The jungle surprises and delights

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Costa Rica was not one of the reasons we picked this voyage so it came as an extra delight to discover what a great country it is. There are hardly any high rise buildings so when you come up to dock at Puntarenas's single big ship mooring, you are able to look beyond the single street of buildings and straight into jungle.

If you've ever thought - and you may well not have done! - that paint in the UK lacks a bit of oomph, I now know why. All the pigment went to Costa Rica! The buildings aren't just painted pink, yellow and green. They are painted PINK, YELLOW and GREEN! I also don't know how the driving system is meant to work out here either because you just appear to pick a lane you like the look of and only move over if someone comes from the opposite direction! Weird but it works.

We had a very early start this morning at 7.15 am but there's a good reason for that. It's already 82 degrees C at that time of the morning with very high humidity. It really helps to do your major touring around in the relative cool of the morning.

Our first stop was on the restored Pacific Railroad train which was seriously clackety and utterly charming. I've never been on a train that climbs such steep inclines: way up in to the foothills of one of Costa Rica's 4 mountain ranges. And right near the end of the line, the train stopped and the guides rushed off and were calling into the trees. And then an amazing noise came back. It was the loud, very loud, call of the Howler Monkeys. The driver then backed the train up a short distance and called for everyone to get off the train so that we could see and photograph this little troup of about 12 or 13 monkeys. The Howlers live right up in the canopy and don't move much as they are vegetarian and get very little nutrition from the leaves they eat. Which was great because it meant we saw them lots. I've never ridden a train that stopped, backed up and let you get off just to take photos. It was really rather special.

Then we took a long coach ride deep into the countryside and then into the mangroves at the edge of the jungle. Here we boarded boats for a ride along the mangrove canals. We hadn't even left the pier when we spotted a Crab Eating Racoon. On the opposite bank was our first of many crocodiles. Flashes of bright red in the trees proved to be Crimson Macaws. Dark blue and orange was the world's smallest Pygmy Kingfisher. Birds included Warblers, Mangrove Swallows, Blue Heron, an Ibis and even an Osprey. But the crocodiles were the real stars of the show. We saw lots: in the water, out of the water, mouth shut and snoozing, mouth open waiting for small birds to come and clean their teeth. But the best bit was a seriously large croc sitting half in and half out of the water. He was fat and just like the pictures you see on TV. About 3.5 metres long. He really was very impressive.

This afternoon, we've just chilled by the pool and will be off to dinner shortly. We're now 6 hours behind the UK so it's weird thinking of people back home in bed and us just sitting down to dinner.

Because Cunard cancelled our visit to Acapulco, we now have 3 days at sea so the blogs will be shorter again and totally dependant upon getting a decent signal out at sea.

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