Hello!

(michal) Happy Easter from Caracas! We are again here in this crazy city and soon will be leaving back home, Brussels. It passed so quick the whole trip! But on the other hand we miss Europe and you guys, well I even started missing Brussels a bit (I know that I will regret my words after spending a few days in this rainiest capital of Europe! :))

Caracas - the city of famous Simon Bolivar, well, when we were here last time we have not seen much unfortunately, here is one of the main streets: View image and here another picture of streets of Sabana Grande, a district where we stayed and tried some of the Venezuelas best delicacies: arepas and cachapas View image

After Caracas we moved towards West to find ourselves for three days in a small colonial city of Coro where we spent three days and although there was nothing much to see, the weather was fine and we walked a lot and spent lots of time juist being lazy, sitting on the bench :) View image

In Coro we also witnessed some of the Venezuelan Easter celebrations, and huge processions followed by the crowds of believers View image

I should also mention that for the half of the trip there was an instrument that was accompaning us! It is 10 string Peruvian Charango! I am trying not to play too much on it (some of the participants of our trip do not appreciate my begginers attempts to master this exotic instrument) but still, I trully fell in love with its unique sound! View image Nota bene, not only Peru has its own original instrument! Venezuela has it too! It is called Cuatro, it somewhere in the middle between a classic guitar and charango when it comes to size and has only 4 strings! View image

Right from Coro we rushed for our Easter holidays to Puerto Colombia! But.. we were not the only one rushing, it seems that the entire Venezuela was there ! Look at one of this beaches..! View image

This was only a motivation for us to take one of the colorful local motorboats View image
and try to get as far as possible from the crowds, like Cepe beach for example, that was not accessible by land! View image

Next day we discovered that actually we are pretty sun-burnt and it seemed as a good thing to do some walking instead! That is how we discovered the village of Choroni, how strange and beautiful at the same time! No people was there! View image

THe crowds seemed to disappear after two days, everybody probably rushed home for Easter Sunday, by the way, another strange thing - all of the churches were closed on Easter here ! Quite strange as for Catholic country, anyway, with less people around, we could finally enjoy the atmosphere of Peurto Colombia ! View image

Last but not least, I am again tempted to write about food! Well, this time about some venezuelan sweets, cos I havent seen anything this big in my entire life - each of the sweets on the following picture weights at least a kilo! They are made in 99% of sugar cane and fruit juices! They were much to big to carry them home... View image

This is it! We will soon be going home! It was a long trip but we cannot complain for the lack of stunning sights that we have seen and beautiful sights that we have experienced!

We would like to thank all of you, who were together with us on this trip, for your support, patience, and for your all email and comments on our blog! You cant even imagine how much courage their gave us!

Once more thanks so much and see you soon in real :)

Silvena and Michal

(silvena) hi guys!

Out trip is almost over. it has been kind of a challange for us to find internet in Venezuela so we have not been able to post an entry about this country yet. actually many things were kind of a challenge for us here :) especially for me...

You will get my side of the story of venezuela here and Michal will give you his own. Landing in Caracas on Sunday was a total shock for my system. From the cool, beautiful, majestic and peaceful mountains of Peru, we somehow found ourselves in a jungle of concrete, heat, dirt and smells... The second we arrived in Caracas (after about 40 minutes ride in a taxi during which i was holding the doorhandle of the car ready to jump out in case of emergency, and trying to figure out whether the direction the driver was taking us was towards the city or into some middle of nowhere), i already desperately wanted to leave. It is true that we are exhausted towards the end of our trip but the fact that we were walking literally on garbage and were seemingly the absolute only tourists in the whole of caracas did not help my feeling of imminent danger!

Well, now, almost a week later, i have to say that i was probably overreacting a little bit as we are safe and are trying to enjoy the country. In order to avoid crowds (since it it is Easter here on Sunday) we decided to travel to a small city of Coro on the coast west of Caracas firsty and then make our way back to the capital slowly by Monday.

A lot can be desired about the bus system in Venezuela. The bus terminals look like these masses of´people and busses with hundreds of people showting different names of places. You are supposed to hear your place and signal to the guy shouting it and he takes you to a bus. Our first bus ride was memorable. The bus had a metal door between the passengers and the driver which remained closed at all times, as did the courtains, for security reasons, we were told. In addition, a lady with a video camera filmed the face of every passenger before the bus left the station, agian for security reasons, i guess. This highly secure bus took us to Valencia and from there we took another one to Coro. Another shock to the system followed - the bus was fully open, doors, windows, everything, with loud Latin music blasting out all the way. Somehow, i felt more secure in this one... :)

After spending three quiet days in Coro, wondering around the same 5 streets and eating in the same two restaurants in this place where we were the only tourists with the exception of a lost Dutch guy on his way to Colombia, my feeling of imminent danger diminished and was replaced by a different but equally strong and unpleasant feeling of being watched. In fact, in no other country did we feel so much on a podium, but a very uncomfortable one at least for me, as here. I guess the fact that we are the only foreign tourists has something to do with this and even though Michal is trying to explain to me that people are just curious and have no evel thoughts, it is the biggest punihment for me to feel this way.

