Sorry Costa Rica

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We're sorry Costa Rica, we didn't have enough time to devote to you, we had to make it to Panama in a hurry and, since you seem to be one of the easiest countries to get to in Central America, you'll be first on our list when we return to this part of the world.

Fortuna was our first night's stop, not a bad little town it has a ski resort feel about it and is dominated by the imposing silhouette of Volcan Arenal, Central America's most active. It had taken us five hours, and about eight police inspections, to drive from the border, we arrived after dark and had to leave early in the morning so there was little time for us to explore. Even so, as we passed numerous expensive looking houses with large, well tended gardens on our way through the central region, our first impressions of Costa Rica were of the contrast in wealth with it's northern neighbour. The scenery is spectacular and, we thought, not unlike parts of New Zealand.

Day two and we made it to the Caribbean coast and the town of Puerto Limon for lunch, almost a carbon copy of Belize City and not a great looking place. By now we had a list of places Costa Rican that we'd missed and would like to see properly one day, Puerto Limon did not make it onto that list, we moved on. Another hour or so and we were at the small coastal town of Cahuita, our fast pace to the border slowed somewhat here as we enjoyed the fantastic beach for a couple of days and had a taster of the wildlife this country has to offer in the adjoining Parque Nacional Cahuita. In fact, we didn't have to venture further than the local restaurants to view the wildlife, one morning we were visited by a sodden sloth and her baby making their way across the roof (of course, upside down) - people pay a lot of money on tours to see these creatures in the wild, we had two join us for breakfast. We'd recommend Edith's restaurant in this town, not just for the food, which was fantastic, but also the classic, no-nonsense Caribbean service - customers are just about tolerated here. Another word of advice would be don't leave your flip-flops outside at night, there's a dog (I hope it was a dog) that seems to have a fetish for left foot flip-flops - he took Rachel's, so one would assume he won't be taking any more.

Half an hour down the road and we found Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, and we just had to stay here a couple of days as well - again beautiful beaches, but there was a lot more going on in the town with some great bars and restaurants. When we did decide to leave somebody, somewhere, thought it the wrong decision and conspired to have the ATM machine swallow our bankcard and convince the car that it shouldn't start.

Finally we headed for the border, our two-day blast through the country had turned into six, but we'd enjoyed what we saw of it. You could easily cross the country in a day by sticking to the Pacific side, but the Caribbean side looked more entertaining; our guide book hadn't said it was impossible to cross by vehicle here, then again it hadn't said it was possible either. As we approached the border, driving through the vast banana plantations towards the town of Sixaola, I was getting a little concerned that we hadn't seen a single Panamanian registered vehicle and began estimating the time it would take to cut back across the country and cross at Paso Canoas. To my relief we found that we could cross, albeit on the old banana bridge - a single lane, former railway bridge across the Rio Sixaola now used by banana lorries, some buses, many pedestrians and very few private vehicles.

So that was Costa Rica and our briefest stay in any country since Australia, also the shortest blog so far - relief all round then.

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