7000 miles down

Wednesday August 9th 2006

Today we headed from Granada, Nicaragua down to Playa Tamarindo in Costa Rica. We blew past the beautiful volcanoes in the middle of Lake Nicaragua (and the 7,000 mile maker or the trip) and were on our way to Costa Rica!

The border crossing led to yet another ripoff plot which was foiled by Jose. The fellow charged us 300 cordobas - (15 bucks) for immigration, but the receipt he wrote us was for $6 dollars. After being discovered, he simply handed over 200 cordobas with a chuckle. We dumped our old currency, had a few fresh squeezed orange juices later and we were off!

We are now expert border crossers. (By the way, it should be known that not all members of the party need be present for immigration, just a passport is needed to stamp, the person can be waiting in the car. )

Now, Costa Rica is widely known as the most developed and richest country of central america. However the roads didn't show it and we have faced some of our most challenging terrain yet. We finally arrived in Playa Tamarindo (also know as playa tamagringo for the disgusting number of americans there) with the sole purpuse of getting a little quick surfing under our belts. Greg and I got battered by some beautiful pacific waves and we were happy. We got Jose hooked on surfing as well.

There was a torrential downpour which turned the whole town to mud, but that didn't stop us from heading out on the town (we had been good boys for a few days). We made several friends at the hostel and broke out our Nicaraguan Rum Like heroes. Alexey and Jose got some salsa dancing in, while Greg concentrated on street meat. We need more dancing practice.... the plan was to get up at 8:00 and surf some more.