SUKSEL

August 6th – Caribbean Coast Up early today – our room had A/C but it was still warm and brilliantly blue sky. Breakfast was good – the French owner even made scrambled eggs and brought out b lack pepper – great. Proper coffee too. A very nice stay and very cheap. If you think about it bed and breakfast – with swimming pool for about £16! We are reasonably close to where we are staying for the last 4 nights – so we drove along until we found it – but as we weren't due to be in until that afternoon we went past and along to the end of the road – Manzillo Beach – great beach, good swimming and snorkeling. We stayed for quite a while then picked up some shopping and by then ... read more

Real Rain Forest Up bright and early – tremendous storm in the night – must have been inches of rain. But when we got up blue sky and clear. Breakfast was part of the “cash” deal so down we went. It was really really nice – including fresh fruit and fried breakfast which included Pino Gallo (rice and beans) and Fried Cheese – which was very nice – but should we have put it on bread? Spent quite a while in the restaurant as the WiFi was really strong so uploaded a blog and a considerable number of pictures. This one may have to wait until we next get internet access. We had a choice of “reserves” to visit – the Monteverde reserve is world famous but very busy. The St Elena reserve is a little ... read more

Nice when we got up today - blue sky's temperature rising quickly to about 28 or 29C. Time to get in the pool! So before breakfast we were all in and cooled down. By 8 am. the local ISP engineer was ensconced in the house and on the phone talking to his mates - not looking good for WiFi in this property. They ended up taking the router away and as we needed to go out god knows if we'll ever see it again. Model is a Tenda doesn't fill me with any sort of confidence whatsoever - better spending a bit more and getting a Netgear. The phone had also packed up... This is Costa Rica people... We had decided that we would do one of the Canopy tours today so went to Villa Lapas ... read more

Up reasonably early today and into the pool before breakfast. The Scarlett Macaws leave the National Park early in the morning and come down to the mangrove swamps by the sea. This means they fly past or in our case land in the tree outside – 5 giant parrots eating whatever was in the tree outside.and lobbing the rinds on the floor – it was like some scene out of a science fiction film. Particularly as I wanted to get close and take a picture and when I looked right I noticed a giant squirrel hanging from the electric cables. Stupid animal had decided to hold onto both cables – certainly curled it's hair! Great swim – more butterflies – everyone is different – I imagine this is what the UK was like before we killed ... read more

Just as the day was dawning... Up bright and early after a great sleep about 6 ish which isn't bad for the second night and a 7 hour time difference. Catherine was already in the exec breakfast area chatting to a couple from Louisiana - who once they had declared themselves as democrats without any friends in Louisiana were interesting to talk too. It's a State I haven't been too and think it might be worth exploring particularly down on the Gulf Coast. A continental breakfast was available so we eat that had some great coffee and then headed out to do the walking tour of San Jose which is supposed to take about 2 hours but I think we could have done in about an hour. San Jose is not the most interesting city in ... read more