Alice Smart

I feel like a lot of posts I have written on this trip have mentioned how hot it has been, turns out those places were nothing compared to Santa Catalina. Just existing here is unpleasant and you are covered in sweat from sitting in the shade. Unfortunately for us, the hostel we had picked was a thirty minute walk from the beach in the baking sun all the way and there was no pool or Aircon or restaurant at the hostel. Just one fan for a room of 9 people.

On our first day we decided to walk down to the beach in the hope of getting some food, we tried to shorten our walk by heading down various side paths that all claimed to have restaurants down, but every time they were either closed or super expensive. After an hour of many detours we reached the beach, by this point we were absolutely dripping with sweat and had discovered new revelations about ourselves in the heat. Apparently when I’m uncomfortably hot I start puffing out air and sound like a pissed off horse huffing away, gryace on the other hand sounds like a pissed if sailor and swears and curses anything that moves and a lot of stuff that doesn’t.

When we reached the town by the beach, most of the restaurants were closed as it was now nearly 3pm. We noticed an elderly couple from our hostel at a restaurant at the far end of the town waving us over as it was still open, so we hobbled over and sat down. The main meal was nice although the waitress slammed the food and drinks on the table as if we’d personally offended her by daring to order food at her restaurant. That didn’t stop us from ordering dessert however, as we were determined to fill up on enough food that we wouldn’t need to make another long trip down for dinner. Unfortunately for us the cheesecake we’d chosen to share lived up to its name a little too well and tasted very cheesy indeed, accompanied by a chewy rubbery texture. The dogs on the beach were well fed that afternoon!

We chilled out on the beach for a bit hoping the temperature would start to cool off but around 5pm it was still baking hot so we syked ourselves up and started on the walk home. It finally cooled down from the high thirties to the low thirties/ high twenties around 1am and we finally got some sleep.

The next day Grace had booked a scuba diving trip and I had paid for a snorkeling trip, both of which were in the national marine park. The older Dutch couple from our hostel, Peter and Madeleine, who we had seen at the restaurant the previous night were on the snorkeling trip too.

The guide had promised we’d see a lot on the trip, however our first sighting was very unexpected indeed… We spotted the president of Panama! He landed in a helicopter right next to the pickup point for our snorkeling trip. There were special police everywhere. With grey camouflage on and black balaclavas with just a slit for their eyes. They looked very much like baddies from a bond movie, but we were very impressed they hadn’t already roasted to death inside head to toe clothing.

Our second spot of the day came on the boats out to the reservation islands. We saw dolphins as they swam and jumpued out of the water right next to the boat! It was very cool to see!

The first island we visited was a tiny thin split of land surrounded by coral reefs, we saw lots of cool colourful fish and also a reef shark. Although sadly I also ended up telling one couple on our boat off for standing on the corals. I mentioned this to our guide who also reiterated not to do this, the coral grows only a cm each year so standing on it and breaking it cases decades of setbacks, it’s also full of bacteria that you really don’t want in your foot.

The second spot we headed to was another island, this time with lots of trees on. The reef here is a cleaning spot for turtles, they stop by and tiny fish nibble at their dead skin. Although these fish aren’t picky and will also nibble humans as well as I found out! I have been to the fish feet spa so I assumed fishes nibbling me in the water would feel the same. However, after swimming over a dense part of the reef my legs were absolutely covered in fish, I assumed if I started swimming and kicking my legs this would stop the rather forceful nibbling, it did not. It was a rather unpleasant and unsettling feeling and I swam as fast as I could for 10+ minutes to get far enough away from the reef that they would leave me alone! After catching my breath I swam again to the edges of the reef, careful to avoid any fish, and I was rewarded by seeing not one, but two huge turtles! The guide remarked after they were some of the largest she’s ever seen.

Our next stop was onto the largest island on the reserve, here we climbed up to a viewing platform and our guide explained how the islands on the reserve used to house prison buildings and no boats were allowed in the area to prevent escapes, this is why the area is so untouched. There is also a huge crocodile on this island called Tito that the locals feed and it will appear if you call for it, but none of us fancied making the call, especially as we had nothing to feed him, we didn’t want to end up his snack!

Our last stop was at another island with lots more colourful fishes and here we also saw a sea snake and a puffer fish, so we definitely got our money’s worth!

I had spent most of the day chatting to the Dutch couple, they were really nice and told me how they were retired and spent a month of every year traveling around a new country. Madeleine also insisted on creaming my back for me so I didn’t burn and also asked if I would like a lift to town for dinner as they had a car! Very nice people indeed! That evening we couldn’t resist a free lift in an air-conditioned car so myself and Grace got a lift from them into town and we ended up having a nice dinner together, chatting about all the different places they and we had been. At the end of the evening they kindly offered to take us half way to our next destination in two days time as they were headed in a similar direction.

The next day we decided to chill on the beach, this time walking down super early when it was at least slightly cooler and finding a spot of shade to hide from the sun in. It was honestly too hot to do anything that took us too far away from the water. In the evening we got chatting with some girls at our hostel, we were all going to go out to a party although none of us could stay late as the girls had to catch the 7am bus and Peter and Madeleine had offered us a lift at 8am (although they later said they were happy to leave at 10am so we could have fun at the party as they’re complete babes!).

We ended up losing track of time and sat chatting until midnight, at that point none of us could be bothered to do the sweaty walk into town and, as it turned out we would all be staying at the same hostel in the next stop, we decided to call it a night and go out at the next town.

So we had an early-ish nights sleep and a beautifully air-conditioned journey halfway to our next destination, El Valle de Anton. Which meant we didn’t have to get up at 6am and we only needed to get two buses instead of four!