We are now in Puerto Colombia. A quiet beach town, or at least i thought it would be so when i proposed to come here in order to avaoid the craziness of easter travel. Nothing could be so far away from the truth!!! I wish i could post the picture here of a stuningly beautiful beach (I am sure it would have been if we could only see any of it), EVERY sentimeter of it covered by people and tents!!! i have never seen anything like this, even the worst days of the tiniest beach in Sozopol on the Black Sea....There was of course no way for us to stay at this beach, at 9 am it was already packed to its fullest, and i mean both the sand, the nearby palm tree forest, and the actual water!

Luckily we managed to find out that if you take a boat, somewhere 30 minutes away there is a beach which is far from empty but at least you can breathe. The boat ride itself, in addition to being adrenalin high because local muchachos were showing off their sailing skills, was very very beautiful - huge green mountains, many of them, and quite steep, dive into the beautiful blue Carribean sea.

Today we are exploring a small village about an hour walking inland hidden in those cool green mountains to gather some strength to go back at the heat, sand and crowds tomorrow, as it will be our last full day and then we have two days of travelling before we return to Brussels.

So hasta luego everyone! :)

(michal) Hi there,

I have to admit that it is quite difficult to write about Venezuela due to the couple of reasons:
- It is extremely hot here,
- There is not so much to write about (well, we are in the tourist resort here)
- I am sick (I fell asleep in the cold room, and am dying of my usual ¨"7-days" cold.
- Last but not least, I am all the time tempted to read about the Kyrgyz revolution (how amazing!), more than I am motivated to write this blog, sorry about that ;(

Well, well, well. I have to admit that even though it is difficult to fall in love with Venezuela from the first sight, there are some things that make me like it more than other countries that we visited...

Image that you go somewhere where there are no tourists..! You are one of the few people who can explore the strangeness of the place, it was like that day when we arrived in the Caracas, it was shitty, dirty, smelly, and we were walking through the loud streets of the capital and hundreds of eyes where staring at us! I am sure that many of them were wondering where we are from, what are we doing for living and what the hell brought us to their shabby city.. many of them seemed not to even see acknowledge that we are different, since the entire Venezuelan society seems to be a big mixture of Europeans, old Creoles and descendants of African slaves. Such a difference from the other countries that we visited, where once they see that you are a Tourist/foreigner/stranger they run towards you trying to do anything possible to get a penny out of you! I am not saying that Venezuelans are angels, of course they were trying to screw us too, but you can get screwed even next to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, believe me!
I somehow have a feeling that Venezuelans are very different from any other Latin American country.

They are different when it comes to the government (famous Hugo Chavez Frias, who is shaking hands with leaders of such prosperous countries as Cuba, Libya, Iran and by the way he was also one of the last heads
of state who paid a visit to Saddam), their anti-American policy annoyed already many folks in the White House and its history: Venezuela was the first country to liberate itself from the Spanish rule. Before it was just one of the poorest colonies (famous of only spices and cacao), when the moment has come (French invasion in Spain) they produced one of the most brilliant leaders such as Simon Bolivar to lead the freedom movement that freed such countries as Perú, Ecuador and Colombia.

Then you can see that this country has some great beaches, some great small cities, some nice places to see (apart from the ugly capital) but there is almost not infrastructure: example: if you want to find a restaurant, you will find it in the least expected place, then if you ask me about food, well, it has neither any obviously disgusting dishes nor any culinary masterpieces. The food is mainly based on corn-made arepas, chicken, fish, rice, more or less; it seems to be a diet of an average fisherman from the Caribbean.

Then you can ask me, what the hell I like in Venezuela? Well, maybe it is strange, but it reminds me of Poland so much: great and glorious history but mediocre present, ugly capital – nice province, weird politicians – people weirdly looking at you on the street (I am sure they are GREAT when you get to know them!) Food tasty – but now way nor idea how to sell it, finally beautiful places, but dirty, but shay, and noone cares, like Poland, like Caracas, and like the guy who asked me on the boat yesterday, if I like Caracas, I said, of course I do, cos we are proud of our countries no matter how bieda-like they are.

