived last Friday in Utila island off mainland Honduras - where all the pirates used to live! We travelled on a really nice coach -for 14 hrs-yeah we know-up to San Pedro Sula in the north east coast of Honduras and stopped there for one night in a hotel that was a cross between a jailhouse and hospital-nice!then in the morning somehow we negociated our way through the markets to the bus depot and got another bus which took a further 4 hrs to the port of La Ceiba!!we then had to wait for the Utila Princess to pick us up and we sailed off to Utila at 4pm.

We arrived at about 6pm and were imediately deluged by millions of dive school reps all wanting us to stay at their dive school-we cut our losses and headed to the cafe to decide!after a trawl around most of Utila complete with heavy backpacks in the heat we found a place to stay-we were rescued by what have turned out to be our guardian angels in central america-taz and monty from the uk who also helped us in nicaragua!!our dive school is called underwater vision and is right on the quayside with its own boat and dock and the rooms are 2pound a night not bad!!

the next morning we signed straight up for our open water diver PADI course after an overlay from Tatiana our teacher-she was a fantastic teacher originally from equador and she can speak spanish,english,portugese and french fluently! we checked out the amazing beach after that on the west coast and couldnt believe our luck this place is beautiful-so far we've been here nearly 2 weeks!! the sand is white and the sea crystal blue with tropical fish and everyday its been blazing hot!

at the weekend we had a social with the other divers lets just say the local rum is indeed very good stuff! our class mates are all really nice people, we were in class with Ryan from Canada who played the guitar, Christie from the US, Mark from Ireland, Russ from Oz, crazy Anna trainee police officer from Sweden, Mariah from Denmark and Johannes and Katrina from Germany.

unfortunately tho our long travelling caught up with us the following day and we were very ill for most of the weekend which was rubbish because we had such a good first night but then had about 200 pages to study on diving and physics by monday afternoon and we only had one small fan in our bedroom!!

Diving turned out to be really fun, Claire was a bit nervous to start with but she got over it and apparently we were really good dive buddies according to the divemasters!for every dive we got to ride out on board the Captain Josh to our dive sites and saw alot of the surrounding robinson crusoe stylee cayes around here which are just blissful. one is host to the famous sunjam party which takes place this weekend on the island sob sob! so far we've done 8 dives, 6 of which were on the reef surrounding Utila and we even saw a wreck the saturday just gone!! underwater it looks just as films on tv of it and we saw some amazing tropical fish including a big squashy sea cucumber and a giant lobster!

the course lasted a week and we passed all our exams so we are now certified to dive to 18metres -30ft!so any of you fellow divers who want to venture into the deep we're on... (not sure how the british version wil fair in comparison though!)

our last dive was saturday which was also the carnival on utila we were lucky enough to see it start because we were on the far end beach sunbathing...and we even got interviewed for Honduran tv-tele cuatro!!they really know how to do carnivals here-this one lasted a whole week and involved lots of street parties and lots of reggaeton we love it!! the festivities culminated on sat with the parade where they decked out all the minivans and golf buggies that they drive here with banana leaves and streamers and there were plastic beads everywhere, little girls shaking their stuff and boys on top of stacks of speakers MCing along to the musica!

People here speak with a really cool creole caribean accent and a mixture of spanish too so its sometimes hard to know which language to use!

since then we've basically been sunning ourselves on various locations around the island and eating banana bread which is absolutely amazing-claire could live on it its actually replaced chocolate!today we had a little adventure and hired out bicycles to ride around the island...in theory-but as we couldnt seem to find anything that we wanted to reach we joined our Danish friends on the beach did some swimming on the deck at the dive school then headed to the iguana station where a german expert showed us round their breeding programme for the endangered spiny tailed iguana that's only found on Utila Island. It was really interesting and actually quite sad because the locals like to poach and eat them and americans keep buying the mangrove swamps where they live to build houses on!!!..we left them a nice tip.

