Firstly, I apologise to everybody who has been reading my blog for such a long break since my last post! I have spent the last two weeks in the Galapagos islands, where internet is either very slow or non existent so regular updates were not possible although I hope to write a proper update from then soon. In the meantime let me give you all an update from Costa Rica! SUNDAY After a crazy last night in Quito involving absolutely no sleep I arrived in San Jos...

SATURDAY We had a lazy start to the day after last night, just watching movies on ipods and popping into Puerto Villamil to pick up a couple of obligatory post cards with tortoises. We were quite keen to go snorkelling at 'Las Tintoreras' where the sea lions and penguins swim and there's a canal for white tip reef sharks but viz was apparently pretty bad coz of the tide. Lunch passed eventfully with much chat of last night's antics - helpful for Liz who had a ve...

WEDNESDAY Our first day of volunteering! We walked to work along a nice path past the pink flamingo pond and then a mangrove boardwalk surrounded by the 'manzanillo' trees which are poisonous, although the tortoises can eat them. I was so excited to get to the tortoise breeding centre - and shocked by all the tortoises, there were hundreds! After meeting Fernando and Luis, the two coordinators we split into two groups; the boys with the bigger tortoises (incl...

MONDAY I got up before 5.30 this morning to get to Quito airport for our flight to Baltra on the Galapagos. In the van I met the other people who are going to be working at the giant tortoise research station with me, there´s a couple called William and Judith who are quite quiet but nice, an older guy called Peter and Angus and Liz. Angus is at the beginning of a year trip and Liz at the end and between we all have a smattering of Spanish so we should get ...