Hello everybody!

We just returned from an awesome trip to the Cocos Islands. It took 36 nauseating hours to get there but it was surely worth it: sharks, sharks, sharks and more sharks. Exactly what we were looking for when we booked this trip. We did one dive where 200 to 300 hammerheads were circling all around us. We also did a night dive seeing hundreds and hundreds of Whitetip reef sharks feeding in the beams of our flashlights. They moved around like a river of carnivorous flesh, nothing was spared and we counted our fingers when we got back onto the dingy, our big rubber boat.

The cruise ship itself, the Okeanos Agressor (www.aggressor.com/subpage10.php) was 40 meters long and had 22 divers and 8 local crewmembers on board. So it was pretty cramped and in fact probably the most crowded live aboard we have done to date. The group was a nice mix of mainly elderly Americans and a few Europeans. The weather sucked big time. We did not know this before but the Cocos Islands receive the largest amount of rain of all of Costa Rica, in fact even almost 50% more than the wet rainforest. We almost felt like being home...

We did not see sunlight for 7 days in a row and we both suffered from mild sun deficiency induced depressions. The food compensated for this and we ate and drank (beer and wines were included in the price, ha ha ha) away our sorrows and each gained at least 2-4 kilos in 10 days (luckily the swimming trunks and bikini days are behind us for a long while).

After the diving trip we had a brief stay in San Jose. Costa Rica's capital must be one of the most ugly capitals in the world. All the historical buildings have been destroyed over the last centuries by earthquakes and replaced by reinforced concrete bunkers. Really awful. Our hostel, conveniently called Mi Casa (www.micasahostel.com) was great, but we must admit that it is quite a step down from the luxury spa's and infinity pools that we have come to appreciate over the last few years.

Next we were off to Monteverde, a beautiful, secluded nature reserve, smack in the middle of Costa Rica's rainforest. Since our travel guide mentioned that taking the public bus from San Jose was quite dangerous and thefts of luggage were common, we opted for a private bus. Later on, most travelers we met laughed at us for being so overly cautious. The drive was something we will remember for quite some time. The rain was poring down and about 30 kilometers from the village the road became unpaved, transformed into a river and was littered with huge rocks. It was a rocky ride and our spines must have shrunk a few centimeters. Thomas is still hoping to get his feeling back in his left hand...The climate here is weird. In the morning the sky is blue and the sun is shining. By 1200 it starts raining and by 1500 it is poring. With poring we mean that the sky is coming down and you get as wet from the rain coming from above as the splatter of the rain on the earth coming from below. Really amazing!!! It's the raining season here, something that we smartly failed to observe when we decided to travel down here ...The great thing is that the humidity is like 100% so nothing will ever dry here and it smells like fungus everywhere...yuk.

The hostel, called Sleepers Sleep Cheaper is a wonderfully cozy family run business, chosen to be the best hostel of all of Costa Rica. The owner, Ronnie, is living amongst the guests with his young wife and 3 young children. Their living room is the common living room where the guest can hang out and watch TV. In fact, while we are writing this, the owners son Daniel, is sitting on Mischa's lap eating milk powder....

Beginning of last week, we resumed our Spanish classes at a school called Centro Panamericano de Idiomas (www.cpi-edu.com/monteverde.htm). It is about 30 minutes walking from our hostel, going up and down some pretty steep mountains, so we will get some exercise, which will be very useful since we just booked a 16-day hiking and trekking tour to the highest mountains of Ecuador (www.julioverne-travel.com/content/view/98/95/lang,EN/), the highest being almost 6300m. Even though our Spanish classes are quite tough again, we have four hours in the morning and spend at least 2-3 hours doing homework in the afternoon, we are by now really benefiting from the fact that we know a few sentences given that the local population does not speak English at all.

Unfortuntately, Internet is really slow up here so no pictures from us this time.

Bueno, that's it for now. We hope to be back soon!!

Hasta La Pasta!!