Back to Costa Rica and the cloud forest of Monteverde!

After a day in San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua we cought the bus back to Costa Rica. This time we got off the bus in Liberia where we rented a car. From Liberia we drove to Monteverde. Luckily I had heard about the roads to Monteverde so we rented a car with 4x4. It was a fun experience trying to drive these roads, and we used about 2 hours driving 32 km on these roads. We got in late, but we managed to book our tours for the next day. The next morning we got picked up and driven to Selvatura park where we would start with a guided tour on top of the cloud forest. We walked over several hanging bridges so we got the best view of the forest. 

There are not to many animals except for a few birds, but there are some great views and we had a very informative guide :)

We were even lucky enough to see some howler monkeys!

In the forest we found a wasp nest we carefully past by.

This big green beetle was also trying to get to the top of the cloud forest. Our guide told us that Costa Rica was the country with the highest variety of beetle species.

After a great tour on top of the cloud forest in hanging bridges we returned for some lunch before we got ready to see the top of the cloud forest from zip lines!!

This is from the first zip line. My mother had no problems hanging on ;)

Neither did I.

At the end of the tour I was expecting the option of doing a superman zip line, but unfortunately Selvatura didn't have this option :( I was so excited to do this after a great recommendation from Ana!! We'll just have to go back and do it some other time, Ana ;) Then you can try the Tarzan swing, which was the option I got!

And of course my mother doesn't say no to any challenge!

As you can see we were wearing GoPro's on our helmets. Here is a preview of one of the zip lines. I hope to get time to edit a little video sometime later.

The next day wasn't going to be filled with that much adrenaline, but instead it would be filled with coffee and chocolate :) We went to Don Juan's Coffee Tour. We started to learn that the red coffee beans on the plant are the ones that are ready to get picked.

We got to see the coffee plants at different ages.

Picking the coffee beans is a manual job and they normally work from about 6 am in the morning until it is so dark that they can't see if the bean is red or green. This is also often done by young kids in their vacation from school.

After being picked they are peeled out of their first skin and put in the sun to dry.

When they are dry enough the last skin is beaten off with this manual machine before the beans are roasted ;)

We also learned about the cocoa bean.

And we got to make our own chocolate! :D

After the coffee tour it was time to leave Monteverde and head towards the Pacific coast! We left Monteverde in daylight and had a great view from the bumpy road.

Relaxing at the beach in San Juan del Sur!

When arriving San Juan del Sur we found a hotel just a few blocks from the beach. This is the road to the beach.

On the way to the beach I saw a nice little house with a matching car outside ;)

My mother got her first taste of the Pacific coast of Central America!

San Juan del Sur also has a little top with a statue of El Cristo de la Misericordia that is 26 meters tall.

Along the beach are restaurants side by side. We found a nice place to eat a tasty lunch with a relaxing view of the beach ;)

After lunch we stayed at the beach to swim and relax until sunset!

For the sunset we found a bar with some seats on the beach. Of course we had to try out some new drinks :)

They had happy hour, 2 for 1, so why not try some more different drinks?

The sun was just so big and round that evening!

After the sunset we went back to the hotel to freshen up and get ready for dinner. I did not bring my camera for dinner, but we had an amazing dinner with entertainment. The restaurant had a cultural nicaraguan night where we got to hear live music and watch traditional nicaraguan dances.

Hiking on Isla de Ometepe in Nicaragua :D

For my mothers stay we are planning to travel around as much as we can! Since Troels needed a new stamp in his passport, and I want to see as much of the world as I can, we decided to make a trip to Nicaragua. We took a bus from San José to Rivas in Nicaragua. This was an 8 hour bus ride, but the bus was comfortable and it almost felt like a flight. We got a taxi to San Jorge where we cought the ferry over Lago Nicaragua for Isla de Ometepe! Isla de Ometepe has two volcanoes, Volcán Concepción and Volcán Maderas.

We arrived Isla de Ometepe when it was dark so we just found a hostel to stay at for the night. Plans were made for our stay on the island, and the next morning we went to Charco Verde, a lagoon in the middle of the two volcanoes. From the lagoon you can see Volcán Concepción.

While walking around the lagoon there is a little trail leading to a beach where we could swim in the lake. Here we could also get a view of Volcán Maderas.

Continuing around the lagoon there was a viewpoint where we could get a view of the lagoon form higher grounds.

After our hike around the laggon we cought a bus for Moyogalpa, a city further north on the island.

This was the only city on the island where we could find an ATM. Walking down the street was nice and calm with few tourist. The people here were very kind and would just stop us and ask where we were from, and wish us a nice travel.

We also grabbed some good nicaraguan food here before we jumped on an even more crowded bus back to San José del Sur where we were living.

On the way we would pick up even more people!

So many that people would have to stand outside and hold on to the bus.

When we got back to our hostel we decided to stay in and relax because the next morning we would hike to the top of Volcán Concepción (1610 meters). The bottom of the volcano started out with a hike trough dense forest.

After ascending the first 1000 meters we reached the end of vegetation!

From here we had a great view of the western side of the volcano, and we could see across the lake.

We still had 610 meters to go, but before continuing we had a little rest, ate some cookies and fruit for extra energy up the rocks, and of course I had to do some gymnastics!

The last part was really challenging, steep and rocky. If we stepped wrong on a lose rock it would roll down and everybody behind would have to jump to the side. On the trip up we met another group hiking, and we ended up hiking together with them. We were a few that got separated from the guides, and at a point we had no idea where it was safe to ascent. Luckily there was another guide that cought up with us and followed us to the top. Finally we made it to the top!

It was a tough hike, but it was totally worth it! We got an amazing and unique experience and we met some great people from the other group that I ended up meeting again in San José (Costa Rica) at a later time.

Festivals with Tempos!

The first weekend in December Tempos was invited to a festival in San Ramon :) This would be the first time to perform what we have been praciticing the last couple of months! 

We were all ready!!!

The first performance went really well, and probably over all expectations, here is a video of the performance in San Ramon.

Even though we were pleased with how the first performance went we had one more week to make it better for our own festival. For our own festival also the younger kids had their own performances. Here are the youngest girls.

The youngest mixed team.

And the young boys :)

In addition to the different teams of Tempos, we also had some visitors performing from San Ramon and also from the high school that I teached at the first period I was in Costa Rica. Here are the students from the International Christian School in their performance.

The performance team of Tempos would finish the festival :D

Here is the video of the performance team finishing the festival.

All of the extra coaches would get a little thanks for the help.

As this festival was the last thing I would do with Tempos I wanted to give them a little thanks too! I have had an amazing stay here in Costa Rica, and Tempos has been like a big family to me :) I wanted them to have a little something from Norway to remember me!

After the festival most of Tempos had arranged a surprise-party for me :D It was really unexpected, but really nice!!

¡Muchas gracias por dejarme ser parte de la familia fantastica Tempos!