I’ll tell you all about El Valle de Anton soon, lots of love, Alice x

P.s. I almost forgot to tell you about the unluckiest person we met while traveling. A German girl in our dorm here. Santa Catalina was her second stop on her holiday and not only did she also end up in this booking hot Hostel in the middle of nowhere she managed to get diarrhea on her first day in a dorm where all 7 of us shared one bathroom connected to the room, there is no keeping that one to yourself. That evening the girl in the bed above her accidentally unscrewed the top of her water bottle in her sleep and it all leaked out onto this German girl in the bed below. She didn’t realize it was water and thought the girl above had wet herself so she slept on the floor. The next day she decided to go to the beach and got bitten by a dog, the local hospital patched her up and gave her a tetanus shot but she needed to take a 8 hour bus the next day to Panama city to get a rabies shot. Then on her final night before she left for Panama city a big wooden slat from the bottom of the bed above her came loose and fell on her head leaving her with a huge bruise! Honestly talk about being unlucky! I only hope her luck improved in Panama city!

Staying in a castle, did a walk that was supposed to be flat but was definitely uphill and was supposed t be cloiudy but was very sunny. Hitch hiked on the way back to save $10

Day two market and chill market was like a church fate lots of American expats

Day three swinging bridges canceled as I was too heavy

We arrived in the mountain village of Bouquet and were greeted by our very unusual hostel, we were staying in a castle! It was a bit out of town, built by a Dutch man who, after moving to Panama, had missed seeing European castles and what else was there to do, apart from build his own of course! He had chosen to build it on a hill overlooking the countryside, so the hostel has beautiful views. It also had these cool hobbit hole like houses you could stay in!

We were both still a bit knackered from our partying in Bocas del Toro and the long journey to get into the mountains, so we just wanted a chill activity for our first day here. We saw online that there was a flat walk not far from the town, it was supposedly a gentle walk to a waterfall and back. We checked with our hostel who confirmed it was a flat easy walk, they also said it would be cloudy all day so perfect walking weather. So we decided to go for it.

After being wayyy overcharged for a taxi to the start point and then paying a further $10 USD each to do the walk at the entrance, we were ready for our relaxing stroll along the flat walk.

The cloudy day turned out to be boiling hot sunshine without a cloud in the sky… and I can only assume the locals here are descended from mountain goats, there is no way in hell I would describe the walk we did as flat by any stretch of the imagination! It was a fun walk but definitely one we were not in the mood for. After forcing ourselves up hill for 20 minutes we did get to see a tree that was over a thousand years old so that was pretty cool! Grace was very much not in the mood for a hike and would complain ‘ohh look another flat bit’ every time we had to climb up some rocks or walk up a hill!

We did get some added danger in the walk though when we had to cross over some rivers and got to wobble about on some pipes and very ropey looking bridges

We eventually made it to the ‘waterfall’ which was a trickle through some rocks and very unimpressive and then headed back to the start of the trail.

After paying $20 each for a taxi to the walk and the walk itself, we were reluctant to spend yet more money paying for a taxi back again. As Panama is one of the richest and safest countries in central America, hitchhiking is relatively safe and common here. We decided to give it a go, luckily for us the first car we saw looked like a good bet. It didn’t have tinted windows, meaning we could see the driver and he didn’t look like a huge angry man fresh from prison, but rather a friendly looking guy in his 50’s and the car itself was a pickup truck, so we would be able to sit in the back, not with the driver, and in the extreme case we could easily jump off the back if necessary! So I stuck an arm out and did my best Spanish negotiating, the guy kindly offered to drop us off on the outskirts of town as he was only going past it and not in. It was a bit of a bumpy ride but saved us an hours walk and the man refused to take any money. All in all a successful first hitch hike.

On our second day we had decided to check out a local market we had seen advertised, we had really enjoyed most of the markets we had visited on our trip, it’s normally a nice way to see the locals going about doing their day to day activities and experience some local food, music and culture.

It turns out that Boquete is mostly inhabited by American expats. So the market was mostly various church groups and retirement communities advertising for members. On the plus side we did get a nice Cuban sandwich to try which I’d never had before but had always seen on American shows. It was very tasty.

After viewing what little there was of the market we headed back to the hostel and made use of their swimming pool and jacuzzi for the afternoon!

The next day we were supposed to be visiting some hanging bridges, they asked our heights and weights and gave us a ticket, however when they realised we were two women not a man and a woman they told us we could no longer go, as I was to heavy for a woman. Admittedly I am heavy for a woman but probably weigh the same, if not less, than an average male so I’m not entirely sure why I was too heavy? Surely the bridge wouldn’t know or care if I was a male or female but they refused to allow us to go so we didn’t get to see the bridges!

On the plus side, we used the day instead to plan the next leg of our travels to Asia!

But first we’ll be moving on to our next stop the beach town of Santa Catalina, I’ll tell you all about it soon, lots of love Alice x

Chilled tried to go to a party was dead until after we went to bed, shelf fell on graces head

Day two explored the island met Sophie and co. Grace’s taxi got lost Went for lunch and a swim came back, party was already happening had a really fun night free drinks very thirsty

Day three more chilling

We decided to try and do our own cross border transfer to Bocas del Toro as the busses in both Costa Rica and Panama are reliable and a lot cheaper than the very expensive direct mini buses. We had a two hour bus ride to the border and had no issues getting our passports stamped out of Costa Rica and into Panama. Entry into Panama did require a scan of all of our fingerprints and a front and side profile photo, so we had the added bonus of feeling like we were on a police show to liven up the crossing experience! On the other side of the border we saw minibuses collecting people to take the rest of the way to Bocas del Toro, we managed to haggle a seat for $20 USD a person, on the agreement we didn’t tell any one else on the bus we were paying €100 less than them! We could have gotten two local busses the rest of the way as planned for even cheaper but the direct route would be a lot quicker, so we decided to splurge out. Once we reached the Bocas del Toro port, we had to board a taxi boat that would take us the rest of the way to the Bocas del Toro islands.

We had chosen to stay on one of the smaller, quieter islands. The island itself took about 20 minutes to walk from one side to the other. It had two restaurants, a hostel and around 20 houses. The Hostel and houses were all built half on the sand and half protruding out into the sea on stilts. The sea was absolutely beautiful blue and filled with fishes and starfish.

