Posts tagged 'Costa Rica'

After I was done hiding out in Esteli over easter, trying to avoid the masses of locals who apparently usually head to the coasts and cause a ruckus, I booked a flight from Managua to Big Corn Island. This was the most last minute flight I've booked thus far, less than 24 hours before the time of the flight, although it made no difference at all to the cost. Hooray for fixed price flights!

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!

After Poi Love Camp finished up I ended up travelling around Costa Rica for a while with a guy I'll just call 'T', together with a friend of his from France who I'll just call 'A'. We headed up to San Jose to meet up with 'A' at the airport, then got a very long bus all the way down to the south eastern end of the country to Golfito, where we stayed a night before getting a ferry over to Puerto Jiminez the next day. The ferry was actually a cramped tiny little boat, with so little room that our bags just got put up on the roof with no rope to tie them down or railings to keep them up there. I was very pleased there were still there when we reached the other side.

Poi Love Camp was an 11 day retreat focused on becoming better poi spinners, held in Costa Rica, and run by Nick Woolsey, the man behindPlayPoi. Also teaching there was one of the spinners who has inspired me the most: Jonathan Alvarez, and also the mind-bendingly talented Alien Jon.

The retreat had been on my radar for a little while, but it wasn't until a few days before Christmas when I decided that I really wanted to get out of the European winter that I started seriously thought about going. A day later I had bought flights and tickets to what ended up being one of the most fun fortnights I've ever had. Impulsive travel planning at it's best.