Plans from here onwards...our last full day will be tomorrow as we are flying on wednesday to Belize City direct from Utila in one of those tiny little aeroplanes which should be an experience! we will spend a few days there seeing the city and hopefully checking out their famous zoo with the jaguars and then we are back on a bus to Mexico where we hope to head to Tulum on the Yucatan Peninsula which is renowned for its Maya sites which should be interesting. Then we are heading off to Cancun to fly to Mexico city for a few days; then its vamos home to you guys in approximately two weeks-if Victoria's right lol!!

hope you are all well and still enjoying the sun-we've missed the hottest summer ever by the sound of it!!

Besos y abrazos (hugs and kisses)

Claire and Victoria XXXXXxx

PS girls back home keep us updated on the goss and Victoria is still in search of a Lost update Jo or Claire!!! XXX

Hiya!

just a real quick one to let you know that we are moving on to Hondurus tonight at the ungodly hour of 3am! Managed to book our 10 hr coach tickets today, we are going to Managua the capital of Nicaragua first then catching the coach to Techulchigalpa in Hondurus at 5am then we are travelling north to San Pedro Sula to catch our connection to the Bay Islands in the Carribean here goes!!!

had a long long last day in Granada trying to book these damn tickets but it was all made better this afternoon by a magical horse and cart ride through Granada and on the shores of Lake Nica,got about a million photos sorry guys! *but you are right adel they would be very good pictures to sketch from I might have a go when I get home*

however to continue, we then got a bit ahead of ourselves and thought we should try the national dish in the central park because we`d already tried the purple cactus juice which is a drink local to here and it was gorgeous and this dish looked really cool all wrapped up on your plate in a banana leaf, but when it came it was basically pork scratchings served on a bed of yukka which is a bit like stringy potato and topped with tomatoes and cabbage, yum!! we`d been joined by two little street kids tho so they were more than happy to finish it off when we couldnt face it anymore!! its sad to see the kids here, you have to try to give to one on the sly before the others catch on,so far we are not too good at it tho, theyve had a few dozen of our small coins and our bags are always topped up with chewing gum from them and today claire bought Maisie one of those flute things shaped like a bird from a little boy who was only about 8!

anywho, we will try and call once we reach our destination, staying at least a week in Utila so will give us a bit of a chance to unpack at least!

Lots of love,

Claire and Victoria XXX

Hello kids!

just to let you know that we arrived in Nicaragua safe and sound yesterday afternoon, was a bit of a shock to leave Costa Rica and reach the hustle and bustle of Granada!

We are in a lovely backpacker hostel called the Oasis in old colonial Granada on Lake Nicaragua,the place we are staying in is very atmospheric and relaxing,its in a really old historical building right in the centre. Yesterday afternoon when we got here we went for a walk around the town and it really is the most beautiful place, lots of crumbling cathedrals and squares and horse drawn carriages!today we went to nearby Mesaya on the bus to check out the artisan market it was very good, lots of traditional crafts and art,I`ve bought a nica doll tho and victoria thinks she`s a bit scary!

its very different here to Costa Rica, it all looks very different, the people are alot more darker and more indian looking and the street layouts are more eclectic and alot poorer nicaragua is actually the poorest central american country so there`s lots of oppportunity for volunteer placements if only we had more time. its also lots cheaper than costa rica so we are going to get to practise our haggling skills!Ooh and the local beer here is only called Victoria!**insert your own gags we dont do brackets!**

we left Liberia yesterday at 6am and took a bus to the border, it wasnt anything like we expected, for one thing it was down a country lane amidst a load of trees!we just walked in and got our passports stamped then walked thru another dozen checkpoints,paid some american dollars then they opened this metal gate and we were in Nicaragua!the roads were all dirt and the buses all painted in mad colours and jam packed with people and vendors trying to sell you things!we`re going to buy lots of copied reggaeton music for you to enjoy back home lucky you!

