In between the torrential showers i thought i would venture out and have my usual internet fix! How the days pass and its already nearly been a week since the last blog!Wet sums up the last week and the theme is continuing! I started a new phase of independent travels on the 26th morning after spending our lovely wet christmas day in the cloud forest.We had said goodby to most of the group the previous week so Jo and I, the longtimers had our own little mini celebrations decorating our room with decorations and candles! Bless our poor guide on Christmas morning. He was so entuiastic about the wonders of all things green in the cloud forest but after an hour geting completely drenched the only question we seem to be able to muster up was ' could we change the time of our pick up to an hour earlier!in appreciation for his relentless optimism we gave him a good tip and looked after him well for christmas.Kirsty had booked the tree house restaurant for lunch so in keeping with the theme we had lunch indoor but amongst the trees. I got extremely excited about my secret santa present, a very well chosen scarf which i really like and alot better than some of the dodgy tourist tshirts and mugs that were frequent!after mass I joined the others at a very dodgy local pub. A local group were playing but I think we entertained the locals more with our appalling attempt at salsa and the likes!The didn't seem to like the idea at all of two girls dancing together as Jo and i took over a corner. Alot better than dancing with some dodgy local I assure you!

After a quick night stopover in San Jose on the 26th , i headed off early on the 27th to catch the 6am bus to cross the border. I had a lovely old local man sitting next to me who was keen to chat so my spanish got a good workout. His wife put him on he bus , put his packed lunch on his lap ad told me to keep an eye on him. You get the picture! I crossed the border to be greeted with your usual local guides promising you ' a real cheap price ' to bring you to the ferry port. Cute as they are they already have your bag on top before you can say no! anyway it all worked out well and I caught a ferry over to Isla Colon off the north coast of Panama. I joined a boat tour yesterday heading off in the morning to see some of the other islands close by.First stop was to see the dolphins but the poor things it felt like disneyworld other than the fact there were in the open. There must of been 10 boats surrounding them waiting in anticipation for a sighting. After abit of deliberate wave making they sprung into action. Next we were dropped off to do some snorkelling but the water was cloudy and the coral scarce, not a patch on Belize. I got chatting to 5 canadian girls and their very sweet gay friend so i joined them for lunch. The Heavens opened shortly afterwards and it never stopped for three straight hours. We got drowned coming back and it was all very entertained to see how the darker sides of people come out the wetter they got.We were suppose to go a beach but obviously with the rain there was no point. One french guy insisted on going so we dropped him off and then some others starting deliberating whether to go or not. Getting wetter by the second people starting getting very serious and the sarcastic comments abounded ' are you staying or going cause we're leaving now!

After a very hot shower and afternoon nap I arranged to join the canadian group for dinner at 7. The had very kindly insited that i did!I got there a little early so as I ordered a drink this american guy comes up to me leaving his friend and says ' we don't know that many people here but you are more than welcome to join us for dinner'.. what irish guy would ever have the neck!By coincidence, well it´s a one street town, the canadian group had met these guys the night before so we formed a nice big table and had a great dinner. 'We had alot of fun' and ' the food was just awesome'. I even surprised myself by partaking in one or two drinking games and the evening turned into early morning in a reggae bar down the road!