Galápagos Islands on a Budget – San Cristobal

At San Cristobal ferry terminal we were met by Lelanes, the 18 year old daughter of our host family. The walk from the ferry to our accommodation is one we have done several times since, is only about 800 metres and takes between 5 minutes and half an hour depending on how long we stop to look at the local wildlife, but on this occasion, fully loaded, we were grateful Lelanes hailed a taxi to get us ‘home’ and she also paid the $2 fare. We unpacked, settled in and started talking about how we would get the most out of our time here.

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Travelling to the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador.

Some of you may have previously looked into travelling to the Galápagos Islands, and found the cost to be quite prohibitive. This is because the most commonly offered packaged trip is a cruise. A very convenient one-stop shop option for planning purposes, but also very expensive. Apart from not having £10,000 to spend on a two week holiday, Carol also gets very seasick, so for those very good reasons, cruising is not an option for us. We currently have less money, and more time, so our plan is to spend a month here, staying 10 days on each of the 3 main inhabited islands. Our trip will be largely land based, with over-water travel restricted to ferries between the islands and the occasional boat tour for exceptional trips such as the opportunity to swim with hammerhead sharks. As always, we aim to get value for money and whilst doing this trip as inexpensively as possible, we are hoping this does not detract from our wildlife experience. Like most other people, we’re here to see the animals.

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A Backpackers Guide to San Jose, Costa Rica

We ended up having 3 separate stays in San José, at the beginning, in the middle during Santa Semana, and at the end just before going to the airport for our next destination. It seems only right, therefore that we include San Jose in our blog posts. On our gap year travels this turned out to be the first country we had visited that was part of our original plans. We arrived with high hopes of seeing things we had never seen before. In that time we saw much of the capital, which included both highlights and low-lifes. That’s why we wanted to write this guide to San Jose and share what we had learnt.

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Drake Bay & Corcovado, Costa Rica

This was the last proper stop on our epic two month Costa Rica tour and we hoped it would be one of the best…we still had a couple animals to tick off our ‘must see’ list we had mentally made but would we get to see them here?  We had big hopes for this little peninsula after speaking with others and reading reviews but would it live up to our expectations?

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Waterfalls and Wildlife in Uvita, Costa Rica

Uvita was one of my favourite towns we visited in Costa Rica. Was it the location? In the middle of Quepos and Sierpe, the places we had visited previously and had next on our plans, and situated less than an hour from each. Was is the beautiful beaches, and very interesting places where we went into tunnels as the tide came in, and with it a very powerful display of the strengtrh of the inrushing water? Was it because Carol and I had our first attempt at body boarding, having great fun in the process? Maybe it was the proximity to local attractions such as Reptilandia, Nauyaca Waterfalls, Uvita waterfall and the local ‘swimming hole’. Perhaps it was our unusual accommodation and crazy but lovely host ‘French Greg’ or perhaps it was due to meeting again up with our Canadian friends we had first met in Cahuita, and sharing some of these experiences with them, and of course visiting their fantastic property high up in the toucan-filled mountains. Of course we loved it because of all these factors, and we leave Uvita behind with nothing but happy memories of our time there.

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Monkey Watching in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica

After our rather hot and sweaty 41 degree bus ride to Samara we decided that enough was enough, we had gone 7 weeks travelling by public transport and private transfers but we caved and got a car for our final two weeks. Nothing spectacular, a basic Suzuki Swift but for us this was a luxury and meant not carrying those bags or relying on unpredictable public transport. An online reservation with Alamo and a collection on the morning of departure and away we headed to Quepos.

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The Pacific Coast – Samara, Costa Rica

We had spent quite a significant amount of time on the Caribbean coast around Cahuita and in Tortuguero and as time was on our side and we had heard great things about the Pacific side of the country, we decided to pay a visit and see what all the fuss was about. We had been warned it was significantly hotter on the Pacific coast but that it was many people’s favourite area to visit due to the great beaches.

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Quetzel Hunting in Monteverde, Costa Rica

The first thing that comes to mind about Monteverde, is that the climate is very different to the other places we stayed at in Costa Rica. The name translates to Green Mountain, and at an elevation of 1330 metres, just 15 metres lower than the summit of Ben Nevis, the highest point in the whole of the UK, it was unsurprisingly very windy every evening, and generally a lot cooler and wetter than our previous experiences in the country.

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Bird Watching in La Fortuna and Arenal, Costa Rica

We had heard good things about La Fortuna and it was recommended as a ‘must see’ on every site we looked at. The volcano itself is called Arenal and the town La Fortuna; however we noticed that both terms were used interchangeably meaning the same area. The town in which Arenal Volcano overlooks is called La Fortuna. Whilst the volcano is currently dormant it’s last big eruption was in 1968 but lava trails were still seen at night coming from the peak up until around 2010.

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An Amazing few days in Tortuguero, Costa Rica

Sometimes it’s not all about the destination, it’s about the journey! As spectacular as Tortuguero was, the journey there was at least its equal. Everything had been arranged for us by Ludrick from Green Cahuita. We got a bus from Cahuita to Limon, and Ludrick was even there at the bus station to make sure we got on the first bus of the day. The bus unfortunately when it did turn up was full and we had to wait for the next one; luckily we still had time to make the boat.

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