Surf Nicaragua

After some time just basking in the warm sun and doing pretty much nothing, we got ourselves to book a surfing lesson. Our teacher would be a local surfer legend from Peru. And for the price of 20$, his 3-hour lesson was well worth the price! Pretty much the whole group stood up after the first hour, and in the end would stand up almost every try. And Riikka was the star pupil! There are no pictures of this, since we were both in the water at the same time. The next day we'd planned on renting a board on our own and go practice on the secluded Playa Majagual, but by dinner I - Matti - started to get crazy chills, totally lost my appetite and realized I had either had way too much sun or I was getting sick, or both. Later that night my skin was burning red, brain all messed up from the fever and what not. This continued the next day, and the next. There was little else to do but lie down on the bed/hammock, shaking. At the end of the second day we decided it's time to leave the beach, go back to the civilization and find a doctor.

And, when we got back to San Juan we paid a visit to a local hospital, where the doc would tell me that I had - drumroll - Dengue fever. Now, there are two versions of Dengue and I'm lucky to have the "classic" one, while the nastier one makes your skin ooze blood and other nice stuff. There's no vaccination for it nor a proper treatment, so what you apparently just do is wait it out, popping Panadol or similar to keep the fever down. Should be gone in 3-7 days but who knows. Needless to say this will wreck a week's travel activities pretty well. And here's something I wasn't expecting - the medical care in the Nicaraguan hospital didn't cost a dime. Even the medicine was free. Whoa! Way to go Nica!

Beach Life

We arrived to Nicaragua some 4-5 days ago and been a bit "in the bush", meaning there's been no internet and occasionally no electricity.. but now we're in town again for restocking & checking the internet, so here we go.

The border crossing from CR to Nica was probably the most colorful we've done. There you hike across a 1km stretch of soaking mud (while it's raining cats and dogs, of course) while big trucks push right past you and splash the ooze all around you.. there are no signs to the stamps offices and absolutely everyone not wearing an uniform is trying to con you for some money. Definitely an experience not soon to be forgotten, and I mean this in a good sense! After a lot of frenzied sign language and pointing fingers we make it to the country (entry cost 12$/person) and on a NicaExpress bus headed for the capital Managua. We ended up paying 10$/head for the 30+ km trip from the border to the town of Rivas, what a ripoff and we knew it. Hell, Nicaragua is supposedly the cheapest country in central america and in Panama we could cover 400km for the same ticket price.. oh well.

From Rivas we took a taxi to San Juan del Sur, which is the tourist destination of Nicaragua. Naturally it still is low season and since Nicaragua isn't exactly the biggest blip on the tourism industry's radar, so it's rather deserted here. Also we aren't really looking for a town to stay in, and the beach isn't that nice here, so we frantically explore our options by googling and talking to the locals.


Hopping on a "shuttle bus" (a large pickup truck with tires big enough to deal with the craterous muddy path the locals know as a road) to a surfer beach some 10km and 50 minutes outside of San Juan, we get to take a first peek at the waves of the Pacific here in Nicaragua.. and yes the surf's up, as they say! But, onwards we go and after asking for some directions we hike 15-20 minutes over rocky peninsula to the beach two coves over, called Playa Maderas/Majagual. Now, this is really something and even the way of getting there is really exiting, so we're quite psyched.

 On the way we run into another traveler couple who point us towards the end of the beach, where Hostal Mathilda's is hidden under the trees, right on the beach. Ye gods.. this is it, the peace and quiet we've been looking for. With stupid huge grins on our faces we greet the other 5-6 people (even during the high season there wouldn't be much more than 50ish on the whole beach) hanging there and get ourselves settled. We're staying at least a week, while one Canadian hombre has set up a camp for 6 months.

To quote The Beach, this place is a beach resort for people who don't like beach resorts. In a small shack on the sand, the resident cook Martha sells ice cold (occasionally frozen) cervezas for a hefty price of one dollar each as well as delicious meals for 2-3$. Several hammocks swing in the breeze all around, nearest no more than 2m from our door.. and we're getting the beach all to ourselves. There are no motor vehicles around, electricity goes out every now and then and all of that is just perfect.


Falling asleep every night to the sound of the huge waves crashing 20m away is really something.

A Steaming Forest Adventure

Travel tip of the day: haul a sufficient amount of plastic bags with you all the time. They're handy for delivering laundry, storing the muddy shoes after a hike as well as for when you decide to open a beer bottle with a shampoo container, only to puncture the shampoo bottle so it starts to leak all over your pack.

