A Jew In Peru (and more)

Hi guys

Apologies for not being able to update my blog earlier but I was having extreme difficulties in finding internet that had not just come out of the late eighties.

Anyway as most of you know I travelled round Costa Rica from 11/5 - 14/6.

Costa Rica was good fun if a little heavy on the wallet (primarily from the fact its just another suburb of America). I started out in San Jose, Costa Ricas capítal city, its a pretty scummy dirty city crammed full of prossies and thus I was only there for a couple of days (visiting a few museums) before I hopped it over to a town called Arenal.

Arenal was pretty spectacular as it sits underneath a rather (unnervingly) active volcanoe that glows at night like the tip of a cigarette. There were also natural hot springs under the volcanoe that I visited which got up to 42 degrees ... which believe me is bloody hot. One memorable night was watching the footie at a bar, 2 top teams, playing each other in a deciding match only to be nearly shot when the favourite lost. Its one thing using air horns to celebrate but when they got pistols out and started shooting towards the sky I legged it back to the hostel.

From Arenal I got a bus and boat to Monterverde, a pretty town up in a cloud forest. This place was a good stop for activities including the infamous "sky trek", which is a series of zip lines (or suicide leaps as we called them in the cadets) from one mountain to another. You literally speed at around 40mph through the trees and clouds thousands of feet in the air ... as you know I have a little vertigo so proper shat it! After that there was a more peaceful "skywalk" where you strolled like a monkey on platforms above the trees.
There are shots of me whizzing through the trees on zip lines but I am still waiting for this American geezer to send them to me.

After all that excitement I needed to chill and headed to Samara, a small peaceful beach town. There was not much to do there but chill in the sun and go to one of only two bars at night and play pool (Costan Rican rules, which is bloody challenging). This is also where I attempted surfing ... and failed miserably. At this point I must say hi to Jodie for chilling with me and putting up with all my ailments.

After a week at Samara it was time to visit one of Costa Ricas national parks on the Pacific coast and I headed down to Manuel Antonio. This place is absolutely gorgeous and it beats any beach that I have seen in terms of its idyllic views. White sand, fat iguanas, deep emerald green jungles and frothy surf ... not to mention numerous monkeys and birds. Manual Antonio was also the place where I encountered two fat snakes, one who slithered by me in the rain (a 7ft python) and a few hours later a fat green and yellow cobra fell out a branch and almost onto my head ... lucky me. I also met two fit Sweedish girls (one of whom looked liked Rachel Stevens) who unfortuantely for me where lesbians ... but we had a good time playing cards and getting hammered.

After a couple of days in Manuel Antonio I headed back to San Jose from where I targeted the Caribbean coast. Thankfully the food was four hundred times better than the black beans and shitty rice they served on the Pacific side (named Cassado). I must say though that the cutting out of sandwiches, chocolate and other fatty stuff has resulted in a slim jim

The first town I ventured to on the Caribbean was a party town named Puerto Viejo. This place was full of day time zombies who morphed into ganga selling rastas by night. This place was where I met two girls Lauren and Sarah. Sarah coincidentally was going out with an old school friend (Cobi Leher) and Lauren lived a couple of doors down from my aunt Jackie. Nuts. This was also the place where I met 4 London lads about to go uni. Here comes a story ... one night they wanted to get stoned (as you know I was purely a spectator) and purchased 2 ounces of ganja. The law being written by sod himself the old costan rican bill arrive less than 10 mins later. The guy who bought the weed just kept it in a bag next to him and thus it was pretty obvious that after the police had finished searching us all they would look in the bag ... which they did. The young lad was quickly frog marched to the local jail where it was $150 or a night behind bars. The lad paid up but was offered his weed back for a further $15. Of course he bought the parcel back from the bill only to find when he returned that it was a lump of palm bark ... one expensive night for him.

From Puerto Viejo I headed North to Cahuita. This place was more chilled out and I went walking around the national park (similar to the one above) and went snorkelling and annoyingly (and rather painfully) cut up the palm of my hand on bloody coral.

From there I went back to San Jose and got a flight out to Ecuadors capital Quito ... but thats another story.

As you can see I was pretty active and in the most part had a good time in Costa Rica. Other than the food being duller than dish water, the bloody mossies and expense of doing anything, this place is recommended ... especially if you are a nature enthuisast.

I do have some photos of Costa Rica which Sarah kindly sent me via email but the system does not want to load them up. Apologies, I will try later on. I hope I have kept this short enough not to bore you.

Pura vida,

James