Manuel Antonio National Park

Some of the nicest beaches (well, this is at least my opinion) in Costa Rica are located in Manuel Antonio, another national park at the Central Pacific coast. There are monkeys all over the place and they are not shy at all but are coming up to you at the beach and even trying to steal some of your food..... Romy and Esther were taking loads of pictures and even have one of them and some monkeys, but I think I better have this censored and not on here!

Beach

Impressions from around our hotel (the very nice Costa Verde hotel with the slogan "still more monkeys than people", which was really true - we had monkeys even at our front door...)

Catamaran tour with sun and fun, barbecue, snorkeling, dolphin watching (we did not see any..) and turtle observation

The beaches of Guanacaste

After one week of volcanoes and natural parks, it was finally time to go to the beach!
We first stopped in Brasilito where we spent four days in a really nice hotel and went to various beaches in the area. From Brasilito we drove along the coast further south and stopped in Samara for another two nights. While in Brasilito we also made a one day excursion to the Palo Verde National Park, where we observed birds, crocodiles, monkeys and even saw a boa constrictor.....




Palo Verde National Park

Rincón de la Vieja

From Arenal we drove further north to the national park of Rincón de la Vieja, another volcano with hot thermal spas, geysers and hot steam bubbles coming out of the underground. As there is also quite some wildlife to observe, we hired a guide and made a nice five hour hike in the park, but actually our Romy spotted more animals than the so called expert......

Volcanoes Poás and Arenal

Esther, Romy and myself started our tour of Costa Rica with the visit of two of the most impressive volcanoes in Costa Rica, the volcanoes Poás and Arenal. We were very lucky to see the peak of Arenal without any clouds and we could also observe the glowing hot and red lava streams making its way down the mountain at night.

Volcano Poás

Making new friends..., quite easy for three
blonds in Costa Rica

Traditional oxcart with freight

from Switzerland!

Jimmy (the small one in the middle), our

companion for three weeks

Volcano Arenal, three Swiss ladies on the road/horse (middle), view from our hotel (on the right)

Arenal at sunrise (we got up at 5:15am to take this picture)

San Jose, time to say goodbye to the Tucan group...

........but also to say hello to Esther and Romy, who arrived from Switzerland on August 11 and would spend the next three weeks travelling around Costa Rica with me!!

group dinner on the last evening

Joe, Megan and Anna

Romy and Esther on volcan Poás the day after their arrival from Switzerland

Island of Ometepe

From Granada we went on to the Island of Ometepe in lake Nicaragua, the largest freshwater island in the world. The lake is actually that big that it felt like being at the ocean.... we spent two nights in a very remote lodge and it almost felt like being at the end of the world! While some of the group went on a hike I decided to explore the island on horseback, a very nice and relaxing experience as the horses were very gentle and well behaved :-)

Granada / Nicaragua

From Honduras our trip continued to Nicaragua, where we spent two days in the beautiful colonial town of Granada. Our nice hotel was right in the city centre so we had plenty of opportunities to explore the centre and its small market. On Monday afternoon we visited the nearby Masaya Market and went up to the active Masaya volcano, where we also explored some bat caves........ quite scary!

Masaya Volcano