The Monday was a very lazy day, we slept until lunchtime and then went to Montevideo Shopping to send off our insurance papers to Australia (from the hosptial bill in costa rica, we´d been waiting on statements etc.) and ate lunch there at La Pasiva and La Cigale. Then had dinner with the family. Next morning we headed to Ciudad Vieja on the bus (old town) and had a walk around, checked out the cathedral as Dario had never been inside. There are lots of shops and stalls on the street selling lots of things, but especially jewellary. We walkeddown to the water where there were heaps of people fishing, then off to Mercado del Puerto for lunch, were the Asado is the specialty and it was amazing! we sat at the bar across from where ... read more

We arrived in Montevideo pretty exhausted and Dario thought we had got off the plane in the wrong country, apparently the airport had changed a bit (later we were told that it was all brand new, and the old airport was next door). We went through customs etc very fast, bought some whisky for Tato at duty free and were greeted by Tato, basically family of Dario but not by blood... family friend. It was 5am so we were very grateful he came to pick us up. We drove back to his place, met the 2 guard dogs (so friendly thought) Nelson and Patiño and crashed out in the room they had made up for us in the back granny flat. We got up at 12 and ate lunch with Tato and Quela his wife ... read more

Next morning we had to get up super early to have breakfast as our bus left at 7am. We left as the sun was risng. The bus to trinidad took all day, we arrived at about 4 (the timetable says arrival at 2, but we were late). We stopped at a few places on the way for food and bathrooms. The casa in Viñales had organised a casa in Trinidad for us and they were waiting for us with a sign once more. I went with the bags and the hostess on a bicitaxi to the casa while the boys walked. It was a bumpy ride as most of the streets are cobble stone. The room was up on the second floor with a kind of balcony that was the roof of the floor below. The ... read more

The next day we didnt do much but eat, watch tv and catch up on all the documentation we needed for the insurance claim. We needed to get copies of everything done and printout some pieces so that took most of the afternoon as we were a little slow in getting around the place. We also had to change all our flight details so Dario called the airlines and arranged all of that as well as calling my doctor at the hospital to get a bit more info about what we should and shouldn’t do for the next little while. Thankfully she said it was ok for us to go to Cuba, and just don’t get bitten by mozzies. The hotel Miami was very helpful with directions to all the places we needed to go and ... read more

Over the next few days we didnt get any better, we got worse! We managed to go to the serpentarium with over 40species of snakes there and to the Ranario, lots of frogs and the butterfly house which was pretty cool, lots of greenhouses with live butterflies. But the rest of the time we stayed in the room. Finally we decided we had to move to Cahuita, on the other side of the country. We took the 6am bus to San Jose, then a midday connection to Cahuita, we arrived in the arvo. We found a hotel called Surf Side Cabanas for $20 a night, private bathroom and a kitchen. This side of the country as a much higher rate of spoken english, the caribean accent again. We both still felt ill and next morning we ... read more

Finca de Magdalena was about a Km from where we got off the bus in Balgue. Dario went and hired a bike to ride to the farm and ask for availability and prices. He returned a while later... bloody and dirty!! He had managed to hit a rock coming down the hill and went over his handlebars. Nurse Jess had the task of cleaning and bandaging! The patient meanwhile got offered spirits from the locals and bought himself a beer to manage the pain. A farmer from Magdalena came and met us later on his horse to take our big bags up the hill so we didnt have to carry them all the way, which was luck,y, it was further than I thought! The farm was just what we needed, hammocks on a large deck looking ... read more