Huck and Henna En Route

I hope while reading our blog, you had the feeling of being well informed about our trip.

I have to tell you though, that we didn’t write about everything.
Most importantly we didn’t write the negative and positive results of about four pregnancy tests that we made around the end of our trip.
Already at the end of the Nicaragua time we were wondering a bit and then in Chirraca, in the morning of the 20th of January, we found out the we are going to be parents. What happy news!!!

So you can imagine that our trip wasn’t the same anymore after this and I guess, that’s the same for the rest of our lifes.

One thing is for sure: We are very happy.
Oh, by the way; probably it was on Ometepe….

Heslinki, 12-3-2008

Time is fast. Not only while travelling, but also here.
I didn’t have (or take) time to sit down and update the blog. Until now, so here is a brief update:

We finally arrived in Düsseldorf (again, oh American Airlines, we arrived a day late and, again, one bag was missing).
My parents were expecting us at the airport and were so wise to bring some really warm jackets, hats and gloves for us. Outside of the airport was some snow and it was very cold (my parents said that it was warm).

So we spend a few days at my parents place in Dinslaken and then went to Zaandam in the Netherlands to visit my brother.The time there was great and we enjoyed foods that we had missed in Central America and also (very slowly though) got used to the different time- and culture zone.

After visiting friends in Berlin, we continued to Finland. The Jopos stayed with my parents; they’ll bring them when they come to Finland in the summer.

So now we are back.
The finish winter is pretty mild and so we are not freezing too much. We are also back at work and it scares me, how fast this life here seems to be normal again.

Central America is far away again.

well, I am sitting by a computer and that shouldn’t be. Right now we should be in the air, somewhere between London and Duesseldorf. But as it is, we are not in the air and we are not even in London yet.
No, we are still in America, and just spend a night in a Miami Hotel, payed by American Airlines. Like three month ago, again we had “mechanical problems” and left San Jose with a three hour delay.
So we arrived just a bit too late in Miami, to make it for our connecting flight, since we had to take all our luggage out and had to go through customs and US-immigration.
Something you wouldn’t expect on a connection flight, but things are a little different in the US.
Our hotel is far away from everywhere and our breakfast voucher is only 5US$ each, so that we had to use also the lunch-vouchers to pay for our breakfast… in return we packed our stomachs and pockets with breaksfast, so that we can make it through the day until our flight to London leaves at 17:15…

Originally we were thinking about a stopover in Miami, but afetr we found out about the prize-difference, we decided not to. We simply should have trusted in American Airlines. We are in Miami!

well,
today is the 1st of february, the day of our departure. We are going  away from Central America and we are coming back to Europe.

Oh yes, we had a good time. But we are not back yet. We are still en route, but rolling home.
Again we packed the bikes in boxes, bought two “catastrophy-bags” to pack everything and now we are ready to go to the airport. We will fly “against” the time and so we will arrive already tomorrow, if everything goes fine.

See you there

San José, 28.1.2008

Like a cat around the hot porridge we were tiptoeing around Sas José in the last days.
After we left La Fortuna (look at “stories”) yesterday morning by bus to San Ramon, we couldn´t decide where to go. We wanted to avoid the streams of tourits, that suddenly cover Costa Rica since we came back from Nicaragua and so we first headed for a beach.
In a town called Esparza, we got a lift from a cashew-nuts salesman and according to his information, the beach of our desire doesn´t even have accomondation.
After we looked at the sky and saw some big clouds coming in, we changed plans and finally ended up a bit further north in Mata de Limon, a place obviously very popular among locals. New-rich locals…
So everything was not exactly cheap and it was as noisy as it could be.

