From Managua bus terminal, I travelled several hours south to the town of Rivas where I had a long wait for a local bus to get me down to the coastal village of San Juan. While I was waiting, a young Israeli joined me. He said his name was Rann, and before long we were heading down to the coast on a rattling local bus.

Rann is travelling light too, and is proud of being a seasoned traveller. He had some advice regarding security, in particular the fact that it isn’t a good idea to carry documents in a pouch under ones shirt, hung round ones neck (as I currently do) since it is totally obvious. Instead he recommends that I wear the pouch under my belt, where it would be barely visible, and much harder for a pickpocket to grab. He said he even has a tiny backup pouch, even more hidden, containing a passport photocopy and $100, just in case he gets robbed at gunpoint and loses everything but his underwear!

There seemed to be just one suitable budget hotel in San Juan, so that’s where we stayed, not too far from the beach. The place felt much more humid than I’ve been used to in the highlands of Guatemala and El Salvador. Rann wanted to drink beer on the beach, but before that he went for a wander to see if he could get anything a little stronger to smoke. I decided not to get too involved with this little search, which was in any case unsuccessful. But beers on the beach, watching the sun dip into the Pacific Ocean was all a welcome change from rattling along mountain roads in ancient school buses for days on end.

In the morning I found a local bus to the tiny village of La Virgen, on the shores of huge Lake Cocibolca, from which were visible the twin volcanos of Concepción and Maderas, that stuck out of the middle of the lake on islands that they themselves had created. Buses going any further south didn’t seem to exist, but I was able to hitch a ride to the border.

Another country duly ticked off the list, I crossed into Costa Rica, which immediately looked to be a more developed country than Nicaragua – more like Mexico in fact. Buses didn’t go from the border, but a short taxi ride took me to the village of La Cruz where I got some Costa Rican Colones. I was no longer an instant millionaire in Costa Rica – no hyperinflation.

The heavens opened soon after I found a bus southwards, and the rain continued as the bus slowly made it’s way back up to a more comfortable 1200m above sea level and the Costa Rican capital of San Jose.

A favoured San Jose backpacker hotel is “Tika Linda”. I duly got a nice little room there, then went to see if there was any message from Inés (from Tikal) at the hotel she had mentioned – there wasn’t. Back at Tika Linda I ran into Rann again, and got talking to 2 other travelers – Tammy from Israel and Sam(antha) from the UK. Soon we were all out enjoying a vegetarian meal and a later trip to a bar. Costa Rica was turning out to be a lot more fun than the previous 3 countries…

The dilemma that has been looming for several days finally caught up with me. I need to go to Panama City to pick up my first Poste Restante mail, but after Panama, the Darien Gap physically prevents onward land travel into Colombia – the Pan American Highway simply stops. I’m thus resigned to having to fly from Panama to South America, and decided to arrange this in Costa Rica, in advance. Since many parts of Colombia are in a state of virtual civil war between the drug lords and the government, it has been suggested that I should cut out Colombia completely, and fly from Panama to Quito in Ecuador. So in the morning (30th November) I went to the OTEC travel agent to see if I could buy such a ticket. However this seemed to be beyond their capability and they suggested I try the office of COPA, the Panamanian airline. But COPA also told me that here in Costa Rica they cannot sell me a ticket from Panama to Quito (for some reason that is far from obvious, since they do fly there…). However they offered me a ticket from Panama to Medellín (in Colombia). Faced with a choice of arriving in Panama without a ticket booked, or risking a couple of days travelling through southern Colombia, I decided to take the risk, and bought myself a Panama – Medellín ticket, flying in 4 days time on 4th December.

Costa Rica being relatively developed, I decided to finally make the effort to “phone home”, to my sister in Bedfordshire, to report in, and enquire about the mail-forwarding (her house is my current correspondence address, and she has kindly offered to forward bank statements and anything else that looks important). International calling required use of a locutorio (phone booth office) and had a minimum charge of 1 minute, this minute costing more than my daily travel budget! My sister fortunately picked up, I quickly confirmed where I was, and that all was well… while feeling thoroughly disoriented by suddenly talking to her! I asked if the first batch of mail had been forwarded to Panama per the schedule, and she was just telling me that she had accidentally forwarded it all to La Paz instead, when my sweet little nephew started yelling something at her, and demanding attention. I asked for more details, like between which dates she had been sending mail to La Paz, but after a few more seconds of my nephew screaming, the line went dead.

I now have a bit of a problem, since if my mail sits in La Paz for too long then it will be returned, probably before I get there in about 6 weeks time. I decided to write (in Spanish…) to the postmaster in La Paz to request that my Poste Restante mail be kept for longer than normal, and promising that I will collect it in the middle of January. Other than that there’s not much I can do.

I have stayed very healthy so far, with no stomach issues. I’ve been purifying tap water with chlorine tablets, but several people have recommended liquid iodine drops, since it is cheaper, kills more bugs, and tastes less bad. So I bought a dropper bottle of iodine on the way back to Tika Linda. This will now my main defense against all manner of diseases for the foreseeable future:

I hope it works…

Back at the hotel I found Rann, Tammy, and Sam, and we all went out for a Chinese meal. Rann and Tammy seem to get on rather well… and to be making some plans. Sam said she wants to investigate Volcán Poás – a 2700 m (8900 ft) active volcano, 35 km north of San Jose. She went on to declare that I will be a good person to accompany her on this little expedition, which will involve overnighting near the top of the volcano to hopefully get the dawn view. Sam seems a suitably adventurous and ebullient young lady for such an endeavour, and I have duly agreed to join her! We made plans to stock up with some essential supplies in the morning after which we will depart for Poás.