Viva Chavez!

(silvena) Machu Picchu... I think when i was younger these two words meant something like ¨¨ the end of the world¨¨ to me. Seeing the real thing is really an experience in itself. We wanted to enjoy this amazing site away from the crowds, and believe me this is extremely hard to do with a ton of gringos in Peru all with one main destination - the Inca sacred place - machu Picchu!

As a preparation for the BIG SITE, we started out with a trip to the Sacred Valley of the Incas, along the Urubamba River and saw several sites on the way. They are all built on mountain tops and overlooking some gorgeous views. Here is a view from the Inca site in Pisac, several km away from Cusco. View image

And a familiar face among the ruins :) View image

And here is what we saw carved in the rocks across - an Inca head View image

At the end of the Sacred View image

At the end of the Sacred Valley of the Incas, we reached Aquas Calientes - a small village, the last on the train line before the top. Even though it was dark, the mountains were awe inspiring since we had to lift our heads quite up to see the tops somewhere over us and the roar of the Urubamba river (which is the fastest and strongest river i have ever seen) added to the feeling of mother nature being the sole ruler of this place.

We managed to overcome our exhaustion and woke up at 5am and headed to the bus which was to take us up the steep 8 km. The road formed a serpent up a mountain and the view towards the misty tops accross the Canyon which the Urubamba formed were marvelous. View image

From about 6am to 11am we did kind of have the place for ourselves (there were just some Inca Trail survivors in addition to us. The Inca Trail would have taken us 4 days to walk and we did not have this time, but i can just imagine how one can feel walking for 4 days the old Inca route and arriving on a misty morning to this stunning place on the top of the mountain.) View image

Machu Picchu of course has an amazing history and is said to have never been found by the Spanish when they conquered Peru at the time. It lay there undisturbed by tourists until the early years of the 20th century.

The city took 100 years to be built and archeologists still argue how many people did it house. One thing which we easily felt is that everything in the Incas´ life was connected to nature, contemplating and phylosophysing, observing the movement of the sun and moon and capturing the shadows in some absolutely intricate architectural wonders. View image

In the morning, we really could feel the mystery of this place, many parts of it still covered by mist, View image and slowly, bit by bit it was revealing itself to us. View image Here is a picture from the angle which usually us seen on the postcards View image

Soon busses started to arrive in mass around 10 and pour hundreds of tourists at which point we left back to Aquas Calientes. Again, we werevery lucky with the weather, as it started to rain just before we boarded our train back to Cusco. View image View image

We did not see much of Cusco unfortunately (here is a picture of the city in the morning View image), as the next day we were flying to Lima, but in the few hours we had in the mornign, we observed (actually almost participated in since we were sitting on the stairs just in front of the main podium with official guests) a demonstration of Cusco and is neighbours in support of the police force in Cusco!!!!!???? View image

These two hours watching the parade brought back memories from years ago when in my primary school I marched with the brass band dressed in a uniform at our 1 May manifestations. I am not sure how voluntary this event was, or what was behind its organization but for more than 2 hours, hundreds of school children, workers, and simple inhabitants of communities around Cusco, dressed in their daily clothes and many women carrying their babies on their backs as we saw them all around Peru, made an amazing effort to MARCH in front of the podium. Their faces were so serious and so tense, it was at the same time a little bit funny and very endearing. View image

We arrived in Lima in the late afternoon, and could just get a short glimpse of one of its fanciest neighbourhoods situated on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific! It was difficult to remember that we were still in Peru. This neighborhood with its highrises with views from apartments which are probably stunning, with its flashy malls and restaurants, was worlds apart from where we were just ours ago...

All in all, we LOVED Peru! Even though wee had some frustrating fights with a self proclaimed travel agent, most of the people and the county as a whole left us with a feeling of warmth and kindness. We rushed through only the most important places in Peru, and i am sure there is more to see, so until next time! :)

I am writing this entry from Venezuela but more about this, soon.
Cheers to everyone!
Michal and Silvena

Dear Friends,

(michal) I see there are no comments to my wonderful selection of pictures... hmm, is it because you share Sylvies opinion that it is actually crappy selection? I hope not, HA HA. :)

Ok, here comes another try:

1. As you can imagine we are meeting many kids on ourway, we have to pay them for the pics but still it is worth it! View image and here Sylvie with kids: View image

2. Another two pictures from the Colca canyon! View image

View image

3.And a beauiful picture of us in Colca! View image

View image

4. Me with llamas,I wrote about them before but there was no time to attach this pic! View image

5. Remember, I was writing about our high altitude experience, here how it looks on 5000 meters,Sylvie made an offering of the stones there because it was supposed to bring goodluck! View image

