Goodbye Costa Rica Hello England!

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20^th Nov ’11 Jaco

We are now back to the usual pattern of rain and bits of sun not a lot else to say, doing lots of reading, Howard doing lots of interneting and swimming when we get a chance in between the rain. We had one walk up the beach during a dry spell which was quite nice.

Most nights thunderstorms and rain permitting we go out to eat but have mainly stuck to 3 places, the Chinese, the KFC and the Chicken place – everywhere else is very expensive and the food wasn’t so good at the one nice restaurant we tried. There are no souvenirs worth buying they all look like chat and are really pricey.

Only real thing to report was one evening a bloke was walking down the road with a rat on top of his head!!!

27^th November ’11 Jaco to Aluelaja

Said goodbye to the wonderful Tommy G’s and our lovely hostess Barb. It has truly been a great place to stay – so clean, in fact both Barb and Tom are constantly cleaning and tidying up the place. This may be in part as they have had to put the hotel up for sale – Tom’s back and leg problems have got so bad they are having to return back to the USA

We walked down to Pizza Hut to pick up the public bus to Aluelaja airport and then got a taxi into the town where we are staying for the night. We found our hostel eventually – the taxi driver clearly had no idea where it was and had to ask at another hostel in the end

Once again it was raining but we walked down to the main square and saw the cathedral (with mass going on) and found a fast food place to eat at then went back to the hostel and bed.

28^th/29th Nov ’11 Aluejla to Miami to Heathrow to Stockton on Tees

After a good hostel breakfast, another wander around the town we caught a taxi to the airport and got checked in. Wandering around the duty free we spotted a bargain, 2 litre bottles of Smirnoff for $12 more or less what we had left in the equivalent costa rican money. Much humming and haarring as we weren’t sure what would happen in Miami so we checked with AA staff who assured us there wouldn’t be a problem as we were only in transit.

So we get to Miami and then it all goes pear shaped – they don’t have ‘in transit’ everyone has to go through immigration and then straight back through security again! Mental, our bags were checked straight through so we spent 1 ½ hours going through all this beaurocracy for nothing and then they refused to let us take our duty free through!! So we just gave it to some random woman.

After a 7 ½ hour flight we arrived in good old England at 10am and then did the whole tube to Kings Cross, McDonalds for some grub and then the 3 hour train to Darlington. Of course the train was late and we missed our Thornaby connection by minutes, so 20 minutes wait in the FREEZING cold for the next one.

We arrived at Thornaby station to be greeted by Debbie with a sign reading Taxi for Stephenson which had us in hysterics and all the travelling was soon forgotten. Bless her she took us to pick up the hire car and then back to Billy’s.

Half an hour later and Luke walks in the door!! Another lovely surprise as we only found out he was coming up (for the match) about an hour before.

1^st December – 4^th December Hard Rock Hell

Another fantastic HRH weekend, so good to see all the ‘family’ again and catch up with everyone – well those we could identify under all the camouflage lol

Billy bless his heart had arranged for us to have the chalet gig this year, no competition just him and Fleur arranging it and everyone else in on it but no one letting on! It was a total surprise and it was only when I got up to tell Billy off for waking everyone up that I found out. So yay Bonafide in our chalet, how cool was that?!!

5^{th- 7th} December Back in Stockton again

So after a fantastic but all to brief trip home visiting and ringing family and friends The evening was spent packing our rucksacks ready for the off tomorrow.

A great emotional time, oh dear I am really going to miss every one, it feels worse this time around!

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