Traveling Applejax

Mike and I are on the Pacific coast for our first time on this crazy trip. We’re staying in a town called Coco, Costa Rica, which I like to say because it sounds like I have a bad stutter. We biked in from Liberia yesterday, and I think we’ll stay until Sunday morning. We like our digs (which come with a hot water shower, free laundry service, and a kitchenette for just over $20), and the town is nice too.

Today we went scuba diving with some lively characters from Rich Coast Divers on a nice trimaran boat. On our way out to sea we caught sight of some dolphins leaping out of the water in the distance. A couple people claimed to see whales as well, but despite their enormous size, I managed to miss them. That’s okay though, because life under the sea was pretty interesting too.

The water was much colder than in the Caribbean, but we had a nice couple of dives. On our first we saw 3 white tip reef sharks, several octopus, a ton of eels (moray and otherwise), stingrays, and some very large schools of fish. Our second dive brought us in close contact with all of these same animals, plus a turtle, some harlequin clown shrimp, and a small wreck. The coral isn’t as colorful in the Pacific as in the Caribbean, but I prefer to see the wildlife anyway. I thought the octopus were especially cool since they were very well camouflaged in the rocks. We caught one actually swimming around too, which was neat to see.

Tomorrow we’re just going to bum around on the beach before we hop back on our bikes and head toward the mountains. Also, tomorrow is Costa Rica’s Independence Day, so we’re hoping to catch some festivities. We missed out on fireworks for the 4th of July in the U.S., but maybe we can pretend to be Ticos (that’s what Costa Ricans are called) and celebrate independence here instead.

We’re a bit behind with pictures, so here are a few from our last day in Nicaragua:

Some crazy pipes in Lake Nicaragua at the San Jorge port — I wonder what they’re used for…

Poor pet monkey chained to a tree. 😦

They really like their horse carts in Southern Nicaragua.

This is an ad for the popular Nicaraguan rum, Flor de Caña. “A transparent rum for a transparent people.” Is there some kind of more positive connotation for “transparente” in Spanish than there is in English? Can anyone explain this to me?

Our friend at the border is wearing a Scottsdale, AZ shirt.