When my volunteering time at Las Pumas came to an end, Lynn and I went travelling to see some other parts of Costa Rica. We set off on the bus to Tilaran, a nice cool town in the hills, and there changed to catch a bus to Santa Elena. The road from Tilaran to Santa Elena was pretty bumpy - as are all roads to Santa Elena I think, because when we were in Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve (our main reason for going to Santa Elena) in the tourist shop there were some t shirts for sale that said ‘I survived [View Full Entry]

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I landed at San Jose airport and was collected by Nicki the rep from the volunteer company i-to-i. I had signed up to do about 3 weeks work at a big cat shelter. This was to be my first time volunteering - I wanted to give something back for all the wonderful trips and fantastic times I had whilst traveling and holidaying. My first couple of days in Costa Rica - the first time I had ever visited Central America - were spent in Alajuela in a hostel that i-to-i use for all it’s volunteers when they first arrive, and before [View Full Entry]

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Travelblog North Carolina I spent three days with Bert, an old travel friend, his wife and children in Charlotte, North Carolina. Bert gave me a bit of a tour around Charlotte and environs when I first landed. I was struck by the space and size of things - I know it is a cliché but it is true! The centre of Charlotte I had seen from the plane as we landed - a little island of towering steel, concrete, and glass in the midst of a sprawling sea of green trees - hiding the residential areas. It was gloriously hot and [View Full Entry]

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I work for the BBC and was at the BBC World Service at the same time as Alan Johnston in the 1990's. I want to show my support for his release - please follow the link below to the BBC News website to find out more: Go to the BBC Website for more info [View Full Entry]

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We went to St Davids in south west Wales for Easter. We stayed at The Waterings B&B. We had stayed there before for Nick and Vicky's wedding - so we knew that we had a great place to stay! It took us over 5 hours to get there due to the amount of traffic on the roads, we also stopped for about 40 mins for lunch. Once we arrived we took a stroll into St Davids and down to the Cathedral. It is such a pretty area with the Cathedral tucked into a small valley, it has grass around it [View Full Entry]

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David and I went to Polperro in Cornwall in the south west of England (well - I guess it IS the south west of England {sorry to Devon}!). Polperro is a beautiful little village with only 1,100 residents. It nestles in a valley and has a pretty little harbour. In some of the guide books it says it is the ‘most picturesque village in Cornwall’. It is really lovely with little quaint cottages and tiny narrow lanes. The cottages and houses cling to both sides of the valley. There are lots of flights of steps up and down to different [View Full Entry]

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We drove to Windhoek and stayed at the lovely Pension Steiner, we had rung ahead the day before to check they had a room available. Pension Steiner was great, secure parking, friendly staff, they served lunch in the lovely garden around a pool and it is REALLY close to the centre of the city. We walked around a small part of the city and saw the meteors that dropped in Gibeon 300km south, about 600 million years ago, and saw the Christus Church up on the hill built in art nouveau and gothic styles. The centre of the city is not [View Full Entry]

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Our next stop was Waterberg Plateau Park back down on the B1 road. Waterberg Plateau is a huge plateau - huge! It dominates the landscape. We had planned to do some walking trails here and enjoy the outdoors. The weather was fine by now with no sign of rain. We were due to stay at Waterberg for two nights, our last two nights in Namibia, but decided that one would be enough. This was because although the plateau was magnificent, the actual accommodation was so close to it, you could not really sit back and enjoy the view. The accommodation was [View Full Entry]

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After Twyfelfontein we drove towards Ethosha National Park. We were due to stay at the Eagle Tented Camp, in Epacha Game Reserve, but there had been a mix up with our booking and we had stay in the luxury Epacha Game Lodge - and even though it was not our fault we had to pay the difference. Epacha Game Lodge was lovely, if a little stuffy and pretentious particularly at dinner time! We stayed in one of the rooms in the Presidential Suite - it was HUGE. We had a great view across the small valley and up the hill on [View Full Entry]

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Our next stop was Twyfelfontein. This was about a 5 hour trip from Swakopmund - along the C35 and the D2612 and we filled up with fuel at Uis. The usual expanse, scenery, sky etc - still amazing! Twyfelfontein lodge was one of David’s favourites because it had a buffet for breakfast and dinner - lots of choice, and lots of food, and lots of different puddings - he was VERY happy! Not that the food had been bad anywhere - but it was very good here! Anyway the attractions in the Twyfelfontien area are: a petrified forest, rock paintings and [View Full Entry]

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