A few days ago we arrived to Liberia, a sleepy small town in northern Costa Rica along the Panamerican Highway to see yet another national park. The plan was to stay two nights and move on either to the coast here or towards Nicaragua, but since it turned out the park was closed on Mondays, an extra night was added. The town has a convenient location, since both the national park and the coast are within one hour of travel; and the border to the north isn't that much further either. As for the hostel, I'd say that out of all the cold showers we've had this trip, this place sure did rank in the top 3, especially after a slight sunburn. The room is pretty much the worst on the trip so far by other measures too, with the whole place smelling like a swamp and the sheets being somewhat filthy. Well, at least this one provides towels..


So yesterday we were basically just killing time, and hopped on a local bus towards the coast, and after a good hour / 1.3$ ride we were getting our feet wet in the waves of the deep blue pacific. The bus dropped us off at the Playa Hermosa, somewhat developed but very low-key beach frequented by mostly Ticos (that would be Costa Ricans), and after a pleasant few hours of swimming and reading we hiked a sweaty 3km over the spine of the peninsula to the next beach of Playa Panama where we enjoyed some beers and Ceviches (basically a cold portion of mariscos - seafood - and vegetables), another dip in the sea and finally headed back to Liberia before the rain arrived.

After the somewhat "off" day we woke up at 0600 to a new day, excited about going to explore the Parque Nacional Rincon De La Vieja, a large national park around one of their active volcanoes, the Rincon. We had booked a roundtrip transportation to the gates of the park frlom our hostel manager a few days earlier. The price tag of 20$/person seemed quite steep (there are no route busses there) but seeing the road leading to the park made the price make sense; it would take a serious 4WD to navigate this one up during the rainy season, when the downpours would drill the surface into canyons a good half a meter deep. At 0730 we arrived at the park and after dishing out the 10$/person park fee (same price for all the national parks in the country) we were off to explore the first section, often referred to as the Yellowstone of Costa Rica due to its bubbling mud pits and fumaroles.

The second part was a 2.5h/one way hike to a striking large waterfall through somewhat easier terrain than the first hike. Still, with 31C in the moist forest, it didn't turn out to be any less sweaty leg of the trip. On the way we encountered numerous birds, from humming birds to really big black ones of unknown kind to us, as well as several dozen kinds of butterflies, of which the most exquisite definitely was the Morpho. With its wingspan of over 10cm and the bright cobalt blue color, it was not hard to recognize after seeing its picture in various nature publications. Too bad the flying creatures tend to be rather elusive and we couldn't capture any on the camera. Besides those there were an abundance of monkeys, lizards, snakes, insects and plant life.. worth the money/effort easily. We ended the hike by dipping in a cool whitewater mountain stream to rinse off the mud from clothing and to get a major dose of refreshing up after sweating like a pig for 6 hours.

Costa Rica recap

 Tomorrow we're leaving Costa Rica behind. So what were the pros and cons? Well! The best stuff obviously were the nature and scenery.. the volcanoes provide one helluva backdrop for jungle hiking. The country is making the best effort in conservation in the area too, so if you're a nature enthusiast, this is where you want to be. On the downside, CR is the most expensive country in the region (hostel room for 2 about 20-30$, a beer in a bar 2-2.5$), thus about double compared to its neighbors. Still, it's half of what stuff costs back at home with the addition of all the cool stuff to see!


See all our Costa Rica pictures!.

Ramblings from Costa Rica

For our last night on the Bocas we ended up on Isla Colon in a hostel which turned out to be the party spot of the the town. By 9pm their bar was packed, people going wild, and when some of the people grouped up to charter a boat to the next island for the afterparty around midnight, we fled to bed. At 2am a huge thunderstorm hit the island, and I imagine their return trip was rather exciting. In the morning the hostel's lobby and the dorm rooms downstairs were flooded, with 5cm of water on the floors and numerous backpacks soaking wet. Glad we splurged a few extra bucks for a private room on stilts and our gear remained dry!

After a "late" 8am wakeup we hopped on the boat and on towards Costa Rica. A company called Caribe Shuttle was offering a shuttle service from Bocas across the border to Puerto Viejo for 30$ - we did the math and it did seem a bit pricey, and in the end we cleared the trip on local Collectivos for mere 10$. Ha! The border crossing in Sixaola was interesting, a beat-up shack located in a big puddle of mud serving as the immigration office, and the walk cross the border being on an ancient railroad bridge with gaping holes every few meters. At the border of various central American countries (Panama and Costa Rica among others) you need to present not only your passport and the immigration form, but:

1. proof of sufficient of wealth; 500$ cash or a credit card will do
2. an onward ticket; a future flight ticket or an international bus ticket out of the country 

We weren't asked for no. 1, but had to present the onward ticket. Luckily we had a printout of the RTW flight itinerary. The guy next to us got a lot of shit from the officials, and ran to buy a bus ticket back to Panama which he would never use. Such silly stuff! So, my advice in case you arrive on such border without a pre-booked onward trip is to make a fictional but authentic looking printout of a plane E-ticket anywhere. They will take a look at the paper and that's it.