6. And here a small sample of the political feelings in Peru- a huge antipresident demonstration stopped our bus on the way to Puno, but we continued safely after 5 minutes View image

7. And then we arrived to the highest lake in the world! Titikaka lake! View image

8. And here some pics from the everyday life of Titikakans on the floating islands, some impressive boats and other things made of reed that you simply cannot miss!View image
here me,eating reed, the local food, it tastes,well it doesnt actually have any taste ! View image

View image

View image

View image

View image

9. And since we started our todays entry with some local kids, well, let us show you how the Titikaka kids look like!

View image

That is all for today, btw, special message to Sylvies clan - she is safe and sound, just after having dealt with the local travel agent she is too tired to deal with the computers!

Greetings to all !

Dear friends!

(michal) While we are fighting and struggling with the annoying and disappointing tour operators in Peru, we are using every moment of our time to feed you with the pics from our trip. Please forgive me for not much text in this section, but we have to catch a train in half an hour so we are in sort of a big rush - ok, so here we go, I will post here pics mainly from Arequipa and Colca Canyon, more pics will come soon!

1. Here is Sylvie and myself in the centre of Arequipa and in the amazing Catalina Monastery - it used to host more than 400 nuns and there was a time when the nuns had a lot of fun in there, unfortunately for them, for the lust century there is a strict order, but at least we, tourists can apreciate the hundreds of small and tiny rooms and cells of this monastery:
a) View image

b) View image

c) View image

2. My Guinea Pig Experience
Ok, I am sometimes brave and curious and I have to admit that sometimes it misleads me! I think that once I survived eating grasshoppers, I thought I can eat all! But.. well, I ordered the local speciality, Cuy Chactao, Guinea big from the grill, and on the following two pictures you can see what I got! I have to admit that I actually ate 30% of it although it was bloody difficult.. There is not so much meat btw, but it tastes sort of like chicken! :)

a) View image

b) View image

3. Llamas, Alpacas and Vicunias
As we wrote you in yesterdays entry, there are plenty of amazing animals as Llamas and Alpacas - there were simply everywhere on our way to the canyon! See it yourselves! View image

4. Colca Canyon
On the following pics you will see our favourite Bulgarian model posing together with the breathtaking lanscapes and panoramas of the Colca canyon!

a) View image

b) View image

c) View image

5. Poles, cactuses and hot springs
Yes, yes, Poles were here already 20 years ago and they were the first ones to navigate the canyon! You can also see here how Peruvians are using the cacti for the fence protection, although some of them can be eaten (fruits, I am eating one on the pic). Afterwards, yeah, some relax in the hot springs!

a) View image

b) View image

c) View image

d) View image

6. Birds
Can anything be more impressive than a Condor falling into the canyon? Well, maybe an eagle on somebodys head..? :)

a) View image

b) View image

7. Guess Who Is That Picture
Any suggestions.. ? :)) Nice local btw, no ? :) View image

ok, no time have to run, sorry!

Dear friends,

(michal) First of all sorry for not writing for a while, unfortunately the Peru experience is so intensive that there is simply speaking not a single moment that we can sit and write something, but we promise to put a big packet of pictures next time!

Last time we wrote we just arrived from Costa Rica, through Lima to Arequipa!
Arequipa, turned to be on of my favourite colonial cities, nevertheless after having a short break we decided to go for a two day trip to the Colca Canyon!

Together with a group of eight Americans we started a long trip that lead through the amazing landscapes, vulcanoes and endless fields where you could see countless llamas, alpacas and vicunias (alpacas and vicunias are very similiar to llamas, the amount of fur is the only difference)

A very important aspect of our trip was the high altitudes. Since we had no time to adjust to the local altitudes (cities are situated on 2600-3600 m.a.s.l) we had to climb even higher where it was almost 5000 meters high. What can happen to you, well, some people get dizzy, the others get a headache (like Silvy), as for me I experienced this annoying feeling when you want to take a deep breath but you cannot due to the lack of oxygen in the air !

One of the very common remedies for these kind of annoyances is chewing of the coca leaves. Yes, yes coca leaves! But, no, you cannot get high from that, I even tried to, by chewing around 30 leaves and drinking a couple of coca mates (teas) the same day, but apart from running to the toilet every 10 minutes, there was no booze.
Well, they say that these leaves help to free the oxygen from your stomach in the hights, but I am not quite sure what do they do to you, one thing for sure both me and Silvy got some weird dreams the same day we were chewing them so there has to be something about it.

