Blog | Kite 2013 | a site about kitesurfing and some other stuff

Nosara & Playa Guiones

December 19, 2018

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Just like Santa Teresa, Nosara is also located at the Nicoya Peninsula, only about 60-70 kilometers north from Santa Teresa, in the event that you now could travel bird-flight. The shortest distance by road is 130 kilometers. That is when it whatsoever is possible to drive these so called roads which at this time of the year apparently are flooded at certain points and hence forcing you to make huge detours. Going from Santa Teresa to Nosara by public transportation is even worse, since the local buses only go on certain routes with multiple interconnections which are not always as smooth as one could wish. Anyway, me and Emilia decided to go to Nosara or rather, to Playa Guiones which was our final destination. We went there by public transportation, starting early morning at 6 a.m. Arriving to final destination at 8 p.m... Tired and exhausted we finally found our place for the night, a filthy hostel called Burned Toast hostel. We intented to stay at this hostel for two nights but a dozen crawling centipedes in the shared bathroom/shower and a room that reeked from mold made us move out the morning after already. But, from here on things went better and we ended up staying a few nights in a beautiful Airbnb house in Playa Guiones. We really enjoyed staying in this calm coast village with its vast and not too crowded beach. The wave break in Playa Guiones is smaller than in Santa Teresa and surfing was therefore more manageable than in Santa Teresa.

Playa Guiones - the beach were I surfed my first green wave!

One major downside with Playa Guiones was the high price level. One day I bought an avocado for 1550 colones which is like 23 sek! In comparison the cost for a banana was 0,75 sek. But in average prices were ridiculously high in Nosara, we were told they that the prices were about 5-6 times higher than in San Jose.

NeoFauna in Jaco

December 19, 2018

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I went to a refugee camp in Jaco where they had frogs, snakes, butterflies, parrots and some other animals. The place was called NeoFauna and was just my cup of tea. The staff at NeoFauna takes care of injured animals as well as reproducing different species with the aim to release the animals in the wild. In some cases this is not possible, for instance with monkeys that will have difficulties to be accepted into a hierarchic group of monkeys. They had a macau with only one wing, a tucan with a broken beak, etc. Animals which for obvious reasons cannot be released back into the wild. Either way, I had a great time as my private guide showed me and talked about the animals in the camp. Unfortunately my iphone went completely dead at one point (managed to bring it back to life first when I was back home in Jaco) so I couldn't take photos of the famous tree frog. The cool thing with this frog is that it only shows its colors when it's awake. In sleeping mode the frog is just green and camouflaged to look like a green leaf. We can always pretend that I was the photographer of the two photos below 🙂

Red eyed tree frog — Awaken red eyed tree frog

Another cool frog in the camp was this bullfrog - the largest frog in Costa Rica. It sounded like a kitten and could play dead if you just pointed with your finger to its chest and said plah!

Bull frog in Costa Rica plays dead

The NeoFauna also had a big room with butterflies. They are really hard to capture on photo with their wings open since they are constantly flying as if they were drunk (perhaps is this actually the case since they feed on fermented bananas?). Once they are still then of course they most of the time keep their wings folded, revealing only the underneath of their wings which never is as colorful as the top. One of the most famous butterflies is the morpho butterfly has a beautiful blue shimmering top side, but the bottom side is quite fascinating too with its camoflague! Can you see the three different animals it can imitate?

Montezuma and Tambor

December 14, 2018

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Me and my girlfriend Emilia went for a weeekend trip to some coast villages. Our first stop was Montezuma. The fastest way to get there from Santa Teresa is to drive straight to Malpais and from there through the jungle on a bumby and muddy road that will takes you to Cabuya. Once in Cabuya we took a surf session and ate at our favourite restaurant there before heading to our place for the night in Montezuma. From Cabuya it's only 5 kilometers to Montezuma and the road is fine to drive even with a 2WD, so you'll get there in about 10-15 minutes.

