After leaving La Mariposa, I headed to the island of Ometepe and met up with some friends from La Mariposa who were staying at an old farm house called Finca Magdelena. It was just $6 a night for a private room, and they made amazing French toast that I had for breakfast most days.

While studying at La Mariposa I got to take advantage of a lot of free excursions to cool places around Nicaragua. Here's a few of my favourites from the month there.

One of the goal I set for myself that I wanted to achieve in my travels was to learn a second language. Years ago, right after living in Europe (where every other person you meet seems to speak 4 languages) I had a go at learning Spanish in Melbourne but I never found the opportunity to practice outside of class and my interest waned. Being in Latin America it seemed like a good time to try again.

So after I was finished in Uvita I headed to the next place along the coast of Costa Rica that seems to get rave reviews, Montezuma. Montezuma is described by guidebooks and Lonely Planet tourists as some beautiful and undiscovered hippy beach town, so I went there expecting maybe something like Byron Bay was 10-15 years ago.

Next stop for me was a little town on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica called Uvita. I found a place online called Flutterby hostel and after getting dropped off by the bus I walked to the hostel, which actually turned out to be a reasonably long walk in very hot sun. When I arrived the girl behind the desk said it was pretty gutsy showing up with no reservation, but I was pleased to find they had a bed for me in their pirate tree-house dorm: one of the coolest dorms I've stayed in so far! The dorm doesn't really have any walls; it's pretty much open to nature and then every bed has a mozzie net. So chilled!