We arrived in the late afternoon and decided to walk around the island, after walking end to end we decided to stop for dinner in one of two bars/restaurants on the island. The did tasty pizzas and even tastier cocktails. After a few drinks we headed back to the hostel. We saw adverts for a party that evening, starting at 10pm (we complained how this was far too late for a party to start and then realized we are getting old!).

We got ready and headed out to the bar for 9:30pm in the hope of getting chatting to some people and making friends but the whole place was absolutely dead and remained that way until midnight at which point we gave up and headed to bed. After we had taken our makeup off and gotten into bed we heard taxi boats arriving on mass around 1am but decided we couldn’t be arsed at that point once we were already comfortable in bed.

The party continued until around 3am and although we were in the dorms furthest away from the bar, it still felt as if we were trying to sleep on the dancefloor it was so loud. The wall Grace’s bed was connected to vibrated so much the large wooden shelf above Grace’s bed fell off the wall and onto her head. Not wanting to appear older and grumpier than we already probably seemed, Grace didn’t complain and just sobbed silently in bed, which probably succeeded in not making her look grumpy but instead probably made her look slightly mental!

The next morning,Grace and the new egg-shaped bruise she was spouting, headed of scuba diving. I stayed at the hostel and got chatting to a girl and a group of six guys she was traveling with, who had all met while working in Lapland at a Santa’s grotto experience over Christmas. They were super friendly and invited me to join them on a bar crawl around the islands that would finish at our hostel. As Grace had just texted me she was on her way back and wanted to go get some lunch, I declined their offer and told them we would meet them back at the hostel at 5pm when the bar crawl would arrive on our island.

Grace’s taxi boat should have only taken two minutes to drive from the island she was on over to our island, she could have probably swam it in 5 minutes. Yet somehow she took an hour to arrive. Her driver had insisted on dropping everyone else on the bus off first to various different islands, then had needed to stop to get fuel, then had gotten lost! But eventually she arrived back safely and hadn’t been kidnapped as I’d feared/hoped!

We went to lunch at the same place as the previous day and afterwards had a lie in the sun and a swim in the sea. I tried to combine the two by laying down in the shallow water at the seas edge. As soon as I sat my bum down I felt something concerningly large move beneath it, I then thrashed about screaming in the shallows, retreating from a crab who had already had the worse end of our encounter after being sat on and then screamed at.

We headed back to the restaurant in case the crab had any ideas about revenge…and also because I was really thirsty after all the shouting and thrashing about. I wanted to get a soft drink but grace convinced me to get a nice cocktail. Five minutes after delivering our cocktails the waiter came to check on us and remarked, after seeing my empty glass, ‘wow you a very thirsty girl’. To which Grace fell about laughing and continued to use every time I drank anything or appeared slightly drunk!

At 4pm we decided to head back to the hostel so we could be ready by the time the bar crawl arrived for the afternoon party. But it turned out we were already far too late, the party had arrived early and was already in full swing. Luckily the dress code seemed to be swimming costumes (and sunburn), one of which we already had and the other we were hoping to avoid anyway.

The hostel was absolutely heaving with people and it was a really fun evening, even if all of the music we knew and enjoyed most was labelled as ‘old school’ and ‘throwback’ songs. Nothing like a party aimed at 18-20 year old to make you feel old! Grace even got a lift on Patric, one of the guys I had met earlier’s, shoulders. Seeing as Grace is tiny and Patrick is a huge 6ft+ northerner, this was not an issue. However, his friend Jamie, who was the same height as me and probably only 2/3rds of my weight, then tried to do the same to me. That was less successful and eventually after 5 minutes of him shouting ‘Ive nearly got it’ and me shouting ‘let me down!’ and trying to jump off, he gave up. But not before a crowd had already gathered to cheer him on, just my luck! He insisted he be allowed to try again and this time I shouldn’t try and get off as apparently that’s what was stopping him being able to lift me… But seeing as I like having all of my front teeth (and what was left of my dignity at this point) intact I declined the proposal.

The party at our hostel ended around midnight and we headed to an after-party at another hostel on a different island and we saw some cool fire jugglers and danced a bit more before heading home to bed. After seven hours of dancing we were absolutely knackered but I returned to find a girl asleep in my bed! After waking her and helping her into what I hoped was her bed I could finally get to sleep.

The next day we were treated to a free breakfast at the hotel as an apology for nearly killing Grace with a shelf. We spent the rest of the day chilling out and recovering from our hang overs. We did however take a swim underneath our hostel and saw loads of cool coral that was growing on the supporting legs of the structure.

The following morning we headed on to our next stop, Boquete. Tell you all about it soon, lots of love, Alice x

Our stay in Puerto Viejo was a very chilled one, Rob and Hannah would be staying here for the remainder of their trip and having a week to chill out before going back to work. Grace and I decided to join them for a few days.

I would love to tell you all the exciting stories of what we did, but after two weeks filled with lots of activities and tours, what we mostly did was relax and chill out on the beach! We did plan on doing a snorkeling trip but after being told it was $85 USD per person (!) we decided snorkeling on the beach was fine after all!

It was the perfect place to relax, beautiful chilled beaches with a Carribbean vibe, we tried more Carribbean sauces and dishes, they were delicious if not a little on the salty side.

We also made sure to test out the local ice creams including a ‘Blob’ flavour which was intensely chocolatey.

We had a fun two days messing about in the sea and relaxing, on our last day we were laying in the shade under a tree on the beach when another tourist walking past pointed out there was a sloth directly above us. Would you believe it, it was the best sighting of a sloth we’d had all holiday, and for free!

After saying our goodbyes to Rob and Hannah we got on a bus to our next and final country Panama. I will tell you all about it soon lots of love, Alice x

We had a short stop in Cahuita, a small town on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica close to another national park, this time one on the beach including a coral reef.