Coming back to the Colca Canyon – it is said to be the deepest Canyon on earth! The most characteristic feature of the canion was for me (since I come from the farmers´ family : ) ) the way that Inkas so many years ago managed to irrigate and cultivate their plantations on the slopes! What they were doing was creating special terrasses on the slopes, thanks to which they could use all of the surfaces of the Canyon (well it will be much more obvious once we post some pictures from the canyon). It is also shocking that the Inkas somehow knew how to collect water, how to preserve it and then direct it in such a way that in spite of the fact that the Colca could be easily compared to the frying pan, it was always green!

We have also seen real Condors! It was a really great and stunning view, Codors sliding inside the canyon..! Condors are concidered sacred animals by the local population, since they are not predators but eat dead meat and some dangerous insects, so they mae the whole canion and environment cleaner and safer.

The best part of the whole trip was that we were actually in some touristless place. Well apart from our group there were only a few tourists. This is so great. Actually by now I am convinced that the less tourists and the more rural place where you go is, the more you can learn about the country itself, its customs and its culture. The pretty dificult part was waking up at around 5am but imagine how much time you can gain thanks to waking up early! The mornings here are really stunning, full of fresh, cold air, you dont even need a coffee to wake up..!

Ok, we have to run right now for a bus to Cusco, we promise to put a lot of pictures next time !

---

Dear family and friends –

(silvena) Firstly we apologize for not writing for a couple of days but it seemes we did not time our trip well and we gave ourselves way too little time in Peru and as i said earlier, we both think it is the most amazing part of the world we have seen by now. After spending one night desperately trying to change our tickets for a later departure to Venezuela, with absolutely no luck, we had to accept the fact that we will be on the road every sigle day if we want to see everything that we planned. So it has been a round the clock pack, carry, unpack and pack again our backpacks and we are constantly travelling and the evenings are hard to put ourselves together and find a place to write.

Anyway, enough of an introduction. You have already read from Michal¨´s entry about the absolutely unforgettable trip to the Colca Canyon. No need to bore you with more on my part, but i would just like to say that this trip made me not only enjoy the thrilling beauty of the finest (and we were told the oldest in the world – from the 6th century) terraces carved by the pre-inca civilizations who lived in the Colca Canyon but the most amazing thing is the way the current inhabitants of the canyon have captured this knowledge of living in harmony with nature and enjoying every gift that the Colca river offers them (even though the Spanish colonizers did quite well in trying to obliterate this amazing cultures of farmers). Everything is impecably clean, tidy and beautifully designed and you look from the top of the mountains to miles and miles of arable land, small fields of all colors of green, yellow, orange and red somehow amazingly put togehter as in a big puzzle divided by beautiful low rise stone hedges. Really stunning beauty.

I got carried away with this and my assignment for today is actually to tell you about another mesemrizing part of Peru – Lake Titikaka. We travelled to the lake yesterday and even though the journey was very beautiful, the altitude and the 6 hour bus ride (not counting the 2 hour delay) really took their toll on us. Neither the coca leaves (which we constantly chew on becuase supposedly they help to release oxygen from your stomach and make the altitude easier to bear), nor all the beauty outside helped much. We arrived in Puno (the biggest town on the lake of about 150 000 inhabitants) totally beat. We stayed in a hotel in a some small village near Puno called Chukuito. Believe me there is nothing happening in Chukuito. Their major attraction is the so called temple of Fertility of which however are rumors that it is fake. We did take a short walk at 6am in the morning (yes, we now are so pressed with time that we wake up so early J and mingled J with all the local grandmas and grandpas in their colourful costumes which they wear every day as if they are going to a carnival. The mere nothingness of this vilage made it so so great and i was tempted to believe the legend that the Temple of Fertility is build in this very stong energy field and gathers cosmic energy.

Lake Titikaka (supposedly meaning Grey Puma in pre-inca Aymara language – we were told that in those times people climed some peaks in Bolivia and saw that the lake had a shape of a puma) is the highest lake with passenger boat service at 3820m. And you can really feel the thin air here but the beauty of the lake and its islands under the burning sun (even though it is supposed to be the rainy season in Peru for once we are lucky and have enjoyed the clearest blue skies) made us forget our altitude sickness. We took a trip around its Floating Islands where Uros people live. We were told that the Uros people centuries ago tried to isolate themsleves from the war-liking Incas and Collas and later the Spanish, by building floating islands in the lake using reeds that grow in the lake. The islands are build by many many layers of reed, and they are constantly replenished from the top as they rot from the bottom. Quite a concept!!! When a new couple gets married, they can build their own island and start living there (and respectfully when people get divorced or there are family feuds, there were instances when islands were cut in two and separated... It is one type of a solution, i guess... J The feeling on those islands is very strange because you can feel that it is floating (islands are usually about 1.5 meters thick), and the gound is spongy and soft. The people on them were extremely friendly, and their houses and boats (also built from reed) seemed to me like some miniature version taken from a fairy tale. We took many pictures and with some luck in Cusco tonight or tomorrow we will post some.

