Bodyboarding at Huntington Beach, Los Angeles

Not spending much time blogging, I will just post some photos from a few trips to Los Angeles, spending times at beaches doing Body Boarding, my new found interest thanks to Mai. 

 

Costa Rica

Costa rica trip started from Arriving in San Jose in the evening of Tuesday after taking a 8.5 hrs bus from Granada, Nicaragua. This was the first time I crossed inter-country border by land so I was both excited and nervous about the Visa handling stuff, nervous because it was a visa on arrival.

Arenal Green, Arenal, Costa Rica

Arenal Green, Arenal, Costa Rica

Arenal Green, Arenal, Costa Rica

Puero Viejo's Playa Negra

Puero Viejo, Playa Negra (Black sand/beach)

The bus stop for Transnica is in the downtown between Ave 3 and Ave 5 on Calle 222.
We had to take a taxi(=2000 colones) from the bus stop to the Best Western Inn. Based on some consulation from the the taxi driver and the hotel personnel we headed to commercial center El Pueblo as the place for Latinos to hangout for reggeaton and other latino music. On arriving El Pueblo we figured it was pretty dead. The place didn't really have any crowd.

A bar which is very audible from outside played the pop music even that bar didn't have more than 10 people mostly a bunch of white guys :) talk about Latinos hangout and latin music. It was clear that the place is no fun on a Tuesday evening. It turns out that most places are good only from Thursday to Saturday evening. We could try that again when we get back to San Jose.

Anyway we decided to eat at the place called "Lukas", the place gives a fine dinning feel from the very start and the food is worth the praise on guidebooks and internet. The waiter and cook pays lot of attention to individual details of the order and veggie food didn't have to suck therefore. Priyam mentioned that the non-veg stuff was pretty good and so were the cocktails.

The trail at Cahuita National Park

Next day as we had planned earlier we left for the Caribbean city of Cahuita, we hadn't preplanned the trip a lot actually and once we were in Nicaragua and heading to Costa Rica we figured our options given number of days(=5). We quickly decided to skip at least one side of the country as the whole transport system was based on the capital San Jose as a hub. So from any city on east to any city in west and vice versa you were traveling inland for about 4 + 6 hrs (to and from San Jose) and most connections won't work late evening. Based on some discussion we decided to see the Caribbean side instead of pacific (turned out to be a good decision).

Beach by the trail at Cahuita National Park

Cahuita city isn't a big one in any way. As the guide book described its pretty much two parallel streets. I was excited to see that it was the "reggae" capital of the area, only later did I realize that Reggae isn't reggaeton and was pretty disappointed. Anyway since we were in the city to see the Cahuita National Park we did that, turned out even the park was nothing but a 1-2 miles trail along the beach. The beach and the scenery are quite beautiful and makeup for the otherwise nothing-worth-visiting part.

Next to Cahuita is the city of Puerto Viejo where we had decided to stay overnight instead of Cahuita based on the guidebook (fortunately), I can't believe I was actually planning to visit Cahuita for the night-life until I figured the difference between Reggae and Reggaeton. So we were at Puerto Viejo

Bob Marley is every where in the Carribe side of Costa Rica

pretty close to the bus terminal stop at a restaurant looking for a place to sleep for that evening. The confidence we had in the Nicaraguan and Costa Rican restaurant for providing free wifi access was showing up and it kept up all the time.

At Cahuita National Park

We figured a place nearby called Maritza hotel, went and looked at the place which offered both Dorms and Private rooms for reasonable prices (6$ and 30$ respectively) and ended up taking the private rooms which were pretty comfortable. Talking to keeper I came to know about the Bar in front offering Salsa lessons and dancing on Wednesday i.e that night, wow finally, I was going to be able to dance Salsa. So I did, the number of people was small but the music was great, they even had reggaeton, cumbia, merengue and bachata along with some unavoidable hip hop/pop music. After dancing there for couple of hours we all headed to the place called "Johny's". This is a great nightclub right next to the ocean, great music, lot of people. Though in sometime I figured the social dancing scene wasn't that big and eventually I decide to head back to hotel.

Cahuita National Park

Next day we were going to try Scuba diving or Snorkeling based on whatever was possible/good. Turned out the water was not good enough for diving (poor visibility) and the guy suggested we instead try surfing. We did. We were able to get surfing lessons from the friend of this guy for about 50$ per person for 2 hours. In short the lessons were just amazing. In 2 hrs we were actually able to stand surf with little guidance and high success rate at the end. (In case you want to try the same, we got the referral from the PADI certified dive center by the Johny's place IIRC the guy's name was Rony.)

The famous Playa Negra at Puerto Veijo

We took the afternoon bus to San Jose.  In short El pueblo was bad even on Thursday night. Anyway as planed we headed to Arenal next morning. The bus ride quite scenic and hilly is about 3 hrs with a change needed at La fortuna (IIRC).

