The draw of adrenaline

Another week flew by and I was a good girl and didn´t take the Friday off this week!  This week the children started to listen to me a tiny bit more, I spoke more Spanish and experienced my first earthquake siren.  Here´s a few pictures of the life I´m currently leading, well, for 4 more days anyway......

My house.

My cosy little bedroom.

Jorge, Lorena and Mariela -
my Costa Rican family.

The outside area at the centre where I work.

Interactive 1 - the class
where I work.

The children in my class.  They may look cute,
but they are very naughty!

This weekend saw a return to the beautiful lush, green cloud forests of Monteverde.  When Jo, Amy and I were here last time I really wanted to do another canopy tour.  Amy wasn´t keen, as her and I had already done one in Panama and Jo was scared of heights so was a definite NO!  However, the draw of being able to fly through the air like ´Superman´was enough for me to want to do it again!!  Its amazing what things adrenaline makes you want to do!

So, Anthony, Adrienne (two other volunteers) and I jumped on the bus Saturday morning, arrived before lunch in Monteverde and after some long debating, decided on the canopy tour with ´Adventura´, a company with 11 cables, one where you can fly like superman, one abseil (which turned out to be more like a very short fireman pole drop) and a 54 metre tarzan swing.  I was not enamored with the tarzan swing or the abseiling, but was desperate to do the superman cable.

It didn´t disappoint and although it was pretty scary (I didn´t look down) whizzing along a long, high cable, only attached by ropes from your back, hands and feet free, it was awesome!!  However, the tartzan swing was a whole other story. I did do it, but can´t say that I particulary enjoyed it.  I had my eyes shut, the guys pushed me off and I think my screams could be heard throughout the whole forest!  My stress levels at the bottom caused a panic attack as I was so worked up by the end!  Having laid down and managed to get back to breathing normally, I was proud of myself for doing it, but won´t do anything like that in a hurry again.

Adrienne, me and Anthony all kitted up and
raring to whizz down some cables!

At this point I was still undecided as to
whether to jump or not.

I walked out here with my eyes
shut.  The bridge wobbled A LOT!

This isn`t actually me, but you
get the idea of what I did!

Didn´t have a picture of the superman cable
as the photos were too expensive, so I
decided to draw a little diagram!!

It´s now back to Palmares for 4 final days of work.  Four weeks of volunteering has certainly passed really quickly!

A weekend at the beach

My second week of volunteering passed quickly and without any problems.  I now know the routine of the centre and what the children do when, which always makes things easier.  I was a little bit cheeky for my second weekend and took Friday off as I wanted to venture a little further afield and needed an extra day.


Manuel Antonio is a small National Park on the Central Pacific coast of Costa Rica.  It's white sandy beaches are lined with wild jungle and monkeys can be seen playfully swinging through the trees that line the beaches in the park. It's extremely popular with tourists so is definitely not a place off the beaten track.  However, I'd read and heard great things about it and really wanted to visit.


A simple and easy bus route took me from Palmares to San Jose and onto Quepos. Quepos is the town 7km north of the park and I decided to stay there for more amenities, cheaper accommodation and easy access to the return bus.  Arriving at 11.30am, I checked in, dumped my small bag into the room (being sure to grab a good bed first!) and then headed out to jump on a bus down to Manuel Antonio village and the beach.


The short, windy and hilly road hugged the pacific coast all the way down and ended up in a tiny village by the sea.  The beach by the town was outside of the park boundaries so was visited at no cost.  It was long, gently curving and with pounding waves, not unlike those that Amy and I saw at San Juan Del Sur.  After a little wander around the town, the heat of the day meant that the only place to be was in the sea!  I jumped some waves, got badly pounded by a couple and generally enjoyed the coolness of the water.

The main street in the town of Manuel Antonio.

Playa Norte - outside the park, 
next to the town.

Saturday was another hot day and the day to enter the park properly.  I booked onto a guided walk through the park as this always increases your chances of seeing wildlife.  Being as popular as it is, the park was packed with tourists which was a shame, but didn't take away from the excellent wildlilfe spotting.  The guide had a tremendous telescope which allowed us to get up close, well, visually anyway, to the variety of big and small animals in the park.  My sightings of sloths increased as we found lots and lots in the trees. However, I got my first sighting of a two toed sloth, and a baby!  There were also lots of monkeys and creepy crawly types of things.

A tree crab.

Colourful grasshoppers!

Mummy and baby two-toed sloth
(taken through the telescope).

With the wonderful guide, Miguel.

Wild flowers dotted the jungle tracks.

After the guided walk, I strolled around a new trail to some view points of the coastline before heading down to Manuel Antonio beach for a refreshing dip, followed by an afternoon of reading under the shade of the waving palms.

View of Manuel Antonio beach from the
walking trail round the headland.

Enjoying the beach, ready to find a shady
spot to spend the afternoon!

It's been a lovely weekend here and I'm glad that I visited.  It really is a beautiful part of the country.  I certainly haven't visited anywhere else where cheeky monkeys frolic around in the trees while you sit and watch from the soft, sandy beach!

With one free weekend left, best I get thinking about how to use it to the best of it's possibilities!

Back to Costa Rica and back to work!

After a very long wait at Belize airport (so long as unfortunately, the ferry times didn´t fit in very well with the flight times) I arrived in Costa Rica, rather late and rather tired.

I was met at the airport by a very friendly lady from the volunteer organisation who took a group of us to the hostel in Alajuela.  I was jammy enough to get myself a single room rather than a dorm bed as it appeared that all the beds in the room were taken and most people were asleep already.  I ended up with a huge double bed, own bathroom and air conditioning!  To say I was happy in an understatement!