we managed to find a bus to a place called Rivas which looked like what we would have imagined mexico to look like with all the chaos and noise then we hopped on a bus to Granada and found the hostel after some other backpackers recommended it-its fantastic, free internet (which is how im writing this right now), hammocks around the spanish garden in the centre and a little pool. we are staying in a dormitory with really high carved ceilings and fans thankgod-its hot! and all for 3 pound a night!we have somewhere to lock our things away and its really quiet away from the hustle and bustle of the main streets, so far so good!

anyway i must dash the shower is calling me i feel really dusty and dirty right now!

lots of love,

Claire and Vicky XXXx

PS photos are coming Peter and Catherine, Victoria is working on them right now!!

hi everyone,

hope you are all doing ok, just got a chance to read all our emails now we´ve spotted our second internet place in the last few weeks, thanks guys! sorry we havent had chance to reply to all the emails direct but we are reading them!

we are now in cowboy country in Liberia where we are staying the night before our crossing to nicaragua tomorrow morning. we arrived here this morning after staying an extra couple of days and there were more than a few tears to leave our family and friends in Zapotal...we´ll definately want to go back!

We´ve had a cool week with lots happening, we had a whole new bunch of volunteers arrive monday from the uk which was fun, they were a college party from Stockport. it was a bit of a shock tho to find we had two extra people staying in our cabin tho..we´d been so spoilt having it all to ourselves up till then!! too many volunteers came to fit in the hostel so we ended up with the teacher and one student! they both turned out to be really nice tho and we had a good giggle. It was funny tho because we do work hard here-on the first day we went out into the cloud forest to help relay the path in the forest again and I dont think they knew what hit them! we were trundling wheel barrows full of gravel up and down the hill and that was even before the path started!...we ended up cutting in extra steps and laying new wood up there to keep the banks steady, and on wednesday they let me and victoria have a go clearing the way ahead with machetes! felt like rambo or indiana jones or something! at first we were a bit cautious with them but by the end we were chopping anything in our way!

what else have we been doing...well we had a go helping put up the new bridge once the water had gone down that is (last sunday it rained torrentially all day and it ended up washing huge sections of gardens away in Zapotal and leaving the river at 20ft deep!...locals didnt seem that concerned tho..it was a great opportunity for them all to get together in the rain and take photos!)anywho so the bridge needed wooden slats fitting under the gurders and we had to cut them to shape, only they all kept coming out either too large or too small, lets say we dont think our new vocation is in carpentry! but building however is another story we´ve been loving it!! since the first day when we were helping them move their stuff out for the work to begin we´ve added 5 extra breeze block rooms to roof level and we have made most of the metal gurders to support it! we taught the new volunteers how to shape the metal on thursday too.

our host family have been absolutely fantastic they are so kind,on sunday betty´s sister in law and three kids had come to stay this week so we all drove out of zapotal into the mountains to visit the grandmother of our host family, it was the clearest evening as it was after the rain and the moon lit up the sky and we could see right over the mountains at cloud level to the sea, Betty´s mum lives near a gold mine so there were lots of beautiful rivers nearby. when we got there they took us into their land behind the house and we went fruitpicking for berries and this strange fruit thats a kind of cross between an orange and an apple..dont ask us to name it tho!!her mum is eighty odd and was really nice and welcomed us into her house for dinner and showed us pictures of her 10 children. big families are the norm here,we were helping an 18yr old on the construction who´s the youngest of 12!everyone here seems to be the uncle or aunt of the next person! our spanish has come on miles since we were first here as we are using it all the time, the little girls staying at our house (Arrianna and Jennifer) were funny as they would just rabbit along constantly to us in baby spanish and we´d just nod and smile! on their last but one day we gave them a colouring book and pens and they thought it was fantastic, think by the end of that day most of the family had had a quick colour it was great, we went through the book with them and taught the girls some english.

we ended up staying longer in Zapotal as it was wonderful and also they had arranged a bbq for us on friday night so we sang kareoke and danced the night away salsa style with the locals! we left at 5am saturday morning with our friends and we all went to the beach in Punteranus while we waited for our connection to northern guanacaste later in the afternoon. the heat was quite a shock after the mountain air! Punteranus was quite shabby but the sea was beautiful, we could see right across the gulf of nicoya to montezuma where we were two and a half weeks ago strange!there was a pier there and a 10k beach run was also going on that day so we were sat watching the crazy runners go by in an ice cream parlour when we realised the last bus had gone! so we stayed another night in nearby Miramar which turned out really well because there was a fair on and everyone from Zapotal had come down so we had another fiesta and left early this morning!

