So here we are again on our travels and this time we are joining a 28 day tour around Indochina rather than travel independently as we usually do. The tour covers, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and then we will remain for a further 3 weeks in Siem Reap when the tour ends before heading off to the Maldives for a ‘holiday’!! We said goodbye to Geoff, Sharon and Maisie in Dubai where we had been for 6 weeks so it was sad to leave but we were so excited about returning to Asia after so long. We were held up at Dubai airport and sat on the tarmac for an hour whilst there was a medical emergency and therefore got into Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) later than expected and then had to wait ages for ... read more

We were picked up on time by a driver called Jonny who had a little English and we set off to San Gerardo de Dota. Hopsey the manager at Cerro Lodge had told us it would take about two and a half hours. We were heading for Trogon Lodge which is located in Savegre, San Gerardo de Dota, near Cerro de la Muerte, one of the Costa Rica’s highest peaks. We travelled along the coast road passing huge plantations of palm trees. The palm trees produced fruit for palm oil and we also passed a couple of large processing plants nearby. The road was quite good and we travelled through Jaco following the Central Pacific coastline, before arriving at the small village of Dominical which is a surfer’s paradise where waves apparently can reach over 10 ... read more

Our transport vehicle did finally arrive at the Rio Dante restaurant and we travelled inland to Selva Verde with a nice elderly chap who could speak no English but we managed to get by with our limited Spanish - he just laughed all the time and was rather jolly............. We had come to the area as it is renowned as a haven for nature enthusiasts with lots of birds and other wildlife. We were hoping to get to get some good photographs, particularly of the two toucans found here - the Chestnut-mandibled and the Keel-billed Toucan. Selva Verde is located in the midst of the Sarapiqui Rainforest preservation area in the lowlands of northeastern Costa Rica and it would be our last stay north of San Jose this trip. We were staying at Selva Verde Lodge ... read more

We liked living in our log cabin and enjoyed the peace and solitude of the grounds which bordered the cloud forest. There was always plenty of wildlife wandering around the cabin that we were never short of company. If we needed supplies there were a couple of small stores nearby or we could walk down the hill to the tiny town of Santa Elena- although we had the long steep climb to get back from the town to our cabin........We were about 2km from the town in one direction and several Forest Reserves for hiking in the other. I should warn you here before you read on that this is a rather long blog so do not feel obliged to read it all.............. After a morning’s hike it was lovely to relax outside our cabin surrounded ... read more

Our shuttle bus arrived to pick us up and take us to La Fortuna as we were the only travellers that day we had plenty of space and our driver Roberto was very pleasant company on the journey. He asked if we were OK after the previous night’s earthquake; he had been fishing and said that the earth started to move and then he noticed the water rippling - I think it must have scared the fish as he did not catch any! It scared us anyway.........We relayed our experience of the quake whilst we were at Tico Adventure Lodge as mentioned in the previous blog. It took about two and half hours to get to Limonal where all the small shuttle buses meet and said goodbye to Roberto. We had coffee whilst we waited for ... read more