Montezuma is a nice and calm village, not as busy as Santa Teresa. The highlight in Montezuma is their waterfalls and fresh water pools that you easily can access if you're willing to walk along a river and do some jungle climbing.

Follow the river and you'll find the waterfall

To reach the pools you have to do some climbing

You can't see it from here, but the pool continues into a steep waterfall

To date Costa Rica apparently has 27 national parks, 58 wildlife refuges, 32 protected zones, 15 wetland areas/mangroves, 11 forest reserves and 8 biological reserves, as well as 12 other conservation regions that protect the distinctive and diverse natural habitats found throughout the Costa Rica. So as you travel through the country you're are most likely to come across some nature reserves here and there. The Nicoya Peninsula is not an exception and we took the opportunity to visit both Reserva Curu and Reservera Blanca. These nature reserves are full of animals but they are difficult to spot, especially since they often are hiding during the day. Anyway, part from trees I've managed to capture some animals with my camera 🙂

What are you looking at, never seen a monkey before?

Iguana in Costa Rica — Iguanas are seen everywhere in Costa Rica

Cabuya

November 18, 2018

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Cabuya is a very quiet little village not more than 10 kilometers from Santa Teresa so you would think that getting there is something which shouldn't take more than 10-15 minutes. However, once on the roads you realize that everything under 30 minutes is more or less impossible, at least if you want your car to stay in one piece. In any case, we, a group of 5 persons, went there the other day to surf at a beginner friendly spot in Cabuya. The trip to get there was itself an adventure as we were driving through the jungle on this rough road. At two points we had to cross a stream, but fortunately it was not a problem for the car we went with.

Here is also a little video I made which shows what the driving was like. I tried my best to keep the camera steady but for obvious reasons it wasn't that easy...

Finally in Cabuya we went to this small surfspot with a point break. I think the spot was quite ideal for beginners.

The surfspot in Cabuya

After some surfing we went to a nice local restaurant in Cabuya where we enjoyed some delicious food before heading back to Santa Teresa. I had a pasta with fish, garlic, parmesan cheese and olive oil. One of my best meals in Costa Rica so far!

Surfing in Santa Teresa

November 12, 2018

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A week has been spent in Santa Teresa and some sort of routine has been established here. We get up early, like 5:30 a.m. It´s nice to have a coffee and be able to work a bit while the village still is dozing. Me and Emilia is struggling to learn surfing so we usually go for session in the mornings or in the late afternoon. The sun is so strong midday so one is better of trying to stay in the shadow during that time. The surfing is hard and what I do now in the water is nothing I would call surfing, but I'm getting there!

Part from surfing there is not too much going on here in Santa Teresa. We have explored ther nearby area a bit by foot and by bikes, but you need a car or an ATV to reach places where they have nature reserves, snorkling spots, waterfalls etc. It´s on our ToDo-list to explore some other areas, but there is no rush. So far we enjoy surfing, reading books and eating at different restaurants. For about $15 you'll get a really good meal!

Here is a little map over Santa Teresa and nearby towns. The distances are not that big, but the roads are extremely poor and traffic make them dusty why biking longer distances isn't that fun.

Our office

Hummingbird in "our" garden

Squirrels are common sight here

The beach in Santa Teresa

The sunset you have every evening

From San José to Santa Teresa

November 5, 2018

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So it's time to kick this blog alive again after being idle for the past two years. For about 6 weeks ahead my intention is to update this blog with some posts from Costa Rica!

Me and my travel company Emilia arrived here 3 days ago after a long but quite nice journey by flight to San José. There is not much to say about this city. We arrived late and went straight to the already booked hotel were we expected to stay for the night. The address for this hotel stated by the booking site did unfortunately turn out to be completely wrong! The taxi driver went to the location pointed out by the map only to find nothing but empty blocks! So we ended up checking in at another hotel in the neighbourhood called Alajuela. In the end we did still have a good night of sleep before we continued our trip to Santa Teresa the next day, a trip by bus, ferry and bus again, almost as long as the flight by plane from Holland to Costa Rica.