It was absolutely boiling in Cahuita when we arrived and we spent the first afternoon very close to the hostels pool and playing with the owners puppy, who unfortunately for grace was going through his biting phase!

The next morning we headed into the national park early in the hope to do the bulk of the walking around while it was still relatively cool, or at least not absolutely boiling.

It was an enjoyable morning, Hannah and Rob saw their first hermit crab! We also saw monkeys, sloths, a snake and lots of Lizards.

We walked to the tip of the park where the Coral reef was located in the hope of snorkeling but found there is no snorkeling allowed without a guide to protect the reef. So we decided to head back for some lunch instead.

We headed to a local soda and tried some ‘pattys’, the Caribbean take in empanadas, we had one each but they were so nice we went back for another round and also tried some sweet pineapple ones. The savory ones were a stewed beef mixed with a coconuty sauce. It was delicious and I was really enjoying it until Hannah spotted a dead ant in hers. I couldn’t eat another bite after that.

After our pattys we headed back to the hotel pool to cool off from the afternoon sun.

The next day we headed to the bus station to catch a bus to our next stop, Puerto Viejo, and while waiting Rob brought us some fried chicken, another plus of being on the Caribbean side of the country. Rob and Hannah were already sick of rice and beans for most meals (including breakfast). We also brought some dulce de leche pastries, a tried and tested favourite of mine and Grace’s, for Rob and Hannah to try. It went down a treat and even better there were no ants in sight!

I’ll tell you all about Puerto Viejo soon, lots of love, Alice x

Tortuguero is not the easiest spot to get to via public transport so we booked a transfer to take us, which meant we spent most of the day on a bus before disembarking into a speed boat to take us across the small canals and rivers that separates the town from the mainland. The canals and rivers form a wetland that is host to a whole load of wildlife and we saw some of this on our journey. It was absolutely tipping it down but the driver was still able to spot and point out caimans, herons and monkeys to us.

We knew we wanted to do three tours while in Tortuguero; A guided tour through the national park, a canoe tour of the canals and rivers and a night tour. When we went to book these, they informed us that it was better to do all the tours that were inside of the national park in one day, so we would only have to pay the park entrance fee once. As the second day looked less likely to rain, we decided to chill on our first day and do the night walk in the evening and then do the rest of the tours the following day.

Our chill day was a mix of brilliant sunshine and then torrential downpours. We spent the morning by the pool. Rob, Hannah and Jess were having a great time spotting large lizards, toucans and hummingbirds in the trees and all rushing over to take a look and snap photos. Meanwhile me and Grace, who are a bit desensitized at this point, would simply glance up from our books for a quick look. The others were amazed, commenting on how, unlike me and Grace, they would never become tired or desensitized by the amazing wildlife.

In the afternoon we decided to take a stroll into the center of town, a trip that took all of 3 minutes as it is tiny, and have a look around. Tortuguero is on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica and you can definitely notice the Caribbean culture in the people, the pace of life, the food and the music. We were watching some locals play dominios and eyeing up some BBQ skewers (we came to name ‘meat on a stick’), when we were hit with another torrential downpour, so we headed into a local soda and ordered a disappointing lunch. Rob and Hannah opted for the local rice and beans dish, this time with the Caribbean influenced coconut rice. Grace went for a vegetarian quesadilla which was basically some frozen veg in a tortilla and I thought I’d branch out and get some garlic bread as I wasn’t very hungry. My garlic bread turned out to be burnt toast with a basil leaf on top which Rob found hilarious. Unfortunately the meat on a stick people had also fled from the rain so I had to suck it up and eat my burnt toast.

It clearly rains a lot here as the locals have mastered riding a bike with one hand and holding an umbrella in the other. Eventually we braved the rain again and headed back to the hostel.

In the evening we headed out for our night walk, we were given torches and set off towards the forest at the edge of town, with a brief put stop as it chucked it down again for 10 minutes.

We saw a lot on the walk, but with no thanks to our guide who was particularly useless, when rob spotted a raccoon in the tree and asked what it was the guides response was ‘I don’t know, some sort of mammal I guess’ when Hannah found a spider and asked if it was dangerous, his response was ‘No idea’… a Costa Rican lady on our tour informed us it wasn’t. He was also playing frog recordings from YouTube in the forest to try and attract frogs (which you are warned not to do as it upsets the natural order) but he wasn’t paying attention and when the video skipped to the next in the queue it nearly deafened us all with an advert and scared off lots of sleeping birds, but at least the wildlife is now informed about where they can purchase low cost second hand cars.

However, with our keen eyed group (excluding me ofc, who spent much of the time almost walking into spiders webs) we managed to spot a lot of things, even the famous red eyed frog we spotted in Manuel Antonio but this time with its colours on show!

On our second day we were up at 5 am ready for our canoe tour, it’s cool but bright in the early morning so is the best time to spot the animals when they are more active. It would be our last activity with Jess before she headed back to London so she was really hoping to see a sloth.

We were all seated in the canoe and given binoculars. The guide was paddling us along and also looking for any animals he could see. Unlike our previous guide this one was brilliant, he had eyes like a hawk and could spot camouflaged animals from the other side of the river that even when he had rowed us right over in front of them, we would still struggle to see. But we saw loads of stuff, hundreds of cranes, herons, lizards, caiman, snakes and loads of spider and howler monkeys.

The guide told us they also get large crocodiles and alligators but they tended to be in the larger rivers. About 2/3 of the way through it started raining again and we didn’t see much more after that unfortunately, except monkeys and herons which the others were already bored of despite their earlier comments on not becoming desensitized.

After the morning tour we had to say goodbye to Jess who was starting her journey back to San Jose, the Costa Rican capital, to fly home. Meanwhile the rest of us grabbed a quick lunch of meat on a stick before heading off to our walk in the national park. Thankfully it had stopped raining at this point but the guides suggested we changed into Wellington boots before heading into the forest. They didn’t have any wellies in my size so I ended up tripping about in some huge size 11’s. Luckily we didn’t have to be quiet while evening up on anything!

