TUESDAY 1ST MARCH - SAN GERADO DE RIVAS

Its official, I have jungle flu - a mixture of over heating, high humidity, physical exhaustion and a severe loss of body fluids and salts. I felt so awful all day long that dave had to practically drag me out of bed and to the bus station at 4.30am and had to do all the organisation of food, buses and logistics while I sat in a fluey stupor drugging up to try and clear it ready for the moutain ahead.

The village where we were staying was up in the mountains and pretty remote and the hotel was all carved into the rock which was pretty cool. Cool being the optimum word as i was chilly and got goosebumps at 21 degrees C, maybe ive been here too long....

WEDNESDAY 2ND MARCH - SAN GERADO DE RIVAS

I was still not feeling too good and in an effort tpo get better quicker so that I had a better chance of summiting dave left me in bed while he went to queue at the rangers office at 4am. I joined him before the office opened at 6.30am but due to some seriously screwed up politics they only allow 10 gringos a day access to the mountain so every morning its like the Next boxing day sale! Luckily, we got our tickets so i spent the rest of the day sleeping drugges on co-codamol.

By bedtime I was beginning to feel better but its still a worry as its a 2km altitude gain tomorrow from 1500m to 3400m. I am praying that my body holds out!

THURSDAY 3RD MARCH - CERRO CHIRRIPO

Another 4am start, aagghhh! I am starting to get used to them now. We started our trek at 5.15am and even though I was moving slowly (dave had raced off) I made 1km of altitude gain in under 2 hours which i was dead chuffed at. it got harder there on up though...We did see some cool animals on the path including spider monkeys, one of which was pregnant and also hd a baby on her back while she was making huge jumps between the trees. It was amazing! there was also a green spiny lizard and a highland alligator lizard as well an the endemic volcano hummingbird which was so tiny but gorgeous.

The hut was amazing and huge with 4 man cabins, flushing toilets with showers (albeit ice cold), public telephones and even internet! We sat down, raided the leftover food like the gypsies that we are for hot choclate and cookies and made our summit plans.

After a good long lunch break we took a slow amble up to the summit 5.1km away. It was nice and gentle until the last 100m which were nearly vertical but no real problems if taken slowly. At the summit we had hot choclate and biscuits while we waited for the clouds to part so that we could get some views but apart from a quick glimpse we didnt get lucky this time. still, at least we have gpone it so we can get to the bech woo hoo!

FRIDAY 4TH MARCH

We were in a small dorm last night along with a fat german guy who snored like a stuffed pig with a microphone so none of us got any sleep except him despite several kickings and some verbal abuse.... so god damn selfish

Anyway, as we had already summited we slept in until 5am and then mader our way down ina beautifully clear morning - damn! We practically ran down the mountain in 3.5 hours except for the seriously trecherous muddy patches but boy did our knwws suffer with the steep descent. by the time we got to the hostel I could barely carry my own body weight, let alone 20kg of luggae! Still, its beach time again now. Yippee!