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So this is it. We've not got long left now so this will be the final blog.
Firstly, we both stink! There has been a water shortage all the way down the Caribbean coast which means the showers have been dribbles of water or a bucket and we've not been able to wash our clothes. My sandals are currently banned from our room and Neil has worn the same pair of shorts everyday for over 9 weeks! Secondly we had a throwing and catching competition on the beach and I won! Obviously I'm refusing a rematch or best-of-three.
So we left Nicaragua and have spent the last few weeks on the fantastic Caribbean coast. We started in the north, in Tortuguero, which has no roads and so we took a lovely boat journey through the winding waterways to reach it. The Caribbean coast in Costa Rica is like visiting a different country. The people are laid-back, English-speaking and Bob Marley is god. Reggae music can be heard everywhere, all the food involves sea food and coconut and there is definitely a Caribbean feel to the place.
Torteguero was wonderful. On our first morning we got up at 4.30am
and met our guide to take us out on the waterways. His name was Bill and he was exactly what you want from a guide - he arrived here by walking through the jungle 45 years ago to hunt pumas! So he has spent his life tracking animals through the jungle and had many a tale to tell. The canoe glided silently through the many quiet rivers allowing us to spy on the wildlife. We saw toucans, parrots, herons, caiman, otters, monkeys, Jesus Christ lizards running on the water and bright blue morpho butterflies. It was such a beautiful unobtrusive way to get close to wildlife that we stayed two more days to come out on our own in the evening to watch the jungle wake up from the heat of the day.
One night we went down to the beach to look for the giant leatherback turtles. We were the last group out at 1am and had been stumbling along for 3 hours through the sand at a ridiculous pace and seen absolutely nothing (they are nearly extinct) when someone spotted one! It was so incredible - the turtle was 1m 70cm long and it had dug a
great big hole and was laying her eggs. We got to watch it all with an infra red light and it looked so ancient; it´s amazing to think how many thousands of years they have been doing this. Absolutely incredible!
To get to our next destination we had to travel by boat for 3 hours then get a bus to the village of Cahuita which is on the edge of a coastal national park. Our first stop was a visit to a sloth rescue centre as we still hadn´t found one. It was lovely to see them, especially the babies, its seems that sloths are having a tough time adjusting to the modern world and keep getting run over or electrocuted, poor little things. Anyway, we spend a lovely few days here until the heavy rains started and didn´t stop for 2 days, so we drank rum and played rummy!
Our final destination in Costa Rica was the tiny village of Manzanillo in the south. We hired a guide to take us into the jungle which was full of toxic creatures! We saw 7 snakes (6 poisonous); 5 eyelash vipers (one bright yellow and one eating a lizard!),
a long green vine snake and a very deadly Fer-de-lance - our guide leapt back and started waving his machete around which is never a good sign! We also saw tiny red poison dart frogs, a hairy tarantula, an owl, huge bullet ants and we watched an impressive colony of leaf-cutter ants. Then he found me four sloths - two of each type! They were so well hidden that when we went back we couldn’t find any of them. They are just as cute as I thought they would be!
We left Costa Rica reluctantly as we found it to be such a rich, diverse and beautiful country and headed south for Panama. We took another stunning boat journey, with lush greenery and leaping dolphins, out to a collection of islands called Bocas del Toro. We spent an unimpressive day on the main island getting bitten by sandflies then took a boat across to Bastimentos a protected island with few inhabitants. The beaches here were breath-taking and so quiet and the food was fresh and delicious. It started raining though which cut short our beach time (I´m not expecting much pity!).
After a few near-death experiences on the
The Laos flipflops
They have quite a tale to tell.. Neil bought them for a dollar (all the cool monks were wearing them) they were the ONLY footwear available in Laos and have been recognised since. Once they were mistaken for toilet sandals and were nearly lost for ever..but they returned and remain loyal and completely impractical! bus over here (only two more bus journeys to go now) we are now enjoying a more refreshing climate and hot showers in the mountains of Boquete in northern Panama. A couple of days of walking here then we plan to see the Panama Canal then home! So thank you for following our travels and we are both looking forward to coming home (and eating fish and chips!)
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Dave
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Get yourself here!
Great to hear all your news but..........Janine has gone off ill and we need you at Gleadless tomorrow! Get in touch ASAP you know you want to. See you soon. Dave x