By this point we were quite the tour connoisseurs, our guide was impressed by me knowing the number of hummingbird species in Costa Rica (52), the most photographed frog in the country and the sleeping habits of the two and three toed sloths (two toed are nocturnal, three toed are not). Luckily for us the guide knew his stuff and had many more interesting facts and information for us.

Along with the usual birds and monkeys he pointed out wild cacao (chocolate) trees, bullet ants (whose sting feels like being shot), huge terminate nests, cool plants that closed when you touched them and he also showed us a toxic frog that locals used to use to make poison darts to hunt with, he also showed us the trees they got the small dart like thorns from. It was super interesting and Rob and Hannah got to see their first (visible) sloth. Up until then we had mostly seen just grey balls of fluff far away or arms or just the movement of trees. (Jess was very gutted she had missed the sloths by a mere hour!)

He also took us to the beach to show us where the turtles that give the town it’s name come in the summer to lay their eggs. There were none there, as it is currently out of season, but we saw discarded eggs and some shells and bones of the adult turtles that had been caught and eaten by jaguars. We also saw some jaguar footprints along the beach.

It was a really fun tour, towards the end the guide gathered us all as around in a crouch near the ground and told us to sniff, and just as we had taken a big wiff explained that the puddle we were gathered around was jaguar piss. That was a less fun experience, but hey, how many people can say they have smelt jaguar piss? And I bet even fewer would admit to it!

The next morning we headed out of Tortuguero towards our next stop, Cahuita, but we had one more surprise on the way out. Our boat driver spotted a huge crocodile on the banks of one of the larger rivers. He drove over to it but, before anyone could get a photo, it quickly and very disturbingly disappeared into the shallow water without a trace. Our driver very quickly backed up and drove us out of there!

Eventually we made it to our next stop without any crocodile bites! I’ll tell you all about it soon, love Alice x

Our transfer to La Fortuna felt like an excursion in itself. We started in a minivan and after we waited for the driver to have breakfast, (for some reason in Central America if you get a bus at meal times, the driver will always stop for food, even if like this case it’s only 10mins into the journey! You would think they would just eat before they left for work.) We headed down south until we reached a lake, we then boarded a small ferry that took us across a scenic lake for an hour. We had great fun, me and Jess had taken to making boiled eggs in the mornings for day snacks, much to Grace’s dismay as she can’t stand them. So we decided to eat them on the boat, mainly to annoy Grace. Unfortunately during our egg photo shoot some of the egg got caught in the wind and hit a woman behind us. Thankfully she took it well but Grace was less than impressed and we weren’t allowed boiled eggs again after that!

We disembarked the ferry at the other side of the lake with a view of a huge volcano, before boarding a bus to La Fortuna a town close to the volcano. Once we had checked in at our hostel we went to meet up with two more of Grace’s friends, a couple called Rob and Hannah who would complete our group of five for the coming week.

We went for a quick lunch in a local cafe or ‘soda’ as they are called here. Hannah was excited to try the food here so they both ordered the local casada dish which is normally a meat of your choice, salad, rice and beans and plantain. Minus the meat for vegetarians. Casada is always filling but very average and uninspiring as food goes.

Once we were full we headed out to find a local swimming spot with a Tarzan style rope swing over a river. It was located under a road bridge for cars to cross the river so we scampered down from the side of the road to take a look.

The swing turned out to be a lot higher than it had looked the the photos and all of us, except Rob, were less keen to try it now. After a lot of peer pressure from Grace, Jess also agreed to give it a go and after a few attempts to build up the courage, she swung in unharmed. Next it was Grace’s turn but after talking the big talk, she decided it wasn’t for her after all! So I decided to have a go, although I’m scared of heights I tend to be okay with stuff like this as you just have to get on with it before you get a chance to get scared, once you’ve let go of the rope it’s too late to chicken out! I nearly didn’t get my attempt on video, as Hannah had assumed it would take me a while to work up to it, but I just grabbed the rope the first time and went for it. After we had all been in, except Hannah and Grace, the tables turned in terms of peer pressure until Grace had been bullied into going in too. After we were bored of swinging in we had a sit in the river for a while until we were cool enough to walk back.

In the evening we decided to check out a Mexican restaurant and bar and had great fun sampling their chilli tequila and their huge sombreros!

On day two, the others did the volcano hike, but after hitting my knee two days before I decided to rest it rather than strain it on the two hour descent. I stayed behind and had a lay in before buying previsions and making them all a packed lunch. Once they were back on flat land, I brought them their lunch and we headed to some free hot springs.

There are lots of hotels and restaurants where you can pay $80-$100 to use the hots springs but we’d heard about some free ones you accessed again under a road bridge. The hot springs were actually more like a river of bath temperature water, which was very odd at first but the others appreciated it on their sore muscles.

There was a deeper pool near to where we had initially sat, but we couldn’t all sit there together as our bags were on the banks and we had been warned to watch them closely in case they were stolen. So we took it in turns to sit in the deeper pool with our backs against the small waterfall. When it was my turn to swap back to bag watching position, I had the bright idea to just float back over. However, I didn’t realize how strong the current was, and got washed away towards the edge of another pool. I became effectively beached on a small collection of rocks, which I then had to wriggle over before flopping into a pool full of attractive German guys. It was certainly one way to make an entrance! Luckily they found it hilarious and said it was the most life-like portrayal of a salmon they had ever seen.

Once it started to get dark we ordered an Uber back to the hostel, we were just paying the driver when Grace did the most smelly fart ever. We all started to shout and hit her and the Uber driver seemed lost and quite concerned about what was happening until the smell reached him, at which point he couldn’t get us out of his taxi quick enough!

In the evening, after we’d recovered from Grace’s chemical warfare, we decided to check out a Mediterranean restaurant. Me and Grace were looking forward to the BBQ meat and the other three veggies were planning on having fallafel. Unfortunately for them the meat smelt so beautiful that none of them could resist it!