We were headed directly to Manzanillo, a small pristine beach at "the end of the road" - meaning after that there's just jungle -  but it was getting late and raining and we decided to stay overnight in Puerto Viejo, which is somewhat touristy yet nice small town on the Costa Rican gringo trail. There's a strange all black sand beach here, as well as a bird / flower sanctuary, which sadly was not open on Thursdays.

One of the things I love about the Caribbeans is how everyone's happy all the time. And why the hell not - the climate is optimal, nature awesome and the cervezas El Cheapo and cold. There's the rastas enjoying their ganja and the old expats sitting at the bar drinking away their breakfasts. Life sure is easy here, although it seems to be taking its toll on the veterans.. Our first contact was a self-proclaimed town comedian/magician who'd do random magic tricks and crack jokes in between for a small "donation" (of colones or dollars).

The next day we made it to Manzanillo on the morning bus just to find it rather deserted and since the constant overcast weather was bothering us a bit, after several changes of mind we suddenly decided to hop back on the bus and head for the central highlands and see some volcanoes. On the bus ride to San Jose, their rather bland and unattractive capital - avoid it if you can - there was a long delay and after 30ish minutes our bus finally passed the roadblock - which turned out to be a full-sized truck right on its side in the gutter on the mountain road. Sheesh! On the bus we made another change of plans and decided to stay in San Jose instead of going onwards to Cartago. The 6+ hours on the crappy buses was getting boring and tiresome, and there's a decent connection to the Volcan Irazu from the capitol as well. We stayed at Tranquilo Backpackers hostel, somewhat overpriced (what in Costa Rica isn't..) but decent. Most of the inhabitants seemed to be the hippie types who cook their own food every night and such. Oh and it's raining constantly, counting 10 hours nonstop at the moment.

To get to Irazu volcano you take a 8$ round trip bus (2h each way) from downtown San Jose (or Cartago), then pay 10$ park fee at the entrance and you'll have 2-3 hours to explore the volcano before the return trip. The parking lot is on the same level as the edge of the craters, so to peek into those no physical effort is needed. But the actual summit is some 50-100 meters above and reachable through a 20min hike.. on a clear day both coasts should be visible from here! Irazu is the largest active volcano in Costa Rica, with elevation of 3432m and the main crater 300m deep and over 1km of diameter. Although the only "activity" we would notice there was the smell of rotten eggs which is due to the sulphurous fumes. Hopefully the next one is a tad more rowdy, I wanna see some lava :p

Up With The Cock And Off To Dive

That's right, our final wakeup call in Boquete was at 0530, just in time to start packing when the friendly neighborhood rooster kicked off his serenade. (Since we were headed to the Caribbean Coast where rastas and reggae rule, I saw it fitting to crack a Judge Dread joke right here, see topic). Turquoise seas await the weary traveler!

Getting on the road again was nice, and was amazed at how only 5-6 hours on a few buses, taxis and boats got us from a mountain town to an Caribbean island - and it all ended up costing only 13$. And so we arrived to Bocas del Toro, a group of islands on the standard gringo trail. From the docks on the main island we headed off to Isla Bastimentos, the larger of the two main islands and more down-to-earth. In other words, there's little to do but swing in a hammock, gulp cold Balboa beer.

Contacting the local dive shop The Dutch Pirates we booked a dive trip out of curiosity towards the semi-famous local dive site Hospital Point. At 50$ the two dives weren't too costly and since there's no such thing as a bad dive, it was great to explore the reefs - although badly bleached by the rising ocean temperatures this season - and their inhabitants, which more or less consisted of big lobsters, toadfish and the more common reef fish. First time I ever saw a lobster on a daytime dive, mind you, and also the biggest.

We've been staying with a pleasant English gent and his lovely family in what basically is a gorgeous big garden, with the small huts within the forest connected to each other with tiny footpaths. Thumbs up! And yes it's called Beverly's Hills, as many who's been here probably guessed. According to the 6yo daughter, their dog speaks 5 languages. Also he's (literally) a killer at hunting chickens that may wander to the yard.

The plan for the next one or two days is to return to the main island of Isla Colon, chill out a bit and then slowly start making our way towards the Costa Rica coast up north.

