Marianne arrived in Costa Rica on Thursday 15th, I met her at the airport & she stayed the night with my host family.

Up early Friday morning to take a trip to Tortuguero on the northern Caribbean coast. It's in the middle of a huge network of rivers & canals and so it's quite swampy & difficult to get to so you have to take a boat for miles. It was good though, good weather & a few bits of wildlife on the way. It didn't rain for the whole 2 or 3 days we were there which is fairly unusual but good for us. Over the couple of days we were there we went on loads of boat rides & saw heaps of wildlife, more monkeys than you could shake a stick at (white faced capuchins, spider monkeys - ridiculously long arms & legs, and howler monkeys - make very loud cries a bit like a dog's bark, through a hollow bone in their throats). We saw crocodiles (& baby crocodiles), caimens (a bit like crocodiles but shorter snouts), loads of birds, loads of iguanas and river turtles.

We also walked through the Tortuguero National Park where we saw more monkeys & big spiders etc and then got slightly chased by a herd of marauding cows. It wasn't the cows that were the problem so much (there was a possibility they may have nuzzled us to death) but the bull that was behind them.

Went to the national park beach at 10pm with a guide to see huge green turtles hauling themselves out of the sea & up the beach to find somewhere to nest. They dig a huge pit at the start of the vegetation where they then lay about a hundred eggs like ping pong balls. Then they cover them up & lumber off again. No photos of that as quite rightly, you weren't aloud any cameras or torches or any sort of light that might disturb the turtles. Their numbers are declining but they really like Tortuguero for some reason (hence the name of the town - Turtle place).

We then went on the La Fortuna, the nearest town to Volcan Arenal, central America's most active volcano & one of the top 10 most active volcanoes in the world. Our hotel had a fantastic view of the volcano. We walked through the park around the volcano & heard it rumbling. We also got to see some lava although it was a bit difficult to make out and was only red for a short while. Mostly grey & steaming.

We visited the most amazing hot springs where the water is heated to 170 degrees farenheit (I think) by the volcano. It was like swimming in a huge warm bath. There was also a cold pool to throw yourself into if the hot pools were getting too much for you. We drank pina coladas & felt decadent. It was absolutely wonderful to be able to float in warm water & look up at the sky in amongst the trees & hear the rainforest all around you (but with all mod cons) & then have dinner afterwards.

We then got a bus to Monteverde which is in the middle of Costa Rica & has some great rainforest to explore. The land was bought up by Quakers in the late 50's who moved there from the U.S. when they refused to be drafted into the army. Costa Rica had just got rid of it-s own army (it now spends the cash on education instead which is fantastic & probably why they have a 98% literacy rate) so they thought it seemed like a good country for them. Understandable they wanted to prevent Monteverde from becomming overdeveloped & preserve the rainforest there so despite frequent attempts, they have resisted every effort to properly pave the raods into Monteverde. This means that your little tourist bus you have hired has to take you on a bone-rattling ride for hours along unsealed roads strewn with boulders. I don't know how the suspension or the tires on the buses manage it. It's only 40kms or so but it takes hours because you can't go at any speed at all.

When we eventually got there it was beautiful, very hilly & cloudy (ie - clouds drifting around the streets). We went out to a place where they have built loads of suspension bridges over gullies & ravines so you can walk around the treetops & see the rainforest from a different perspective. It chucked it down with rain the whole time but it was fun. We didn't even need to dicuss whether we wanted to do zip-wires through the forest. We didn't. I suppose it could be fun, but I'd rather be able to actually see stuff & if you're hurtling through the forest attached to a wire at god knows what speeds I don't know how you'd see anything.

In the evening we went to the Bosque Eterno de los ninos (the Eternal Forest of the Children) which is a huge swathe of primary & secondary rainforest (primary means it's always been rainforest & secondary means it's been regrown, no I didn't know that before) which has been preserved by a load of schoolchildren from around the world who raised money to purchase the land in the 80's. They're still buying more & more chunks of land all around the area which is really good. We took a night hike with a guide & saw loads of creepy crawlies. Loads of stick insects (which they call walking sticks), crickets etc, massive moths & all sorts of things I can't remember the names of, something a bit like a racoon but |I think it was called a peysote and an armadillo. it was quite spooky walking through the jungle by torchlight.

The next day we went on to Montezuma from where I am now writing. I know it sounds similar to Monteverde but it's definitely a different place. Montezuma is a small village with a bit of a hippie vibe on the southern Nicoya peninsula (local advice re: what to do if confronted by a jaguar: 'chill your vibe' apparently). Our hotel is lovely & our balcony looks right out onto the beach. Although you can't really swim round here as the currents are too strong. There were some amazing thunder & lightning storms last night. (Laura - you would have loved it, the lightning lit up the whole beach & the sea. Although the climate would play havoc with your hair. basically you wash it & when it's dry it's about 3 times the volume it should be. It's completely unmanageable.) We're taking it easy for a day before going back to Alajuela tomorrow (Saturday) which is the nearest town to the airport.

On Sunday I fly to Quito in Ecuador & then on Monday I fly to the Galapagos Islands. marianne flies home to the UK on Saturday also so we'll be catching our flights only a few hours apart which is good.

Not sure how much internet access I'll have on the Galapagos but I'll do my best to keep blogging. And please keep me up do date with all your news from home too.