All from me for now. We are now continuing our journey to Cusco (to capital city of the Inca civilization). Another 6 hour bus ride J

Cheers,

Michal and Silvena

Hi Everyone

(Silvena) We both thought Peru will most certainly be the most difficult part of our trip. And it probably will be but i have to admist that our first impressions of Peru are great and we are both absolutely captured by this country from being here just 24 hours. The airport in Lima is a modern and seemingly very peaceful and pleasant airport. We read in our book that check in is chaotic but we never experienced any chaos. In fact the lady which was checking us in turned out to be from Ukraine (married to a Peruvian) and we had a very good first chat. Later this same afternoon while wondering around the shops at the departure lounge, one of the shop keepers told us she had been a tour guide for 4 years and she really misses it and it was obvious she did since for about half an hour she was giving us advice as to where to go and what to see while in Peru. In general the people in Peru are impressively warm. Our waiter in the restaurant last night (while both me and Michal could hardly move from exhaustion at around midnight) had the biggest most radiant smile on his face and offered us impecable service without any expectation of a tip as this is not a custom here (of course he earned his :). Today we just got aquainted with Arequipa ( a city in the southern part of Peru), strolled forever the little streets, nooks and corners of one Monastery with a very interesting history of being totally isolated from the outside world for close to 400 years before being open to the public just about 20 years ago. On many walls (brightly painted and decorated with beautifully arranged flowers) there was a sigh SILENCIO but the whole place somehow naturally made you be silent and not interrupt its peacefulness. Going back in time to discover more about the Inca civilization which once florished here, we visitied a museum where a frozen figure of a young Inca child is kept (which was found high up on one of the mountains), made as an offering to the gods. The museum itself gives you goose bumps and seeing this frozen girl though the glass in a small container, really made us wonder about the ways of these once powerful people. We are on our way to discover more soon contiuing our journey in Peru.

Oh, and i should not forget to report that we finally managed to make MichalЄs dream come true - we bought for him a local Peruvain instrument which looks like a small guitar and but has more strings, from a local musician on the street who produces them in his house. He was kind enough to give him a first lesson of how to play this instrument and Michal is right now immersed in his trainings in our room :)

All from us from today. Cheers!
S

Ola!

(michal) Right now we are sitting in the internet cafe in the neighbouring so-called regional capital: Puerto Quepas and even though we are in the shade the humidity is unbelivable, we (well, especially me) are sweating like pigs and I have to say that you can be drier under the shower than in these amazing tropics!

Since Silvy already gave you an outline of our activities in Costa Rica (well, we are just being lazy most of the time :)) let me share with you some of my
impressions and some of our pictures from here. Well, for the first time we actually felt that we are in Latin America, you can see quite a big difference
between Mexico and Costa Rica, especially in people who are much more relaxed, many of them are hanging around, without any purpose, eating bananas and drinking some of many local refreshments. Many Costaricans are very smiley and as Silvy noticed almost after 5 minuites of walking on the street, women are almost naked! Simply speaking, everybody takes everything easy, with a big smile on ones face, opposite of a busy and hectic New York and depressed, greish Brussels.

Would you know that Costaricans call themselves as "Ticos" (not Tacos :)) ?
Everything because the fact that they tend to soften all of the words in this strange diminitive way by adding -tico to each word. So "small apple" would from "manzana" turn into "manzanatico" (if I am right).

My favourite topic :) - Costarican food: I have to say that I am more than positively surprised; before we left to South America I asked my friend who is a deputy Ambassador in the Misson of CR to the EU, and he recommended me to take Gallo Pinto (mixture of rice and beans) and Arroz con Pollo (mixture of chicken and rice). Honestly speaking I wasnt really thrilled (especially because I am not a huge fan of neither beans nor rice), but wait a minute, even if these two dishes do not sound very interesting, you bet that they are very tasty ! I have no clue what do they put in these rice, beans and chicken, but the spices they use make it very very tasty! If you also add to it a Maduro con queso (fried banana witch cheese) or el Pan de Platano (banana bread for dessert) you can get a heavenly meal!