Liberia is real dustbowl country, its stifling hot here and we´ve found ourselves a room in an old building just off the central square near this gigantic white church, tomorrow at 6am we are catching the bus to the border at Penas Blancas and then its on to Lake Nicaragua where we are staying in Granada which is supposedly the place to visit at the moment in Nicaragua. Looking forward to checking the place out as its supposed to be quite colonial in style and the lake has lots of crazy wildlife in it, like sharks... so we wont be going in the water!!

Anyhow, as this is now the second time we´ve attempted to write this all out as the damned computer here lost it the first time we wont push our luck and write much more! just wanted to let you know that we´re safe and just having the most wonderful time, it´ll be sad to leave costa rica tomorrow it´s such a fantastic place.

All our love, hugs and kisses

Claire and Victoria xxxxx

!Hola chicos!

hi we finally got to the internet place in town-we are literally miles and miles away from anything-we are living up in the mountains its fab! me and vicky are in an internet room in the nearest town catching up!

We arrived last thursday after travelling 8 hours to get here-4 bus journeys along the worst roads ever and 1 ferry trip for an hour in the gulf of Nicoya to Punteranus check us out! It´s gorgeous here we are having an amazing time at the mo especially after we had a bit of a rough time before in Montezuma this place is totally fantastic! Our tico host family is great we live with Betty and Cheechy Chavez and their daughter Marjorie (she´s a couple of years younger and we are helping her out with her english)they seem to be related to almost everybody in the village so the house is always very busy!they are looking after us really well here, all our dinners are home made and not always just rice and beans yippee!!

The weather tho is sooo different, we are up in the clouds so we get lots of fog, rain and some spectacular thunderstorms, most directly overhead which have been quite scary!when the sun shows it is strong and at night its so cold we need blankets-such a contrast to everywhere else save Heredia-we´ve been living in bikinis for most of the time so far!

Living in a log cabin in the mountains and me and Victoria are helping build a house at 1500 metres altitude!! We´ve been laying bricks and mixing cement and everything check us out, gonna be ripped by the time we come home with all this work and walking-we walk everywhere! we have to wear wellies and waterproofs all the time as its so muddy and we are always really mucky but its great! in the evenings we´ve been known to do the odd kareoke song and dance salsa they love it here!! spanish is coming along too as we are using it all the time, making sentences tho is still a bit challenging,claire realised the other day that where she thought she was saying really early she was actually saying really weather-no wonder we´ve had a few funny looks!! (she´s looking forward to going on all the school trips to spain when she´s teaching back home lol!!)

we´re staying in a place called zapotal-dont think its even on the map but its closest to the port of punteranus. as we are in the mountains we have to travel for 2 hours to the nearest town for the internet and shop-they dont even have phones in their houses just a public phone which constantly rings for different people in the village!so far this week we´ve helped lay the foundations for the house, built a rainforest path in the reserve, churned cheese and milked cows-and on thursday we went trekking on horses in the mountains with the farmer and saw vultures it was amazing!

last saturday it was a clear morning and after the soccer (dear oh dear where did it all go wrong?!)we travelled higher into the mountains with our host family in the back of their pick up truck hanging on for dear life and when we got there the views were fantastic-we could see right across into about 3 different states in Costa Rica and there´s a total of 7! ooh and next week we´re helping build a bridge!! made lots of lovely tico friends and Claire´s now permanently Clara as they cant pronounce Claire!

anyway must dash we have got to catch up on emails...may take some time!
been lovely to hear from you guys tho, hope you are all doing ok,

lots of love and hugs,

Claire and Victoria XXXXX

PS, we want to hear about the orange party if you´ve had it SGP!