On our last day we decided to go for a horse ride. I don’t think I’ve ever been on one quite like it. There were 20 horses and only one guide, who was content to just let the horses guide themselves. It’s common for horses to know the routes and to guide themselves. However, instead of a single line, we were in a large group with the horses all jostling for position, which lead to them all squeezing past each other and smashing or legs into other horses. Grace’s horse was in a very bad mood and kept biting the other horses, she asked the guide why her horse was so grumpy and angry and he said it was because ‘the horse channels the rider’s energy’ which we all thought was hilarious and would repeat to her every time her horse barged into ours.

The ride itself was quite enjoyable, when we weren’t barging into each other, we rode around the national park and got to see parts that were destroyed in the volcano’s last eruption including a cool church with a view of the volcano that we stopped in.

After the ride we were allowed to use the horse riding hotel’s hot pools. They were a lot fancier than the free ones, with a pool bar and also some slides. We spent all afternoon playing about in them like big kids, at one point coming down the slide as a group and nearly drowning Grace.

We headed back in the early evening to pack, ready to move on to our next stop Tortuguero.

Tell you all about it soon, lots of love, Alice x

Day one Jess arrived, went zip lining, was very scared, even did super man one, all chickened out of the rappelling one

Day two Santa Elana cloud forest, everyone having a nice stroll but us doing a free g march, did ever trail, no wildlife except in the car park

Night walk grace saw an amarillo, spotted a snake was a catapilla

After a long day on buses we arrived in Monteverde. It was a beautiful windy road up to the town in the mountains, and I enjoyed looking out of the window and feeling a cool breeze on my face after weeks of hot breezes that felt as if you had just opened an oven door! I said as much to Grace, but as she had been holding in a wee for the last three hours she was enjoying the journey considerably less, I believe ‘I couldn’t give less of a f*!&’ was her response. It was safe to say we were both pleased to arrive, if not for the same reasons!

The hostel was very social, we met some 18 year olds, which made us feel old! They poked fun at us quite a bit for being over a decade older than them, being born pre 2000’s and remembering life before smart phones. But as consolation, they taught us some new drinking card games including horse racing, chase the ace and a version of higher or lower where the cards are in a square and any wrong guesses lead to all the other connected cards adding up to more drinks.

As you can imagine we ended up drinking quite a bit between the card games and trying to drown our sorrows about being ‘soooo old’. Once it reached 10pm it was the hostels quiet time, which meant the options were to go to bed or to sample the local night life. We chose the latter. Grace was really cold, so decided her evening outfit would include socks and sandals and a pac-a-mac. I was worried we wouldn’t be let into the club but It turned out the ‘club’ was actually one tiny bar called ‘Amigos’ and if anything she was probably over dressed! But it was nice enough and we chatted and played pool until closing time at midnight.

After a freezing nights sleep (the loft room we were in had no insulation and wasn’t even sealed from the outside, I could feel a cold gust every time the wind blew!) We grabbed a coffee and waited for Grace’s flatmate Jess to arrive. Jess had flown out from London to join us for a week’s holiday.

Jess is a big buddle of energy which was a good thing considering we’d signed us all up for zip lining just after she’d arrived. We turned up and got fitted out in harnesses and safety helmets and met our very enthusiastic guides. When they heard we were from London they were excited to talk to us about Paddington Bear, if we’d heard of it, if we knew where Paddington was from (Peru), if we liked the movies and so on. We were trying to keep a straight face to work out where the conversation was going, and if this dude was a super fan or was on something, but it turns out that parts of the latest Paddington film were filmed in the park.

We then got the safety talk and demo, we were informed that we would be breaking by placing our gloved hands on the wire behind us and pulling down which was terrifying to hear! Once the talk was over, we climbed up a huge tower ready for our first zip line. The tower itself was moving in the wind and it also had signs saying a maximum of 5 people per staircase and we were on at least double that, so I wasn’t filled with confidence safety wise!

But soon I was strapped up and off down the zip line. It mostly wasn’t as scary as I’d imagined, the worst bit was climbing up the wobbley towers and the contradictory information from the staff. One guy and the start would clip you in and tell you that you must break at the end and then once you got to the other side the guide would scream for you not to break or vice versa. Also breaking in itself was terrifying, pulling down on the wire caused the glove to get worryingly hot, thankfully I reached the end with all of my fingers intact.

The guides also liked to play practical jokes telling us ‘its safe, only two people have died here this year’ and if you asked them if your harness was secure replying with ‘i don’t know I’m not qualified’ or ‘I’m not sure it’s my first day’. For the most part it was very enjoyable, except for the hikes back up to high ground after each zip! But the ‘super man’ lines, where the harness was clipped to your back and your legs tied up to the zip line, were terrifying! For a few of the lines we had to go in pairs, and the combined weight of me and Jess meant that when they let us go we just hit the bottom of the platform and we had to do a weird wiggle to the end of the platform with our legs wrapped around each other.

On the last line you had to zip through a pitch black tunnel at spread and when you reached the end a photographer was taking photos. Me and Grace went first and decided to mess with Jess. As soon as she came out of the tunnel we screamed as the top of our lungs that it had gone wrong and she needed to break, which you can’t do when harnessed from the back. The photographer caught photos of Jess’ enjoyment turning to panic and both us and the guides fell about laughing!

We finished off the evening with a well deserved beer in the classic Amigos bar with people from our hostel.

The next morning we headed to the Santa Elena national park, the collectivo dropped us off at 11am and told us they would be back to pick us up around 4pm that gave us five hours for a walk and to eat our packed lunch of cheese sandwiches and boiled eggs. There were 5 different routes around the park of varying length and difficulty. The longest was supposed to take four and a half hours, we were worried that it might cut it a bit fine to make it back in time so we decided to do the second longest route.

