Liberia to La Fortuna

Our 'crossing' from Nicaragua to Costa Rica is relatively smooth compared to a couple who crossed at the same time, they ended up having to buy a bus ticket each to show they planned to leave Costa Rica, even though they were flying from San Jose and tickets, this cost them $50 and they couldn't use the ticket. Thankfully we didn't get the same immigration official.

Of course no border crossing would be complete without being slightly scammed and this time for us it was the bus. We bought a ticket from a woman (proper rep and everything) but paid double what we would have done 100 yards up the road. We did however, have a fantastic plate of pollo frito and papas frita. We will be connoisseurs by the time we get back.

Our chosen stop is Liberia. It doesn't get a great write up but we're open minded! The 2 hour bus ride is lovely, Costa Rica seems so clean in comparison to Nicaragua, the buses are quite luxurious compared to the chicken buses. Hotel del Tope does us nicely, there's a bar just up the road and a good cheap food shop just round the corner.

The bus ride to La Fortuna at the foot of the Volcan Arenal is breathtaking. We skirt round a large part of the Lago Arenal which is beautiful, flowers everywhere and lots of big resorts but the dollar signs keeps us on the bus. We even pass an alpine village, swiss chalets and a gorgeous alpine church, yodelling to compulsory.

Gringo Pete is lucky enough to get us for the duration. We spend most of our time watching Volcan Arenal from the balcony outside our room. Sadly the volcano suddenly became dormant about 2 years ago after having been active daily since 1968 but we live in hope.

Fortuna is a really lovely town, a bit touristy, they must have thought things would be difficult when the volcano stopped but they've tapped into other natural resources and they're evolving. Probably a good thing is that it's stopped the development that had been happening.

Unfortunately Adrian has his third episode of somewhere foreign belly whilst we're here so we're forced to chill out, something we do surprisingly well. We do manage a very pleasant evening with Dave, Dave, Kate and Crystal ( tramps on wheels), two couples cycling through Central America and have our first taste of red wine for 6 weeks. Do you know I think I've gone off it.