Puerto Viejo

At Arenal we stayed at Arenal green, which is slightly away from the city center but had good room and reasonable prices ~62$. Being home of the famous live volcano makes this city hotels very pricey. So its suggested to stay slightly away from city center and pay taxi charges which aren't that bad plus most tours provide pickup and drop-off anyway. In Arenal we did Ziplining which was my first time. It was good stuff definitely recommended. The zipline tour we had a surprise thing called Tarjan jump which was definitely the best part :)

Dos Pasos Restaurant in Puero Viejo

We came back to San Jose on Saturday evening, this evening I was able to visit the place called Fiesta Latino in El Pueblo which was a big dance floor with rotating latin music. Here came to know Costa Rican Cumbia which I am now a big fan of. Here is a illustrative dance video of the same to finish the post:

If you come across some good Costa Rican cumbia music, please drop by a comment.

Nicaragua

So after quite a big break from traveling since my last trip to Sydney, well about 3 months. I went on a trip to Nicaragua and Costa Rica for my thanksgiving vacation + 3 days of leave making 9 days of vacation time.

As usual people asked why Nicaragua or Costa Rica well, the answer was simple we looked at tickets to places where we don't need visa and which are nearby Nicaragua and Costa rica came out to be good candidates. Other option could have been Mexico + Havana(Cuba) or Puerto Rico but Cuba was dropped because of legal issues involved and Puerto Rico was too costly and kinda far.

Managua Night.

So we arrived in Managua the capital of Nicaragua on Saturday evening around 9 PM. We already asked Holiday Inn to arrange for a pickup which they agreed to at cost of 5$ (initially quoting 6$, yeah bargaining in developing countries :)). Later we realized we didn't have to pay, don't know why.

The cab played a mix of reggeaton and other latin music but the best part was the remix of "Kabhi to Najar Milao" with a Bachata song, which immediately put a big smile on my face. I sure was in Latin America and would have great music for next few days.

We were recommended the "Moods" club by the cab guy and I did a basic search but didn't find enough and we decided to give Moods a shot and may be return  to Chaman or XS (excess) if it didn't work fine. 

Moods is kinda far (costed 7$ in cab), the entry was 10$ per head. As soon as we entered I was sure I was in right place. They had good Reggeaton music good is understatement :). Over time they played pretty much all genre of Latin music Reggeaton, Salsa, Merengue and then Rock music and even some Pop songs. The pattern was to play 5-10 songs of each category in a row so everyone can have great time as long as they like some music :).

The drinks were about 4$ or 81 Cordobas each. The bartender made a Mojito with some thing additional (IIRC called bueno something) and it was super good.

As we had to travel to Granada next day we left by about 2:30 AM, the party is meant to go all night but by this time there were only about a forth of the people as were when we entered.

 Day 2: Granada

Managua to Granada is about 45 KM and has bus about every 15-20 minutes, the bus takes about 1:20.

The fare was 14 Cordobas. The taxi would have costed about 40$.

The guy who dropped us to the bus terminal have told us that the Granada was a more tranquila city. And it was indeed so. Granada feels much more calm and laid back from the minute you enter the city. Small streets, not too many cars, quiet a few bicycles everywhere.

We stayed at Casa Vivaldi which is about 5 minutes walk from the Parque Central, the original citycenter. The city itself is not too big therefore the downtown is pretty small too. You can walk across the same in about 10-15 minutes. 

The afternoon we ate the "Nuestra mundo" place after looking around a bit for something smaller but failing to find anything. The place is a multicuisine restaurant just the kind that a food explorer should avoid :) Anyway for me that kinda good. I found Fajitas con tortilas, that was not enough so I also got another Veg fried rice which tasted exactly like Indian fried rice.

After food we walked to some of the recommended locations, the San Francisco Monastery mueseum (12$ entry). The Monastary is nothing special and we were done very soon. We visited Iglesias la merced which gives a panoramic view of the city for just 2$ which was totally worth it. They play the bell at about every 1/2 hr in case that interests you, its not any chorus though.

The churches I visited didn't look as rich in art as I was expecting. I mentioned on my visit to Roma (Rome) how beautiful the there churches were and how magnificent art was demonstrated on the walls and ceiling, these Spanish churces were very different, very very plain.

We also took a free Cigar making tour at Mumbacho Cigar factory right on the downtown street.

In the evening I wanted to go to El Club but we figured it was nothing special on Monday-Thursday so didn't we bother, instead deciding that we will go to Cesar the next evening.

Next day we went to Masaya, Volcano masaya, which has a  live volcano called volcan Nindiri. The volcano is surrounded by a national park called Parque National Volcan Masaya, The distance from the main road to the mountain is about 5 KM, being short of time we took the jeep ride which costed just 50 Cordobas each way per person.

Next to live volcano Nandiri is the volcano masaya which is a dead volcano, of course nothing much interesting after watching a live one :)

We then headed to laguna de Apoyo which is among the clearest lake in the world you can also take a dip in the same, we did. We went to Mercado Nuevo (new market) which is a pretty big market to buy any kind of souvenirs you can imagine, we bought Hamocks, magnets, hats and some other stuff. Note that you can bargain quite a bit here.