Santa Teresa is where we are now and were we will stay for upcoming weeks. We have been staying at a place called Casa Del Mar Surf for the past two days and lots of the time so far has been spent reconnaissancing the area and just getting settled a bit.

To the right is the entrance to Casa Del Mar Surf

Santa Teresa is not really a city nor a village, but a dirt road running along the western coast of the Nicoya Peninsula. On one side of the the road you have dense rain forests. The other side (the one facing the coast) consists of buildings, gardens, coconut palms and the like.

We are moving to another place today, a small apartment which will be our base for some time. I'll do my best to keep you posted with photos and things that we are up to. I brought my system camera, but it seems like I forgot the smaller objective at home when I packed in a rush. The objective I have now is not good for landscape photos, but better for capturing animals and stuff. Hopefully I'll be able to take some good shots!

Gotta, pack down and leave for now. Hasta luego!

Kruger Park

February 10, 2017

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I know you´ve been waiting for photos from the Kruger Park. It took some time to upload and prepare everything. Each photo is around 12 mb in size so I had to create smaller thumbs for every single photo, else it would take a very long time to load the page even with good internet speed. Anyway the trip to the Kruger Park was great! The Kruger Park is huge, so we covered only a small part of it during the 3 days we spent there. What we saw was a very green and lush park. The nature reminded us to some extent about the swedish landscape with a mix of meadow land and forest. We didn't expect to see that many animals that we actually saw, but When we drove through the park it never took more than 30 minutes to spot an animal. Sometimes it felt like the whole park was crowded with animals and at some points you could barely drive the car on the road since it was blocked with a massive elephant, a herd of zebras, monkeys, etc. The whole experience was beyond expectation. We tried to take photos of every different animal we saw. Sometimes the distance was too far or the photo didn't turn out well for some reason. Either way, here is a collection of the best photos. There were many birds too, some more spectacular than others. Me and Viveka tried our best to get shots of the more cooler birds which you can see below. I´ve done my best to identify all animals and birds, but some will remain unknown.

Let's start with the big five!

Elephant

Elephant with baby

Elephant eating

Talking about elepants. We were lucky to end up when a group of elephants were fighting next to the road. To see this massive animals break trees, shriek and rush close to you is exciting 🙂

Buffalo

Buffalo herd

White Rhino

The black rhino is more rare and we didn't spot one. If it wasn't for the poachers we would have been more likely to spot one...

Lion

Viveka was in fact only a meter from a lion that layed down next to the car. She hoisted up the window quickly when she got a bit too intensive eye contact with that lion 🙂

Lepard with a dead impala up in a tree

That was the big five! Here are some more animals. You'll probably recognize most of them.

Giraf

Hippo

Hyena

Here are some different antelopes

Impalas fighting

Impalas in sunrise

Kudu

Nyala

Waterbuck

Steenbok

Another animal famous from the movie "The Lion King"

Warthog

Pumba from behind?

Zebras

Wildebeest a.k.a gnu

Tortoise

Lizard

Velvet monkey

This little fellow is a chameleon

Various animals

Then there were some birds and eagles...

African Hoopoe

Amur Falcon

Blacksmith Lapwing

Cape Glossy Starling

Dark Chanting Goshawk

European Roller1

Hammerhead

Lilac Breasted Roller

Marabou Stork

Martial Eagle

Saddle Billed Stork

Southern Carmine Bee Eater

Southern Ground Hornbills

Southern Yellow Billed Hornbill

Unknown Bird

Finally two photos with no animals. Just pure nature, but it looked much nicer in reality.

Stones stacked on top of each other

I'm happy that we did the effort to go to the Kruger Park. If the animals are really wild can be discussed. The animals are of course used to humans, but on the other hand I think that's good cause then you can get close to them before they eventually run away.