The trail had a lot of inclines and declines but we didn’t actually see much nature, just lots and lots of trees. We made it around the path a lot quicker than expected so decided to add part of another routes section to the end of our loop to make it a bit longer. We definitely made it longer that’s for sure, unfortunately we had misjudged the point we were at and had ended up joining and then completing the longest route. Even after completing this and taking time to get our breath back and eat lunch, we still had an hour and a bit of time left, so we decided to try the medium sized route and again we completed this with time to spare so moved on to one of the smaller routes, we completed this with twenty minutes to go, but we could hardly do all but one of the routes, so we practically ran around the last one. We made it back five minutes before the bus departed having done all of the routes. Although somewhere along the way I’d managed to twist and sprain my knee, so I was glad we’d saved the easier routes until last.

The other travelers talked about how they meandered around one of the routes taking time to take in and feel at one with nature. Meanwhile we had frog marched around the whole route and were now knackered and very sweaty, and in my case had a painful knee, but we still felt accomplished. Although we hadn’t seen any wildlife except for one coati that Jess spotted in the car park!

We were all ready for a sit down in the cool but we had already signed ourselves up for the night walk that evening. So we decided to treat ourselves to a milkshake and a slice of cake to bolster our spirits. Unfortunately Jess ended up wearing more of her milkshake than she drank. The waitress poured most of Jesse’s milkshake all over her after tripping as she went to give it to her. So after finishing what was left and then a quick change of clothes, we headed out to catch the bus to the night walk.

Our guide for the night walk was a lovely man named Marvin. We were a bit dubious at first, as he told us we would be doing the walk in his garden and started off by showing us his orchids and photos of things that he sometimes sees… but after the flowers, his ‘garden’ opened up into more of a small park, with a large abundance of trees and streams. Which gave us hope that Marvin would be able to show us actual animals rather than just photos of them.

And Marvin did provide! He showed us a lot of cool insects including a cool one that looked like a leaf with legs! Lots of gross looking spiders including some tarantulas in holes in trees, lots of Lizards and frogs and some sleeping birds including a toucan. But the spot of the night goes to Grace who, while the rest of us were looking at a stick insect, spotted and armadillo!

Marvin didn’t believe Grace at first so shone his very bright light at it, which confirmed Grace was correct but also scared the bejesus out of the armadillo. It panicked, scrambling in every direction franticly so unfortunately I got no photos of it! We also saw some cool vine-like trees that surround a host tree and slowly, over 50 years, grow around it and drain all of the life from the tree until it dies and just the network of the parasitic tree is left. So all in all it was a pretty cool walk and a nice way to end our time in Monte Verde.

Our next stop is La Fortuna where more of Grace’s friends are joining us, I’ll tell you all about it soon, lots of love, Alice x

We only had one day in Manuel Antonio, we wanted to see the national park here, but the town is expensive, especially for our backpacking budget, so we couldn’t stay for long. We managed to find a hotel room for £40 a night which was a bit of a bargain. It was surrounded by forest at the back which was a nice bonus. The morning was unfortunately darkened by the news of Russia invading Ukraine and the possibility of world war three. As we were discussing this over breakfast, the hotel owner tapped on our room window and beaconed us urgently. We followed him further to the back of the hotel where he showed us a sloth high up in the tree tops. I say a sloth, I didn’t have my glasses or contact lenses in at this point so for me it was a brown splodge in the trees, but Grace spotted it immediately. We had officially seen our first sloth. So you could say the morning was a bit of a mixed bag!

The owner told us if we could see that sloth then not to bother hiring a guide at the park, as we would be able to spot things ourselves. We felt pretty confident heading into the park and declined every tour guide we saw outside of the entrance. We got into the park around 8:30am and already it was busy. Only 10% of the park is open to tourists the rest is strictly a reserve for the animals to be left in peace and rightly so. But the 10% that is open is packed with two thousand people a day, tickets sell out days in advance, we had hoped getting there early would mean we avoided the worst of the crowds but it was still very busy.

There were large tour groups of 20-30 people gathered around the telescopic lenses the guides use to show you the wildlife up close. We couldn’t really see much of anything, even following where the telescopic lenses were pointed. We hoped it was just because the large crowds were scaring off the wildlife closer to the ground. So we decided to do a waterfall walk that led away from the main trail, none of the groups came down this route as it had steep inclines and declines. Even at the very end of the route, far from the crowds and noise we still couldn’t see much, so we admitted defeat and headed back towards the entrance to get a guide. Unfortunately you’re not allowed to leave the park and re-enter and all of the guides were on the other side of the entrance, we were gutted, thinking we’d blown our chance to see some cool wildlife. But as we walked back into the park we saw a guide on his way back from finishing a tour and he agreed to give us a tour for £15 each which was a bargain! It was just the two of us, as everyone else had already had a tour at the start of the day and was made even cheaper as the guides park entrance had already been paid. Also, as he had just done a tour, the guide had already spent time finding cool animals. So he just had to retrace his steps and show us the things he had already found, he was also able to get information from the other guides that passed us along on their way back from their finished tour. So it worked out brilliantly.

We saw sooo much, it was probably the best £15 we’d spent on the trip so far! He showed us flowers, spiders, frogs, bats, lizards, birds, agoutis, monkeys and three towed sloths. As well as pointing out several interesting flowers and plants to us, he really knew his stuff. Although one thing even we managed to see without his lens was a sloth with its baby that crossed the path, very slowly in true sloth style, right infront of us!

After our tour we headed to the sandy beaches of the park and relaxed in the sunshine until the park closed and it was time to head home. While we sat outside of our hotel room on the balcony eating ice cream (it’s a hard life I know!), we watched another Agouti wander past!

The next day was a long one, eight hours on buses to get us to our next destination of Monteverdi, which I will tell you all about soon.