The night the hotel ownered graciously offered us ride to Cesar's, which was closing so he took us to El Club which was closed and the caffe opposite was dead in activity as per the gatekeeper. Finally we ended up going to "High Bar" which was close to the Parque central and had some music beats audible on the road. I ended up dancing a few songs there. The place even though had good music was pretty dead with only 4 rich old guys with 4 young girls (for obvious reasons) making a pretty dull dancing scene overall.

Fortunately after few minutes of wait couple of girls showed up and we ended up dancing a few songs, Bachata, Merengue and Salsa. Impressed by our dancing I and the girl got a complimentary drink each from one of the guys :)

Next day we headed to Costa Rica by the Transitica bus.

Scuba Diving in Sydney

I undertook the PADI Open Water Scuba diving course at Absyss Sydney, Australia. The course worked out great because it was a 2 day in-water training which could be completed on a weekend. I booked it rt after figuring out that I was in Sydney for one more weekend and I was very excited about the same.

The anxiety started right after I got the email from Abyss about the preparation for the in water training:
1) Dive Medical
2) E-Learning Module




I learned later that the signup etc did mention about both of them, but of course I didn't read the terms and conditions properly. Anyway Dive medical is a very Australian only thing, so you may not have to worry about it elsewhere.



The e-Learning course was kinda long and time consuming specially when I only had one week to finish it. It took about 8-10 hours as suggested. The course was quite interesting as I revised lot of usual stuff about Buoyancy, pressure/density relationship etc. that was taught in science classes at school.

The actual training takes 2 days, which I choose to be weekend. The first day was testing of basic swimming skills, learning basic scuba diving apparatus handling and a dive at the end. The dive was at Bare Island and the water was kinda rough but it still turned out to be quite fun, must have seen about 8-10 different fishes and we went about 7 Mts down at max depth.

The next day was more or less all diving day, they had 3 dives each about 40-50 minutes duration leaving aside the initial preparation and instructions time.

Overall it was a lot of fun and I plan to do it again ASAP. I got my certificate/diving license from PADI within 3 weeks of completing of course. Somehow diving isn't so big here in San Francisco so I will have to wait.

All our dives were at Bear Island which is a beautiful place to visit even otherwise, its the place where the Mission Impossible 1 bike clash scene was done at.

Bare Island

Sydney trip part 2

The second week in Sydney was as much fun as the first one. I figured some interesting stuff to do on the weekdays after work while weekend was full of activities.


The Monday night I went to the Salsa Party at Pump House near the Paddy's Market, which turned out to be a majorly LA Style salsa place. I didn't enjoy it as much as I am more in to the Cuban style and hardly know enough about LA style. Its mentioned to be one of the best LA style salsa dance parties in the town and did look so to me but the number of people present.

Then I came to know about La Cita which had Cuban salsa stuff on both Wednesday and Thursdays. I dropped by on Thursday and was excited to hear some cuban tunes as I went to first floor after being confused abused the place from Pop music on the ground floor.

One other out of town Rueda folk from Brisbane.

The Cuban dancing scene at La Cena

The floor has a Advanced class going on and they won't let us try :( Anyway I figured we would wait for the class to end and then enjoy some Rueda. Guess what, the group only does Rueda in class or for performance practice and even that they don't want others to try. Boooooh. I would expect any group dancing cuban salsa in a lot of place to try Rueda and have others from outside the group join them in casual runs but not this one. They should come down to Bay Area see how much more fun and social Rueda groups can be!
The crib with the group notwithstanding the music was great. I noticed though social dancing is not so common here and people will dance with just one partner song after song.

The party got much more fun later with the pretty awesome live band and DJ on the ground floor, and though we were about to leave around 10:30 or so, we stayed dancing Rueda and Reggaeton for good 2-2.5 hours. So definitely a party to go to.


Saturday night the CS group organized a Pub Hopping and we went to couple of pubs of which I remember only Cargo Bar's name, as it was a great place. The music was electronica/House and ambiance and setup was all great. No doubt its one of the highest rated ones. Of course drinks were costly mostly ~ 7 - 8 AUD. Oh In one of the bars I gave first try to Caipiroska and it loved it.

Sunday I went to the famous Torango Zoo, the best (only?) way to reach is by a ferry from Circular Quay terminal. Interestingly the ferry is part of the MyMulti pass for unlimited weekly travel. The Zoo is vast and pretty well organized. Besides the local animal from Australia they have a big presence of animals from other countries. They also have good shows I attended the birds shows but only got a glimpse of the Seals show which looked interesting too.

The zoo is worth spending a full day specially they close by 5 PM so earlier you go better it is.

I also visited the Sydney Aquarium the same evening as its open pretty late (8 PM) and I had to agree with what others told me about that place, its one of the best things to see in Sydney. The colorful fishes and other aquatic life like corals was as beautiful as it gets, I decided on the spot that I was going to try Scuba diving, something which didn't interest me enough earlier. BTW, they have a separate exhibits for Sharks too.

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