Speaking of bananas: bananas here are actually cheaper than water. Imagine that one dollar can get you here a big bottle of water, BUT at the same time one dollar gets you exactly 23 bananas! I dont know if I would like to eat only bananas here, but for sure it is quite hard to starve in Costa Rica, actually eating
only bananas can be quite an enriching experience since there are plenty of banana based dish and they are added as a side dish as well!

It is also worth mentioning that Costa Rica is the only country in Latin America that doesnt have a huge social disproportions, which are usually a remnant of
the differences between creols (Spanish colonisers) and local, idegenious population. In Costa Rica everybody is equal! And whereas in the other colonies
indians were used as slaves and the cheap labour in the past, in Costa Rica the farm owners were working hard on the fields themselves.

Costa Rica is also one of the few (if not the only) countries in the world, that abolished its army! Yes, smart Costaricans, decided to get rid of the army and
use this money by investing in the education and human development, what an amazingly high level of social awareness, especially when you think about Central America! There are also many other things that make Costa Rica quite special and unique, like for example the fact that they abolished the death penalty 100 years before such democratic country as France did! Well done!

Some negative sides: well, I would say that heat and humidity is unbearable (difficult to do anything about it), very expensive accomodation (but food and
transportation is very cheap on the other hand). They should do something about these animals: they are everywhere! Yesterday, in front of our hotel we had a the whole zoological garden, first there were dozens of monkeys jumping from tree to tree, then a baby deer came in front of the door of our room, then a huge husky (!) dog, lizards, bugs, and some huge frog on
the roof of our appartment was singing all the night! Fun, no ? !

Ok and now: the picture time ! ;)

1. This great and artistic picture taken by Silvy should for sure make it on the cover of the next Lonely Planet for Costa Rica! View image

2. Some sample of the Costarican food - here in front of Silvy on the picture you can see: gallo pinto (this mix of beans and rice), maduro con queso (fried banana with white cheese ) and tamal (wrapped with 11 layers of banana leaves) View image

3. A nice view of the palm trees in the light of the setting sun View image

4. Michal in the sunset View image

5. The beaches here are quite nice, although waves and stones are sometimes pretty much annoying, here Silvy on the beach View image

6. and both of us on the beach View image

7. As you learnt from the yesterdays blog, we also went to the amazing park ! Here are some pics from there: Silvy in the park: View image

8. This is one of the stunning views of the park: View image

9. Not everybody is a born Indiana Jones, but I was doing my best to survive in this heat! View image

10. And here comes long awaited animal section of our blog: apart from millions of crabs we again met our favourite iguanas: View image

11.It was really pretty amazing to see so many monkeys in their natural habitat View image

12. And finally I will buy a beer to the person who will tell me what is this animal! View image

That is it for the time being, till the next time ! .)

Ola!

Right now we are sitting in the internet cafe in the neighbouring so-called regional capital: Puerto Quepas and even though we are in the shade the humidity is unbelivable, we (well, especially me) are sweating like pigs and I have to say that you can be drier under the shower than in these amazing tropics!

Since Silvy already gave you an outline of our activities in Costa Rica (well, we are just being lazy most of the time :)) let me share with you some of my impressions and some of our pictures from here. Well, for the first time we actually felt that we are in Latin America, you can see quite a big difference between Mexico and Costa Rica, especially in people who are much more relaxed, many of them are hanging around, without any purpose, eating bananas and drinking some of many local refreshments. Many Costaricans are very smiley and as Silvy noticed almost after 5 minuites of walking on the street, women are almost naked! Simply speaking, everybody takes everything easy, with a big smile on ones face, opposite of a busy and hectic New York and depressed, greish Brussels.

Would you know that Costaricans call themselves as "Ticos" (not Tacos :)) ?
Everything because the fact that they tend to soften all of the words in this strange diminitive way by adding -tico to each word. So small apple would from "manzana" into "manzanatico" (if I am right).

My favourite topic :) - Costarican food: I have to say that I am more than positively surprised; before we left to South America I asked my friend who is a deputy Ambassador in the Misson of CR to the EU, and he recommended me to take Gallo Pinto (mixture of rice and beans) and Arroz con Pollo (mixture of chicken and rice). Honestly speaking I wasnt really thrilled (especially because I am not a huge fan of neither beans nor rice), but wait a minute, even if these two dishes do not sound very interesting, you bet that they are very tasty ! I have no clue what do they put in these rice, beans and chicke, but the spices they use make it very very tasty! If you also add to it a Maduro con queso (fried banana witch cheese) or el Pan de Platano (banana bread for dessert) you can get a heavenly meal!
Speaking of bananas: bananas here are actually cheaper than water. Imagine that one dollar can get you here a big bottle of water, BUT at the same time one dollar gets you exactly 23 bananas! I dont know if I would like to eat only bananas here, but for sure it is quite hard to starve in Costa Rica, actually eating only bananas can be quite an enriching experience since there are plenty of banana based dish and they are added as a side dish as well!