The next morning, after a brief orientation of what to do and what not to do during the project, we headed off on the public bus to our various desitnations.  I´m living in the small, country town of Palmares, which is about an hour west of San Jose.  It´s very peaceful and the main source of work is agriculture.  The town is surrounded by green, rolling hills.

The view of Palmares town as I walk down
the hill to work each day.

I´m luckily enough to be living with a delightful Costa Rican family.  The mother, Lorena is so friendly, kind and really quite funny!  Her and I have a lovely chat after dinner each night.  She doesn´t speak any English, but is very patient with my Spanish!!  Her cooking is delicious too!  This is by far the best homestay of the three that I have done.  Also in the house are Jorge, the husband and Mariela, the daughter.  Mariela is supposed to be learning English, but HATES it and won´t speak it!  Her friends say I should practice with her!



Lorena and I on the front porch of the house.

The first week of volunteering has been a little odd initially, but by Friday I was more familiar with the routines and what I had to do.  The children are three to four and quite mischievious, especially the boys!  I play, chat, sing and dance with them and it is fun, although not when they are being naughty!  Syliva is the teacher in the class and she is very nice too.

There are some other volunteering in children´s centres in the area and we headed off to San Jose this weekend for a bit of culture in the capital of Costa Rica.  We visited the Museum of Contemporary Art which was as wacky as they usually are and wandered around some of the many plaza´s in the city.  Early afternoon the rain set in so an afternoon of relaxing at the rather nice hostel was opted for.  Evening saw a visit to the cinema for a hilarious film entitled ´21 Jump Street´!

Passing the time with a game of chess, draughts
or dominoes at the tables in the park.

The pretty plaza by the central bank.

Surrounded by pigeons in one of the plazas.

Spices for sale at the Central Market.

We returned to Palmares on Sunday afternoon and I can´t say that it is a city that has enthralled me really.  Next weekend we have far more exciting things planned...

A busy week in Belize

It's been the last week of my 3 months of travel in Central America and Amy and I have spent the whole week in Belize.


We arrived early on Sunday morning, into the Western town of San Ignacio and after a very early start (4.40am, with Amy having to scale the gate at the hotel and me passing all the bags over the gate, as we thought that it was locked, turned out it was very easy to open!) and border crossing, we found a hotel, followed by a cafe where we got a hearty breakfast.  After it was nap time!!


We booked two activities to do in San Ignacio and the first took us tubing down the Caves Branch River.  We were given a big inflatable tube and basically floated down the river, through two quite high ceiling caves.  I'm not a huge fan of caves and usually avoid going in, but Amy really wanted to do it so I decided that as long as I didn't have to crawl through any small gaps, I could manage it!

All set for the launch into the river.

Turned out to be super fun and not scary at all!  They gave us head torches and life jackets and after a short hike in the jungle, with a couple of river crossings, we made it to the entry point.  Comfortably fitted into our tubes, we floated peacefully along the river and through the caves.  The first cave was not that spectacular, but the second had pretty limestone formations and a freezing cold waterfall.

Floating through the first cave.

Classic silhouette picture!

We parked our tubes, climbed out over the side of the rock by the waterfall and went off to explore the 'Diamond Cave'.  This was my favourite part of the whole day as the cave was beautiful.  Every surface that you looked at glistened and sparkled like tiny diamonds as the cave rock was covered in quartz.  The limestone was also sweating, so tiny beads of water caught the light and it looked like fairy dust had been sprinkled everywhere!

The quartz in the 'Diamond Cave'.

Formations on the limestone 
created by water.

Mounting our tubes once again, we continued the float down stream and made it safely back to the start.  The tubing escapade has not cured me of my cave phobia, but it certainly was very enjoyable.

Floating, relaxing, enjoying the scenery!

Second on the agenda for San Ignacio was a trip to the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve.  It's an area south east of the town and obviously, as the name suggests is a pine forest!  We drove into the forest and visited the Rio Frio cave first.  It had lots of stalagmites but was nothing special like the Diamond Cave of the previous day.  We explored some of the waterfalls around the reserve and went for a swim at Big Rock Falls.  This was by far the most spectacular and gave you a nice massage if you managed to pin yourself under the falls for long enough!

The Rio Frio cave.

Rio on Pools waterfall.

Taking a dip at Big Rock Falls.

Next day we departed for Belize City and the zoo.  The city itself was pretty horrible and within the first half an hour, we had been ripped of by a taxi driver and a hotel owner.  Not a good start.  Our experience of the city didn't improve as we found no good food to eat and having wandered round, it was run down and very unappealing.  Luckily, we only stayed one night.


A bus ride back out the city in the afternoon took us to the Belize Zoo.  I wanted to go to spot some of the big cats and was not disappointed!  The animals in the zoo have all been rescued or born there and they live in natural surroundings.  We saw pumas, jaguars and ocelots, as well as various other animals.

The magnificent puma.

The resting jaguar.

Our final stop has been Caye Caulker.  An island 30 minutes boat ride from Belize city.  The small town has colourful wooden buildings lining the sandy streets and an unbelievably laid back, friendly feel.  We took a snorkelling trip out yesterday and enjoyed the varied sealife and colourful coral of the reef that runs along the Belize coast.  I was thrilled to spot a turtle, lots of sting rays and some sharks (friendly ones luckily!).

The quaint, sandy streets of Caye Caulker.

By the swimming beach on the island.

'The Budgetman' gave us some of the best food
that we ate on the island.

It's now time to close this chapter of travel and part ways with Amy.  It's been an amazing three months of travel in a fantastic part of the world, small but with so much to see!  I've really enjoying having friends to travel with and the excitement of deciding where we go and working out how to get there.


I'm flying back to Costa Rica tomorrow to begin the 4 weeks of volunteering that I signed up for.  This will be a new experience with new challenges.  Hopefully it will all be good!