Cabinas Arrecife Cahuita

... river became very windy and we could hear the rushing of the rapids ahead. I knew we where approaching the first set of rapids, and you could see the river suddenly becoming extremely choppy with huge boulders popping out everywhere. Juan suddenly instructed us to paddle hard, hard, hard, and we did. The raft dipped and turned out of control and we were suddenly out. We made it and it was awesome, we gave each other a high five with our paddles and cheered ...

... My focus at that point was just getting through the rest of the trail to find water.
Photography be damned!!

So after the grueling rest of the hike, I relaxed with a humongous bottle of cold water and a Coke Light at the restaurant there. I regained enough energy to find the bus station after another mile walk in Cahuita back to Puerto Viejo whereI headed to rest for the afternoon.

And I'd do it again too. Next time, though, with water and a friend to lug my gear for me.

... houses that reminded me of South East Asia. It was nice to get to a beach and unwind. The prices are more than in San Jose so we need to budget a bit still. We went for a walk in the rainforest but saw no sloths. Not happy. There are an amazing amount of tropical vegetation and quirky animals around though, it is best known as a country for that. We moved to another guest house that was slightly nicer and friendlier and went for a walk to the frog garden I had ...

... they flutter about and we just happened to bring along a small feeder for them ... but ... didn't have any sugar to make sugar water for them. Oh, I haven't heard any monkeys yet either, we may be too close to the coast for them to be comfortable. It was time to head out to breakfast, we found a cute little "soda" (what the locals call a small, family ran eatery with no more than 4-6 tables). We ate a traditional Costa Rican ...

... where we have a pizza lunch by the bus station and it starts raining again. Embarrasingly we then take a cab about 600 yards as it turns out to the small local airport. As we have time to kill Liz watches game show Panama TV, some sort of Blind Date and Judge Judy and I go off and get my haircut (without a disaster). So its our local flight via Bocas islands to Panama City and this is where the old Shorts aircraft have gone!

... I passed a large truck dragging the road to even it out and came to a little village where, lo and behold, there is an OPEN internet cafe! The local bar was open so I bought a Fanta and came here to write my account of the past few days. The computer I'm on is ancient so I can't download any pictures as yet but I will when I get back to San Jose or at another internet cafe. It looks like it might storm now, so I'm going to head back. Miss you all!

... rainforest in monteverde. this is the forest that we all donated to back in the '80s or had to eat chocolate bars for... anyways it has snakes, tarantulas, sleeping birds, glow worms, and (so were're told but have yet to confirm) 2 toed sloths (called pelizoso in spanish - literally means lazy bear). the next day we went for a "self indulgent package-tourist adventure 'experience'" zip-lining through the cloud forest. zip lining is when you strap ...

... les moustiques sont bien capable de picquer à traverser des T-shirts y pantalones ! Il devait avoir une centaine de piqures quand on est arrivé à la maison....tant que ses bras ont l´air déformés et son dos bossu. Au final, j´étais bien dans mon sauna. Le deuxième jour, nous sommes allés à la plage. 2 km de marche de chez Doña Fernanda vers la plage de Gandoca et 4 km de marche sur la plage jusqu´à Punta Mona (Point de singe). On a eu la ...

... it was a bit weighed down. It had some power though and did the job. We whizzed through some jungle lined narrow channels, past local fishermen (one whom the driver missed and subsequently got saturated) and got to see the waterfront houses Panamanian style. Eventually we made it to the open sea and headed on to Colon Island our place of rest. When you turn up the Island is a quaint place. It is ...

... we are going to zip across to Panama to a place called David! So Dave, here we come. From there we plan to cross the sea to an island called Bocas Bravas which we have heard good things about. I dont think they have internet, or hot water or much there, (we will be sleeping in hammocks) so you probably wont hear from us till we reach Panama City on the weekend. Richard and Amy