6 nights in Minca, instead of the 2 that I had intended // Minca, 30 June - 5 July

5 reasons

1. My airbnb and the host - it was nice to have a proper home to relax in, a kitchen to cook in (not that I did much), to stay as long as I want, in a quiet neighbourhood. David also cooked us breakfast every morning - arepas (with his secret ingredient - honey) with scrambled eggs and brewed good coffee from local farms. And we’d sit at his little gazebo in the garden watching the dog chase the butterflies, looking at the fruit trees blossoming in the sunshine, and talking about our travels and food with the other guests.

By the end of the week my host and I became such good friends he (attempted) to teach me how to drive a motorbike. His manual motorbike. I managed to drive it...but only once he put it in the right gear :P

We get all sorts of visitors at the Airbnb

Colombia: football and grafitti nation // Cartagena and Santa Marta, 26-30 June

Beers on the seawall, deserted beach hostels and an unbelievable discovery…

The sun feels closer here on the coast in Colombia. It is sizzzzzzzling hot. A couple hours of walking around already got me a watch-tan.

After the iphone debacle in the morning and a nice lunch of ceviche tostada to tame my mind and cool my body, I venture out in the afternoon-day sun for a 4pm walking tour. A free walking tour is my must-do whenever I visit a new place (usually a city), without fail, and is almost always the very first thing I google and then go and do when I arrive. It’s the most effective way to get to know a place, the people, and meet fellow travellers.

Camilo from Free Tour Cartagena was excellent - his story-telling of the history of Cartagena was informative and entertaining, gave us pop-quizzes, was really patient with us, and gave us lots of great recommendations for food, bars and salsa clubs. Charlie, one of the guys in my tour ended up going to one of those recommended restaurants 3 days in a row for lunch!

Cartagena

From the volcano to a pawn shop // Panama and Colombia 19-26 June

While I still can’t get over how beautiful the Pacific Coast sunsets at Nosara were, I think I’m still more of a mountain person than a beach person. I find comfort and tranquility in the terrain, the greenness, the cool air that comes with each fresh breeze.

In the morning I met up with Aiko again for breakfast, together with the rest of her yacht crew, for breakfast at Kwang Chow Restaurant for DIM SUM - YES I never thought I’d have DIM SUM for breakfast in Central America. To be fair it wasn’t great. The owner even gave me some recommendations for better Chinese food in the city, maybe because I talked to her in Cantonese. She said her restaurant is more for the ‘gwai lo’ tastes. But still it filled a craving for me.

The minibus to El Valle De Anton had 2 gears - death speed, or dead stop. It stopped several times along the way to wait around to pick up passengers, sometimes we waited for ages for just a few more passengers; the only consolation was seeing all sorts of bus snacks being sold by snack-sellers popping into the bus during those stoppages - cups of cut up fruit with condensed milk, plantain chips and nuts, churros…If I didn’t already have so many snacks with me I would have bought them all. When we were in motion, the bus would be going at full speed along the Pan-American Highway.

I stayed at the Bodhi Hostel - a nice simple hostel with a huge kitchen, huge garden and smoothies from heaven. I’m normally not one for dorms but they didn’t have private rooms and thought I could give up a couple nights of quality sleep and catch up when I’m back in my air-conditioned room and double bed in the 10th floor apartment in the city. More on sleep later.

Thief! And crocodiles. And dim sum. // Costa Rica & Panama 10 - 17 June

Before anyone freaks out, no I haven't been robbed, no one has been robbed.

After spending a couple more days in Nosara after the Spanish course and realising surfing isn't just a hobby one can just have a go at once in a while and enjoy, I packed up my flip flops and headed for the hills.

Monteverde 

I slept for the first half of the shuttle ride up, but after an hour or so and a coffee stop, as the shuttle started to ascend the altitudes, all I could do for the rest of the drive was stare out the window and admire the views. After spending 4 weeks on the coast I have missed the mountains, a lot. I even asked the shuttle driver to stop to let me take photos (I had the shuttle to myself, thanks again to low season). It was mid afternoon and the lighting was perfect. Rolling wooded hills, cows grazing on undulating green pastures, and even volcanoes in the distance with its tops just peaking through the clouds…

Miraculous coincidences // Costa Rica 2 - 9 June

"She is the luckiest traveller"

At 4:53am on Sunday 2 June, Julio my Airbnb host sends me a WhatsApp voice message, "we're about 10 minutes away". We are actually nearly 250km away from his actual Airbnb. But he's picking me up from Alajuela, near SJO airport, where I spent a cold sleepless night in a windowless room (closet).

How?!

Aspirations

Rewind back to about 3 weeks ago, when I was sitting in my room in Ojochal where I got too bored of cleaning casitas and not talking to people, and was looking at alternatives to how to spend the rest of my time in Costa Rica, and decided to go to Nosara to do a 1-week intensive Spanish + surfing course. I had also applied for their homestay, but their affordable homestays were fully-booked. So I looked at Airbnb, narrowed it down to 3 according to distance and budget. One was an entire apartment to myself with A/C but the host sounded like a Gringo; another was a room in a house with a pool with a lady who did yoga and meditation and also some kind of spiritual stuff that made it sound kind of iffy; and then there was Julio's place, a room in a Tico family house in a Tico area, with shared kitchen and shared bathroom and laundry facilities. I chose Julio's - while it was basic, it seemed the most "normal", and it was the closest thing to a homestay.