It is also worth mentioning that Costa Rica is the only country in Latin America that doesnt have a huge social disproportions, which are usually a remnant of the differences between creols (Spanish colonisers) and local, idegenious population. In Costa Rica everybody is equal! And whereas in the other colonies indians were used as slaves and the cheap labour in the past, in Costa Rica the farm owners were working hard on the fields themselves.
Costa Rica is also one of the few (if not the only) countries in the world, that abolished its army! Yes, smart Costaricans, decided to get rid of the army and use this money by investing in the education and human development, what an amazingly high level of social awareness, especially when you think about Central America! There are also many other things that make Costa Rica quite special and unique, like for example the fact that they abolished the death penalty 100 years before such democratic country as France did! Well done!
The negative sides: well, I would say that heat and humidity is unbearable (difficult to do anything about it), very expensive accomodation (but food and transportation is very cheap on the other hand). They should do something about these animals: they are everywhere! Yesterday, in front of our hotel we had a the whole zoological garden, first there were dozens of monkeys jumping from tree to tree, then a baby dear came in front of the door of our room, then a huge husky (!) dog, lizards, bugs, and some huge from on the roof of our appartment was singing all the night! Fun, no ? !

Ok and now: the picture time ! ;)

1. This great and artistic picture taken by Silvy should for sure make it on the cover of the next Lonely Planet for Costa Rica!

(silvena) Hi guys -

Actually, excuse me, today i want to start with HELLO GIRLS AND WOMEN! Happy Woman´s Day! This holiday is much debated today and some say it is a remnant of the communist times, but i like it and i think we deserve to be pampered for one day :) So to all the women who are reading, enjoy it fully!

We have been in Costa Rica for 4 days already and you would think we have just been lying on the beach with a coctail with an umbrella, as in the movies, as my brother sugested :) but actually our Costa Rica experience until now has been quite intense, for several reasons.

Firstly, in order not to overload our luggage with books, and because we will be here for less than a week, we did not bring a lonely planet guide. Oh well, this makes travelling a bit harder so when we arrived in the capital San Jose we had to spend more than 45 minutes at the information desk at the airport where several young people were tryin to help us find a budget hotel but it was not so easy. We did in the end and the lady at whose Bed and Breakfast we stayed was extremely nice, prepared breakfast for us and did not stop talking to Michal when she understood he learned Spanish without a course (his Spanish is getting really good).

Our decision was that in Costa Rica we spend 4 days at one of its beaches and rest before Peru... The bus ride to the Pacific coast (170km) took 4 hours and the bus experience (from the bus station in San Jose to the actual bus or the road) was nowhere near as pleasant as in Mexico. We were climbing some mountains with lots and lots of all kinds of strange plants reminding us of Jurassic Park (filmed here) until we finally reached the coast.

They say you need to come to Costa Rica if you are a nature lover. and it is true. the landscapes of green mountains meeting the vast ocean are breathtaking. But when we were coming here somehow it did not occur to me that nature also meant animals. Many of them! And noone looking like anything we have in our countries. So it took me more than a few minutes (and a search for a new hotel with nets on the windows in the middle of the night) to recover from my first encounter with several of the smaller cousins of the Jurassic Park dinosaurs - lizards!!! noone seems to notice them here and they are everywhere, including on the walls of the rooms of our first hotel.

With our luck, the day we arrived, it started raining (in the dryest month of the year in Manuel Antonio!!!). So we were starting to reconsider our 4 days stay at the beach. There are too many tourists here and we were quite disappointed.

But after visiting the Manuel Antonio National Park today (and with the rain gone and a clear sky today), i dare to chane my mind. It is really amazing. Per the advice of some helpful Americans in San Jose, we started out early and entered the park (which borders the ocean) at 7am. And it was entirely worth it. By 1pm, and after walkin quite a few killometers among tropical vegetation, we had seen two types of monkeys jumping on trees, more iguanas (whom we already consider friends from Uxmal and i am no loner so afraid), some strange red and orange crab who lives in holes in the woods, and two other animals whose names i do not know (one looked like half dog, half termite eater of some kind, and the other was just a pile of fur on top of one tree), and of course many more of my friends the lizards, as well as we had seen some amazing views and swam in the ocean at some small far away beaches. Overall, it was a great experience. We have many pictures and will try to post them tomorrow because these computers are very slow.

All from me for today.
Going to look for this cocktail with an umbrella :)
S.