Well. We have finally found a computer which works fast enough to type more than one word a minute, so heres a good update (i hope) of the last few weeks, and some good pics going up! We spent the last 2 weeks between Pavones and Matapalo. We scored both pretty good. Pavones was really good when it was big. It broke about the length of fistral beach and lefthanders all the way! Had some real long leg burners, got out, ran back up the point like a grom and then back in for another one! We had it upto double over head, and it dropped to about chest high. When small its a little too fast and doesnt link up too well, but we were still ripping! Pavones is a good wave, but as with most of costa, full of overly excited and double left footed yanks! Matapalo was good. Getting to the break took a while and we had to stay in Puerto Jiminez as there wasnt any budget accomo near to the waves. We surfed backwash, which was average, and matapalo point which was a real nice right hander with only 5 of us in! It was really nice and empty out there, and being the most bio-diverse area of costa, we saw some really cool wildlife. 2ft iguanas are like seeing seagulls at home now, and loads of amazing coloured butterflies, howler, whitefaced and spider monkeys, racoons, scarlet maccaws and a sloth! One of the most fun things we did at jiminez was to go kayaking through the mangroves. It was a very random thing. It started off really nice, me (aaron), becky. bubbles, lou and a couple of scared canadians being guided and talked through the meandering mangrove by our guide Alberto. We saw a little bit of wildlife, and then as the mangrove got tighter we started doing a bit of crashing into trees. The weather got increasing worse, and when alberto stopped us to show us the "effect of the mangrove" we sat in calm waters looking up at the trees above for them to be swinging violently in the wind. Cool we all thought, thats until the trees started falling down - beginith the worst strom of the year so far. Our guide didnt seem bothered though, and carried on taking us deeper into the mangrove. The rain was pouring down torrentially, and lighting was going off above. ALberto decided we should turn back though when a tree fell down and nearly took bubbles out! So we made our way back up the mangrove, the plan was to get out halfway along and then go back via the sea. Alberto thought it might be a bit rough on the sea, and the canadians wanted to get back asap. But we Brits wanted our moneys worth, and so we went back along the sea, sitting in the middle of the choppy ocean sitting in a goat boat, holding a metal oar in the closest electrical storm ever (well not quite as close as the one with seccombe in oZ!!!) Alberto seemed unfazed, everyone else was paddling pretty hard to try and get back, fork lighting was going off every 8 seconds and the sky was lighting up purple. Dolphins even came up along side the kayaks for a while which was cool. Alberto stopped us a little further along and said in a soft a delicate tone " the storm is very close, and we could either risk 10 more mins to get back, or sit it out here" Well, the canadians were letting out little nuggets by this stage, they had a CBS radio with them and wanted to call for help - Alberto said no-one would come though, so then they decided they wanted to drag their kayaks back along the beach! Well good job us brits are made of sterner stuff. We just cruised on back through the middle of the storm as happy as larry, Lou did decide to spice things up a little by capsising her kayak, but we all made it back in one peice! What an adventure, but it wasnt until we got a ride back in a jeep, standing in the back like storm chasers that we realised the extent of the storm. The electricity was out, and it was dark by now, as we drove along by the harbour, all the locals were out checking thier boats with torches. loads had been capsised, or split in half, peices of road and houses were in the road and trees had been split in half! It was so random and i felt like we were driving through a natural disaster! Well the next morning showed it wasnt really that bad, and apparently in the wet season it happens quite a lot, but it certainly was exciting for us! And so after returning to Pavones to collect Mark and Aurelie, we escaped costa and made for the boarder to panama. After a days travelling we are a mere 2 hours away from santa catalina in a place called sona. We went out for some food last night, the place could only offer us meat and chicken - no veg, and not even rice and beans! a little upset by this we decided to go into a locals bar and get a 20pence beer! These old local boys came over and wanted us to play one of our music cds, as they wanted to have a party and dance with the "skinny people" (as the whole town had been calling us apparently!) when we said we didnt have one, a story developed somehow that i was in a famous boy band in the UK, so tonight they are getting a microphone out for me to sing to everyone. Good job we are getting a bus in 4 hours!!! And so we should be in santa catalina by this arvo, right hand points are the name of the game there, and after, we are going to head to the next peninsula east (azure or something like that) where Venal is, which is supposed to be an empty beachie which breaks like croyde. Then me and becky will leave Aurelie and markio to go to Bocas del Torro on the carribean. All is cool, tans are good, surifng pretty much every day for upto 5 hours is very good and the beans, i love the rice and beans. Glad that Mildrid Stanhope has contacted Becky, she was wondering where she was!! Might be a while til the next installment as we are heading into the land of no phone lines! Take care Huche and Bekio