Update 14.10.2010: see all the Panama photos here


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Boquete: Superior Coffee and Misty Mountains

Leaving the big cities behind us, we hopped on a express night bus to David, which we reached at roughly 6am, and switched to a local bus headed here to Boquete, home of the allegedly finest coffee in Panama. Boquete is a small town at the elevation of some 1060m in a lush valley surrounded by mountains, ideal for hiking, rafting, wildlife watching, you name it. There's cloud- and rainforests around, with a hearty population of colorful birds and orchids, to name a few. In the town there are something

like a dozen places to stay from more upmarket hotels to small pensions.. ours is towards the budget end at 26$/night, with private bath (and a tiny swimming pool!). The town is rather heavily influenced by north Americans, and one of the upsides of this that every place seems to boast a free WLAN. Although naturally it's called "Wi-Fi"..

The trip over from PC was rather colorful. After returning from the canal there was little else to do but tour the city with our backpacks after having to check out from the room at 2pm, so we went to sample the bar scene. First, while hiking the 2km stretch along the shore to the city's business / bar district we got drenched by a sudden downpour and had to wait it out under a bridge. A few hours and several pitchers later we arrived to a brewery restaurant where a waiter got so excited of my Helloween t-shirt that he ran to change the tunes played on the premises to the works of Mr. Weikath. The rest of the patrons seemed baffled about the weird music.

Our bus was to leave at midnight so we headed to the bus terminal at 9.30ish pm with another local bus. We never saw any other tourists using the bus, which was weird since although the taxis weren't too expensive (a ride within the city for about 6usd), the bus cost 25c to anywhere. Finally, there was trouble again at the bus station bar which was full of people watching Panama butcher El Salvador in football; the bouncers didn't look very kindly at me trying to enter with a bottle of rum and two cokes I had bought for the trip.

The first day and night in Boquete were spent eyeing the scenery, booking a guided hike and just generally enjoying the slow pace of life here at the mountains - not to mention a lovely 3$ Chilean Merlot we're drinking out of plastic cups on the patio. The hostel's garden has plenty of birds everywhere, one of them a caged tucan called Willie. All the humming and chirping makes a very relaxing ambience for reading a book. In the night time a rogue cricket parked right outside our door and would make sounds of such volume the walls seemed to crack.

The next day we enjoyed a nice 1.5$ (for both..) breakfast and went for the hike in the cloud forest for a few hours (was supposed to be three, but I guess the pace is set for an average middle aged American, of which there are several here, as well as elderly ones). The lush greenness was great, the tall trees covered with moss with wild orchids living on the treetops. The route took us to two beautiful waterfalls, the latter one with a natural pool of cold mountain water. According to our guide it was "freezing", but in my opinion it pretty much matched the water temperature of Finnish bodies of water during the summer months. The forest floor was quite wet and muddy and thanks to a lonely and overly friendly mixed-breed German shepherd in a desperate need of a hug, we returned from the trip covered in soil.

After the hike we had ample time to visit a garden outside the town, run by a local who has opened the place for everyone to see, free of charge. It was packed with big colorful flowers, with pools filled with big fish and birds all around. Natural beauty at its best.

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Canals and rain in Panama City

Hola! The hurricane season is still on, and the next storm around here is always around the corner. So far the rain's been rather subtle, but at the time of writing this it's raining cats and dogs, the pavement outside is really getting hammered (as are the patrons sitting in here..). Despite of what some travel reviews I read recently have said about the city, I certainly didn't find it very "enchanting" or pleasant, rather than a standard latin american city with way too much exhaust and chaotic traffic.



Used the one day stopover in PC to pay the mandatory tourist visit to the canals among other things. While they advertise tourist busses to the Miraflores locks (closest canal locks to PC, about 12km away from the Centro), you may as well hop on a local bus and walk away only 35c poorer. Instead of just repeating the tourist brochure info (which you'll find on Wikipedia too obviously) about the canal and its incredible past and present, I'll just go ahead and mention that this month (Oct 2010) it is estimated that the canal reaches 1 million passing boats, since the start of its almost 100 years of operation.

Deciding we didn't want to stay for another night here, we grabbed express bus tickets for a bus leaving for the mountains near Costa Rican border; departure at midnight, will be exciting to see how it goes since we've been hitting the sack at 9pm latest..

Sandstorms and Swamp

As the sun drops down behind the palm trees, so comes our brief visit to Miami to an end.  Was really decent to get a nice rest and enjoy the warmth after busy, chilly NYC and we even managed to get some stuff done, stuff being fighting with American Airlines on changing our flight schedules. Quite the ordeal with them claiming our travel agent (Kilroy) had done some kind of mistake with the ticket booking.. such bull. We double checked and the ticket was a-ok. Be wary of them if traveling on RTW tickets, they've had a history of being difficult when it comes to stuff like this. Also their website denies sales of tickets to non-US/UK/latin america credit card holders. Hah!

