The next day we have a long drive back to San Jose on the public bus. The temperatures have rocked up to 37 degrees and it's going to seem like a lot longer journey as a result. Fortunately there's plenty space on the bus so I get a seat to myself and can rearrange my legs so they kind of fit! I can hardly believe my travels in Costa Rica are nearly over. It's been such a whirlwind tour - I've seen and done so much. Again, I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to travel all this way across the world to experience something so different to what I know at home. As always on these trips I'll come away enriched and changed. We seem to hug the ocean for miles and miles ... read more

I was sad to be leaving Monteverde the next day. I really loved the feel of the place, more remote and rural. Combined with the cooler temperature and great activities it was a winner for me. BUT the Pacific Ocean beckoned so we got on our bus for the 5 hour drive to Quepos and the Manuel Antonio National Park. Half way we stopped off for toilets and refreshments at a fruit bar place. Wow the heat really hit us as we stepped out of the mini bus. I had a wonderfully refreshing iced banana milkshake and then went to have a look at what was interesting people crowded on the road bridge looking down into the river below. Wow, there below us lined up on the sandy banks of the river were 36 crocodiles! Some ... read more

And so to the zip-lining. I'd been looking forward to this with excited trepidation for the entire trip. A couple of friends had done it a few years ago and were raving about the experience before I left the UK so expectations were high. Basically you can't come to Costa Rica and NOT go zip-lining - it's kind of their thing! After another bumpy ride on the Monteverde rocky roads we arrived at the zip-lining place, confidently named '100% Adventura Adventure Park'. We were kitted out with double harnesses, helmets and pulleys. We were also given gloves with extra leather padding on the palms which we were told were to be used for braking! And then we had to wait, the tension building, for the other groups to be ready. Finally we were given instructions on ... read more

A night walk in the Monteverde cloud forest might seem a strange thing to do. First off it will be dark so what can we realistically hope to see with a few weedy torches and the guide's strong one? Then of course there's the many deadly poisonous snakes that if they bite you, half an hour later, if you haven't found an antidote, you DIE or if you're lucky just get a limb amputated! That's not forgetting the countless toxic frogs, insects and spiders ready to give you a bloody nasty nip to put it mildly. Taking all this information into account we decide to throw caution to the wind and set off to meet our guide Olman for an evening of dicing with death! Having given quite a few safety talks in my time I ... read more

I was the only one whose hand shot up to pay a little extra to have a local wildlife guide for our trip to the Curi Cancha Reserve. Sadly Brian can't get hold of a guide for just me so the pressure is really on for him to find us an ellusive resplendent quetzal. He knows how much I want to see this amazing bird and gets as much information from the reserve wardens as he can about where they are nesting at the moment. We set off up the hillside into the reserve. It's noticably different vegetation in the cloud forest, more like a mossy, ferny European woodland, apart from the different tree species and birds of course! I finally get to find out the name of the massive tree with butresses like I'd seen ... read more