Lots of love, Alice x

Yet again we found ourselves walking to the hostel in the midday heat with sweat pouring down our faces! But we made it to our hostel in the early afternoon, just in time for Grace to rush off to her scuba diving refresher course. I was on my own for the afternoon and decided to spend it in the shade, catching up with writing these blogs and then calling family and friends for a catch up. Once all of my life admin was done I got chatting to a Canadian girl in our room called Kris. Once Grace got back we went for dinner with Kris in a cheap restaurant next door. On the way back we saw hundreds of leaf cutter ants forming a line from a tree across the path and further into the forest. I’ve seen leaf cutter ants before, but never this many. There was a 2 meter line of them that was about 20cm wide.

The next day Grace was out scuba diving again, so I decided to book a horse riding tour through a forest on a nearby cattle ranch. Kris asked if she could join me so just after lunch we headed off. We got there and were put straight on a horse, I asked for a helmet but was told I wouldn’t need one, they obviously hadn’t realised I’m basically Mr bean on holiday.

I had the cutest most affectionate horse I’ve ever met and he was also so inquisitive. At first he really wasn’t keen on going on the ride at all. As the guide, Kris and a nice Italian couple that made up our group, headed out of the yard towards the start of the trail, my horse headed in the other direction towards the stables. After a tug of war on the reigns, which I eventually won, we followed the others but we were already lagging behind and my horse was in no hurry to catch up.

The rest of the ride was interesting though, possibly more for my horse than me. He stopped to look at a butterfly, and to listen to the howler monkeys and at one point there was a calf feeding from its mother that he was super interested in, I had to tug him away as he kept getting closer and closer and I didn’t fancy being in the middle of a cow Vs horse showdown. Even after we had passed he kept looking back at them.

The trail wound through a forest where the cicadas were so loud you could hardly hear yourself think and then alongside a river. Something spooked my horse and he made a run for it down a river bank, which was terrifying but did mean we caught up with the rest of the group. Alongside the river the train was less dirt and more small rocks and pebbles. Kris’ horse kept slipping and at one point nearly fell over entirely with legs kicking out in all directions, luckily it was okay and so was Kris although slightly shaken as she’d only just stayed on by wrapping her arms around her horse’s neck! I was really starting to wish we had those helmets!

Eventually we arrived at a small waterfall where we could swim for 45minutes and the horses were left to wander and drink. We explored the waterfall and took a dip in the river, although it smelt very fishy. When we got out of the river I could see what I thought were flies moving away from my foot after every step. But after closer inspection it was actually teeny tiny frogs only a cm or two across.

I sat down on a rock to dry off and suddenly a horse’s head appeared on my shoulder, luckily it was still attached to a horse and not a ‘the godfather’ style threat. My horse had wandered over and decided it wanted some attention, he kept rubbing his head up and down my arm and bopping against me until I would stroke his nose or neck, like a giant puppy. Every time I stopped he would follow me around nudging me until I stroked him again. I got Kris to distract him while I got re-dressed. Once it was Kris’ turn to re-dress however, he wouldn’t be distracted and kept nudging her and almost pushing her over half dressed. I was too busy laughing my head off to come to her rescue.

Once Kris managed to get dressed and back on her horse we took the same route back to the stables with my hose trailing behind again. At the stables we got some freshly cut watermelon and got to feed the horses the rinds and say goodbye.

Kris was on a tighter budget than us so asked if we fancied cooking dinner together rather than eating out, we agreed and grabbed some vegetables and spices from the local supermarket for a veggie curry. It ended up costing about 65% of what eating out here does and tasting 100% worse… I managed to eat mine as I was so hungry but Grace struggled just pushing hers around the plate and not having the heart to tell Kris it wasn’t very appetising. We agreed it would be the first and last time we let someone we don’t know cook for us!

The next day we headed to the beach, the beach and sea at Uvita is a national park. We got there just before low tide, paid our entry and then headed to the famous ‘whale tail beach’. It’s where two different currents meet at the end of the beach and at low tide it forms a beach that is in the shape of a whale’s tail. Although I feel it would have been more impressive viewed from the air. It was already baking hot so we found some shade between some coconut trees, (it’s a hard life I know!) And set up base for the day. Even in the shade it was absolutely sweltering. We would go for a dip in the sea to cool off, even though it was the temperature of bath water, and by the time we were back in the shade we were almost dry again.

It was beautiful though, there were animals everywhere. Which I found to my dismay when I fell asleep and woke up covered in ants and more annoyingly red ant bites. After an afternoon lying about avoiding ants, once it had cooled down a bit, we took a walk along the beach. The place seemed to come alive as soon as it got cooler. We saw white faced monkeys in the trees, pelicans flying overhead and hundreds of hermit crabs making a dash for the sea. Also saw some weird sea snail things I’d never seen before making trails in the sand.

We stayed to watch the sunset and then headed back to the entrance of the reserve. The tide had started to come in at this point so we found ourselves wading through rivers that had previously been a trickling stream we’d jumped over. For some of them we were up to our waist in water, with our bags held over our heads. We were slightly worried as the reservation was also home to alligators but hoped the pure volume of people splashing through and leaving on mass would be enough to deter them. We made it out without a sighting thankfully. That’s one nature encounter I’m not too keen to have.

On our last day in Uvita we decided to visit local waterfalls. They were really nice, not the biggest or prettiest we’ve ever seen but still felt spectacular that day, purely because of how cold the water was! There were several different sections you could swim in and one of the falls was over rocks that had become so eroded and rounded from the water the local teenage boys, and some American army dudes, were using it as a water slide. Neither me nor Grace was keen to try, they looked pretty high from the bottom and I’m sure would feel even higher from the top. A few tourists took the ladder to the top and then decided against the slide taking the ladder back down. The local teens however had no such fear going down backwards, face first, doing back flips and dives.

We stayed in the deeper pool until Grace felt something touch her foot and I pointed out there were fish in the water. For someone who does so much scuba diving she really does not like fish. So we headed for one of the smaller fst moving stream sections and chilled there for the rest of the afternoon.

Eventually though we had to leave the cool stream behind and head off to collect our things and get the bus to our next stop, Manual Antonio.

Tell you all about it soon, lots of love, Alice x