So, I mentioned the Sushi restaurant. As it happened Lin wasn’t feeling great and so decided to give it a miss. As a result Andy was a Billy no mates and ate on a table for one. It was very nice Sushi though!

This was supposed to be a quiet few days following the activity of the last 10 days or so and that was how it turned out. We decided to spend the next day by the pools - more accurately one of the five available. But first we had to find an ATM with cash in it so we caught the early shuttle bus which dropped us off at a bank on its route. We successfully withdrew some large notes and then decided we should go into the bank to change them. This involved being ‘wanded ’ by a security man to make sure we weren’t armed and about to hold up the place! Satisfied he let us in and, after a short wait sitting in the banking hall, our number (like you get at fish counters in supermarkets in Europe) was called.

We had decided that we would eat at a restaurant called El Avion in the evening and, as it was not far down the road, we decided to undertake a coffee recce. El Avion is based around a complete aircraft and it is worth reading from their website at:

https://www.elavion.net/history
See also some pics.

Our pool (referred to above) just happened to be handy for the swim up pool bar as well! Lin felt better so normal service was resumed.

Later, we got the shuttle at 5.15 which dropped us off at El Avion as we had decided to see the sunset (it is set up high and faces due west) which turned out be yet another stunning one and then eat early.

The following day was to be our last and, looking at the weather forecast, it looked like the afternoon would be quite cloudy so we had decided to take a taxi to Quepos, the nearest town about 15 minutes away. In the event, there was very little cloud and we decided to stay around the pool and forgo the joys of T shirt buying!

As with most mornings we were awake early (for us) around 6.30/7 generally caused by macaws kicking off in the tree outside our room or monkeys bouncing on the roof! The latter are the white faced or capuchin variety named after the coffee type! We were generally fed and watered by 8.15 so on this last day we were down by the pool for a dip and a couple of hours sunbathing before being picked up at 11.30.

The journey back to San Jose was another boring 4 hour drive - distance wise it’s not that far but much of the road has a 60kph speed limit and Costa Rican drivers don’t seem to ‘do’ overtakes so we sat behind a Panamanian registered truck for mile after mile - it must take him days to get up from Panama - and then a moped!! Oh and it chucked it down with rain! We made a quick comfort stop at the Crocodile bridge so the driver could have lunch. He only spoke a little English but seemed to have pre recorded commentary in English on things of interest along the route!

So finally, we were dropped off at the airport to find that the flight was delayed by about an hour because the incoming flight was late. In fact, we landed at LGW only 20 minutes late due to a good following wind and, indeed, were out of the airport in 30 minutes! We declined to pay £124 for a taxi and caught a train to North Camp instead!

That’s nearly all for this blog although I shall do a wildlife list and a few disconnected jottings to finish things off! All in all it was a great trip even if it was a year late, but probably better that we did delay it.

ADOG & LMAG xxxx