Today we decided that we are fed up with all this and that the idea of the backpacker hostel in San José, with the possibility of using a kitchen and a pool and enjoying the nice garden sounds very good.
With a bit of luck we got a lift from Mata de Limon all the way to San José and now we are back in the modern capital, where the air is not really good, but already a bit cooler and start getting prepared for our way back to good old europe…

Like a white wall reaching up into the sky.
The view to the volcano Arenal is nothing but clouds. Some people come here for a week without ever seeing the main attraction.
I suspect the operators of tourist buisnesses to have fog machines installed on the slopes of Arenal, so that the paying guests will stay a day longer. Or two…
But today we were lucky (again). Right after our breakfast the veil of clouds was lifted a bit and opened the view to the cone shape of the volcano.
In our lodge we lately discovered the joy of playing the good old “scrabble” and so before starting in the day we couldn´t resist another game.
But than we finally went to see a nice animal-refuge in the middle of farms.
There we were totally alone and spend a lot of time trying to find a few animals.
When we left from there, we had butterflies, many birds, squirrels, lizzards, kaimans, a poisonous dart frog and a sloth on our list.

the frog.

So again, our trip was worth it and to even increase the pleasure of the day, we will visisit some hot springs tonight after dark.
There we can sit in the hot volcanic water, watch the stars and the glow of the lava and only have to hope that the water temperature doesn´t rise. Otherwise they would have to evacuate the hot springs, since the rising water temperature would indicate a higher activity level of the volcano…

La Fortuna, 25.01.2008 

The volcano Arenal is active. Since 1968, the gigantic pimple is open.
Almost 40 years ago, it awoke with some leathal explosions and ever since, it has been active again. It is good to live near an active volcano, because you can be sure that the pressure is constantly released.
If Arenal would suddenly be silent, people woud have reason to be worried.

So also we are happy to be temporary residents of this huge rumbeling and lava spitting pimple. The area around is very fertile and we enjoy a room in a real eco-lodge. Surrounded by green gardens, the smell of flowers and the sounds of birds and well, the volcano.
If the sky wouldn´t be overcast, we could see Arenal and at night the glow of the lava.

But since we intend to stay here a few nights, chances are good that the sky will clear up and let us experience the desired spectacle.
After a long travelday from the pacific to here (La Fortuna), it was a joy leaving the flow and floods of tourists behind and find refuge in this eco-lodge, called Cerro Chato. 

Since Orotina:
bus, ferry, hitchhiking, one night in Manzanillo, hitch hiking and now we are in Santa Teresa, a busy surfers beach on the otherwise beautiful peninsula de Nicoya.
Watching the surfers is pretty nice, and swimming in the waves as well, but being in a very US-like place (and dusty on top of that), is not so nice, so most likely we will be leaving from here soon.

…during the time, when my brother was doing a volunteership in the area of Acosta, a canton south of San José. Before we left for our journey, he gave us a letter for the people he was staying with and that is why we were heading to Acosta, after we left San José yesterday.
We first took a bus (everything seems to be so “western” and modern now, that we are back from Nicaragua) to San Ignacio, and than hitch hiked to a place called Chirraca.
Here, we found a lodge, advertising itself as an ecological tourist center. Unfortunately, we couldn´t find the ecological part of it. We found out, that my brother has been staying at three different places, but nobody could give us understandable directions to those places, so we left the letter with the family who is runing the lodge. They remembered my brother well.
Today, we continued our journey. Since we left the bikes in San José, we were able to hitch hike and so we travelled the dusty backcountry roads, from San Ignacio to Orotina, half way to the pacific coast.
We got rides by some pick-ups and some other, partly open 4WDs. It was a very nice trip through the mountainous area of the Highlands, heading west.

..waiting at the Texaco in Esteli, we are melting in the sun. We meet a french couple, cycling down the panamericana with their weird tandem bike, where one is sitting forward and the other one backwords.
This was about all the excitement of the day, since we were mostely sitting in the bus. We had to change busses in Managua, but that only took short time and was within the same company.
At the border we bought a duty-free bear for 1U$ and after we waited about 30minutes (or more) at the costa rican customs for somebody to show up for checking our loggage, our bus driver eventually decided that we had waited long enough and rushed everyone to pack the luggage back into the bus.

We arrived in San José pretty late and left the bikes in the busstation, so we could take a taxi to a hostel in down town.
Tomorrow we are planning to go to San Ignacio, a place where my brother once made a volunteership.

After Managua, San José suddenly appears to be a nice city…