Giant grasshopper

January 27, 2017

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Friday evening and I have some spare time, so why not pay the little blog some attention. The week has been good with sun and wind so both me and Viveka had some kite sessions. At Cape Town the wind is too strong and the waves are too big for beginners. It's even a challenge for me to kitesurf in these conditions, but it's fun! Langebaan is the beginner place where man kite schools operate and we go there now and then so Viveka can practise under safe conditions. The road from Cape Town to Langebaan is just a long straight and super boring, but about half an hour from Langebaan there is this national park which you can go through for a small fee. It´s actually a shortcut and much more pleasant road to drive. In the national park you can spot birds, eagles, beetles, tortoises, ostriches and other animals. Last time there was a grasshopper on the road, so we had to stop and say hello to it.

Tomorrow we´re of to the Kruger Park so hopefully we can make friends with the locals there as well 🙂

One & Only

January 19, 2017

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There is one extraordinary hotel in Cape Town. It is called 'One & Only'. I discovered it two years ago already when I had some amazing cocktails in their bar. One & Only does however not only serve cocktails, but they have an excellent restaurant where you can have both buffet breakfast and lunch. Me and Viveka decided to go for the breakfast buffet last sunday. We prepared ourselves for the buffet by going up really early in the morning and then head straight to the base of Table Mountain. The plan was of course to mount the mountain, take the cable car down and then eat breakfast. I mean, don't you agree that it's wise to enter any buffet on an empty stomach? 🙂

I like buffets, breakfast buffets in particular. One of the best breakfast buffet I ever had was at hotel Mövenpick in Phuket, a massive buffet like no other. The buffet at One & Only was much smaller, but still it´s quality that counts, not quantity. When rating a buffet one also has to take service, environment, hygien, price, etc. When taking these factors into account my overall rating for the One & Only buffet is 9,5 on a scale 1-10. The service was probably as good as it gets. Imagine having a few butlers around you and you'll get an idea of what the service was like. The coffee (in my case two double espressos) was excellent. The food was also amazing with everything from fresh fruits till oysters. The fact that you could drink unlimited amount of champagne to your breakfast added another star to the whole experience! The only downside was probably that the pastry section was a bit too superfluous while the seafood section was a bit too small. Either way, we'll most likely come back to One & Only for their breakfast buffet! The price was 350 rands, approx 225 sek.

Cape Town 2017

January 12, 2017

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A week has past and I thought I should give you a little update on what I´ve been up to so far.

The flight went well, but both me and V was of course super tired after a long day of travelling. 12 hours of good sleep did however bring us back to normal right away 🙂

When you travel somewhere you always need a few days to settle down, acclimatize yourself, get to know the surroundings, do some groseries and stuff. I feel though that we, part from all that, have done a lot of great things this first week. One of the first things we did was to go to the national park at the Cape of Good Hope.
It was as beautiful as I remembered it and to my delight we did see baboons from a very close distance. A family of baboons passed us by as we were parked next to a road, so we managed to take some nice photos 🙂

One day we went to Langebaan which is a nice place for kitesurfing, especially for beginners since the kite spot is a lagoon with knee deep water. Perfect for the one who still is learning to get up on the board 😉
Me myself havn't been out on the water yet, but will hopefully have my first session later this week as the wind comes back to Cape Town. I did however take some photos of other kitesurfers the other
day when it was quite windy, almost too windy...

The table mountain has also been conquered, for me personally for the 4th time. The climb up this time took two hours and forty minutes. The way up itself is an adventure and once
you reach the top you´re rewarded with a fantastic view over the ocean and the city of Cape Town. Me and V also treated ourselves with an well deserved ice cold beer 🙂

On the whole the first week has been great! The house where we live is the same as last time I was here, so you already know what it's like. Either way the place is as nice as before and the other guests that currently are staying here are nice too. Some returns here every year so some guys are actually familiar faces to me.

My little blog

Nosara & Playa Guiones

NeoFauna in Jaco

Montezuma and Tambor

Cabuya

Surfing in Santa Teresa

From San José to Santa Teresa

Kruger Park

Giant grasshopper

One & Only

Cape Town 2017

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