On to Miami.. (insert a David Caruso line of your choice here) well, we figured it's best to see the city from the saddle of a bike so we hopped on a bus, grabbed some nice cruiser cycles from downtown and headed for South Beach. Weather's been acting up here for the past few days and the beach itself was totally off limits due to the nasty wind blowing up sand at speeds of a neutron collider. Took a few hours to ride around and do some bikini shopping for the Mrs. and to inspect the cerveza selection on the pedestrian street. On the way back rode down to Bayside which is some kind of wharf side market / entertainment center at downtown Miami and enjoyed some refreshments at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co (I cannot believe they productized that) and after that just .. spaced out making arrangements for the trip.

The best part of the visit here was definitely the half day trip to the Everglades. Now, Everglades national park with its area of some 100 by 160 km is the world's largest swamp land as well as the basis for Miami's freshwater supply (according to the tour guy). The water is only around 50cm deep by average and filled with life! Alligators, turtles, birds, fishes.. saw them all, about 10 gators really up close too, which was just great. Blazing on the grassy swamp at top speed in the airboat was exhilarating.

Update 10.10.2010: all USA pictures now online here

Nethacking in Miami

One of the (lesser) goals for the trip was to use some of the downtime (flights/buses/evenings) to finally "ascend" in Nethack, which I've been playing on and off for the past 15ish years. Got the best game so far going having reached lvl 10 on my Barb. Haha, not quite there yet but working on it.

In other news, we made it to Miami a few hours ago. Annoying trouble on the way - as we were attempting to make changes to some flight schedules at the AA counter it turned out our travel agent Kilroy Finland had made some kind of weird change in the tickets after original booking, rendering them invalid to be changed by other parties (airline companies). Slightly crappy situation.

Other than that, we're really happy to be here where its warm after the breezy, rainy and chilling days in NYC. Also looking forward to having a proper night's sleep since leaving home - the accommodation here cost 1/3 of the one we had on Manhattan and is about 3 times nicer: not one of the windows is broken, for example..

New York City, USA

First proper entry here so prepare for a wall of text.

So, back in the States after a long while. The immigration process was smooth to my surprise, no queues and no crap about whether we're terrorists or similar crap. Guess their "national security" paranoia has improved at least a bit. After airTrain/subway rides we settled in at YMCA west side, which, at 110USD a night, is among the cheapest options in mid/lower Manhattan (wtf). The showers are icy cold, mattresses terrible and on the first night some kind soul decided to bust through the door of the room next to us. And I wouldn't have it (well, except the room price) any other way, stuff like that adds up to the travel experience ;p

On Saturday we walked around mid-lower Manhattan for about 6 hours, and later with the feet screaming for mercy found a perfect oasis in the form of a microbrewery pub at the outskirts of Little Italy. American beer has never before tasted as good to me. Compared to the usual offerings of Coors Lite and Budweiser, the local products were just excellent. Also, one'd be surprised how many people are jogging around Central Park at 7 o'clock on Saturday morning!

With both of us having been to the city before, we didn't really go to any standard tourist attractions rather than just wander around pointlessly. The ground zero reconstruction site was quite striking, with some 20-30 floors already done of the upcoming World Trade Center One. One thing left to do for sure is attending a stand-up comedy night, it's a rare opportunity to see such big names of that field here.

One thing I find cute is how they still have public cord pay phones on the streets, whereas back home those have been extinct for a good 10+ years. Guess the mobile is a relatively new phenomenon here still. That, and/or the mobile device penetration isn't quite the 100ish percent of Finland.

On Monday morning its time to move on. It's been quite cold here in New York, and I'm not at all sad to see that changing for a few months soon enough.





ps. jos ihmettelette kun ei vastata SMS viesteihin, niin homman nimi on etta maksetaan atm puhelinlaskumme itse..vastaillaan tarvittaessa email/IRC/Skype kautta!

M-x travel-mode

Time to go. Sitting at the gateway to adventure, namely the Oak Barrel pub of Helsinki airport, with a (too) cold stout pint in hand and with mixed feelings about the coming 7 months. Excited, in lack of a better word. The weather's great at least.. sunny, and with autumn in the air, I'm glad to be escaping the upcoming cold. With an hour left to takeoff, I have no idea whether I packed everything and whether the guys are actually setting our kitchen on fire and rubbing feces on the walls as they promised on IRC. One way or the other, this is it. We wish a great winter for everyone, where ever you are.

Next stop New York.