Spontaneity is superb // Costa Rica 30 May - 1 June

Manuel Antonio 

...is a place. It was a place I wasn't going to visit at all - it is one of those places that guidebooks put 3 stars, many Costa Rica travel blogs write about, and all newspaper articles writing a short feature on Costa Rica will mention. I wasn't exactly put off by that per se, but I had already chosen Corcovado for my experience-the-wild part of the trip

And while Corcovado was, compared to Manuel Antonio, definitely more untouched, unspoilt, screams RAW AND WILD RAINFOREST, M.A. turned out to be the most fun so far.

Corcovado/Drake was a great experience - the rainforest tour where I met great people, the solo-hike where I discovering beautiful views and animals on my own. And I had a lot of time to myself, which I used for reading, chilling, catching up on news, catching up on my own thoughts...

But I was so glad I decided last minute to tag along with a bunch of strangers to a different part of the country. It was only for two nights, I didn't sleep very well in those two, but it was still very refreshing.

Howler monkeys

Sloths, sand and shots // Costa Rica 25-30 May

Well. In my last post I did say change of plans.
And what a change of plans and scenery it has been indeed.

I went from sweeping casitas to searching for sleepy sloths; from making dinner for one to sitting with lovely people from 6 different nationalities doing shots; from 'learning Spanish on Netflix' (watching Narcos Mexico) alone in my hut in the hills to learning slang in German, French (European AND Canadian), Costa Rican-Spanish.

Leaving "Best beach town for American retirees" on Monday 27th May, I traveled south-east, down the coast towards Drake Bay in the Osa Peninsula.

Drake Bay is a hilly little bay-side town, population of about 1000 residents, accessible only by sea until recently. It's surrounded by lowland tropical rainforest, tourism is its main economy, with a not-too-dense spread of eco-lodges, the occasional soda (local restaurant) and companies running tours to Corcovado National Park, kayaking, and zip-lining tours.

Capuchin monkeys

Corcovado National Park day tour 

The next morning, the 16-seater speedboat left Drake Bay beach at 6am, and an hour and a few sore butts later we were at another beach at the entrance of one of the most biologically treasured parks in the region. Jose was our passionate and scholarly nature guide, who took us through the dense rainforest armed with his powerful telescope, a keen eye for spotting wildlife and classroom-like pop quiz questions for us. With him we saw howler monkeys, squirrel monkeys, spider monkeys, a sloth (life goal achieved!!!), a baby hawk in its nest, a coati, spoonbills and many other types of birds and lizards I can't name, including species that were endangered and only found in Costa Rica. It was a good amount of walking, waiting, trying very hard to peek through dense canopies, but the result was rewarding and truly eye-opening. Most of these animals were things I had never ever seen before. And the fact that the Osa Peninsula holds possibly the highest natural diversity on the planet, inspiring The National Geographic magazine to describe it as "the most biologically intense place on earth", is mindblowing and humbling.

Baby hawk

Woodpecker

SLOTH!! Life goal TICK!

Drake Bay Hikes

The next day, blessed with beautiful weather, I did a 10km hike on the Drake Bay Hiking Trail, hugging the coastline, watching the waves crash into rocks below, spotting wildlife and chatting to friendly travelers along the way.

At night, the weather stayed dry so I did a night hike with a guide, spotting spotty frogs, spiders, grasshoppers, and other creepy crawlies.

Red eye tree frog

Granular dart frog - poisonous and endemic to Costa Rica

It's beautiful, but I couldn't stay

It rained A LOT in the Osa. It was raining the entire afternoon I arrived, and coupled with a powercut, there wasn't much to do except sit outside in the patio and read while feeding mosquitos. I ventured out with my raincoat for a walk and soon found out that my raincoat is NOT thunderstorm-kind-of-rain-proof. Fortunately, power came back on as soon as I got back from my walk, drenched, and ready for a lukewarm shower. The next day it rained halfway through our Corcovado tour. Again, raincoat wasn't much use after 20 minutes, and definitely no use on the hour-plus long ride trecherously bumpy speedboat ride back to Drake through the storm. My fingers were purple from the cold, and my ass as well from being thrown off and on our benches every 5 seconds.

From having no plans to having beach buddies

I met up with a few fellow travelers from the Corcovado Park tour for drinks and dinner that evening - a French brother & sister pair, and a Spanish-Costa Rican couple. Both pairs were heading off to Manuel Antonio in the next 2 days. I had previously written Manuel Antonio off as being a bit too touristy and more for families than solo travelers like me, but over a beer with these new friends, I was convinced to join them - there wasn't much else going on in this tiny village, I needed to get out of the rain, and very importantly Daniela & Roberto offered me a seat in their car :D I only had 2 nights booked at Drake Bay anyway and had no plans for another 3 nights.

That's the beauty of solo traveling, not making many plans ahead, being flexible and open to suggestions.

So - off to Manuel Antonio!

...Which I will continue in my next post. Where the aforementioned shots and 6-nations and slangs come in. And my reward of meeting great people, and being able to share the excitement of finding a sloth or a howler monkey with them.

I'll end with this sweet little thing - 4-month-old Rio, a relatively new resident at my accommodation in Drake called Casa El Tortugo which was excellent by the way - 5 stars for cute pets and massive breakfasts!

Puppy eyes <3 td="">