The terribly uncomfortable and freezing night bus got us into David at about 5am, worryingly everything was shut and we thought we might have a long wait for things to open. Luckily there was one collectivo minibus shouting for Bocas so we jumped on. We had to sit on the back row and there was barely an inch of room and I had a little girl end up sleeping leaning against me. This bus was also freezing with the air con on, but after about an hour and a half, the sun came up and the air conditioning got switched off so it was incredibly hot. I don't know where the logic comes from in Latin america where they think the air con should be on at night so that its freezing and then switch it off when the Carribean sun comes up. We made it to the coastal town and got a taxi to the boat transfer. The boat was tiny but had two huge 300 horsepower motors on the back meaning it went incredibly fast and was painfully bumpy.

When we arrived in Boca's town it was very busy and incredibly hot. We went into a few hostels and hotels but they were all fully booked up, it was really hot and walking around with our bags was horrible. We eventually found one that had space but was $33 a night which was very expensive.

We went to lunch in a nearby place, all the restaurants showed the massive influence from the us in panama as they all sold pizza, hot dogs, burgers etc which you usually had to search for elsewhere. We had chillidogs and chips. We also found a really good supermarket, it was run by Chinese which they all were but it had really good stuff, it even had a section with all British food like Ritz crackers, mcvities digestives, cookies, lea n perrins etc. We bought some cookies, sweets and coke as well as some real milk! Which went down amazingly. We arranged a day tour for the next day then that night we went and had pizza for dinner and then went to the supermarket to buy dinner for the next day. We bought ingredients to make a bacon olive pasta, with cheddar cheese!! As well as stuff for sandwiches and some hobnobs.

We were woken by torrential rain and thunderstorm from about 5am, it didn't stop until 9am which is when the tour was due to start. I ran over to the office to ask and they said to give it a couple of hours to see if the rain would stop. It didn't stop but it did die down so the tour went ahead. We got soaked on the boat because it was again fitted with a unnecessarily large engine for such a large boat so all the rain was hitting us hard. We were looking for dolphins for a while but only saw tailfin occasionally. We then went snorkelling to some really good corals with good amounts of fish. It was cold out of the water but the water was beautifully warm.

After this we went to a beach island which would of been nice on a nicer day, and we had a full two hours here for some reason which no one was too happy about. We ended up playing pictionary in the sand to kill time.

Lunch came next and we shared a seafood mix, I liked it but Gráinne didn't. We then went wildlife spotting and with two seconds of pulling up to the bushes we saw a huge sloth climbing across branches. It was massive and looked about as big as me and was fully active. We moved around the corner to get a better look where there was another sloth hanging in a tree a few metres from us just laid on a branch scratching itself. We were really lucky that they were both so active during the day.

We headed back after this and made dinner which was amazing as it tasted like home.

The next morning we got up and got the speed boat back to the mainland. We got in a taxi to the bus station, which we thought was the same as where we got dropped off on the way here (about 10 minutes), but as soon as we turned the corner we saw the bus station we wanted and told the taxi driver to stop. We could have walked it in 20 seconds but paid the driver anyway as he was nice and got on a bus to the next town. Here we got a taxi to a bridge which was where we arranged to be picked up by the lady that looked after San San pond Sak national park. The place looked built up for tourists but was completely unused and untouched and Elizabeth came and had to unlock everything for us. It turned out Elizabeth was coming with us and seemed very pleased to have some people visit. We paid and got a free turtle keyring made from recycled plastic bags fished out of the river. They also had a cool boat that was made from an old american school bus, we didn't get this though we went on a small motorboat. On the way we saw another sloth, this time asleep, swinging from a branch by one arm just hanging there asleep. We tried clapping and whistling to wake it but it just stayed asleep swinging in the wind, we couldn't believe it.

When we got to the turtle research centre we were introduced to people and shown where they bury the eggs after collecting them. We were also shown our room which was a nice private room with linen and towels which we weren't expecting.

At two it was time to go to the manatee watching station, we went in the boat and tied bananas and leaves in front of the wooden platform, we then had to hide in silence on the platform then after about half an hour they arrived, we had to crawl and lay on the platform to watch. One was small and one was a big one, they would come out of the water with their humongous heads and pick the leaves and bananas with their weird lips that could pinch and grab like hands. You could also see their fins grabbing the vine of the plant to hold them still. We watched for about an hour before heading back.

We had dinner with all the other volunteers in a cafeteria type place, but everyone else was Spanish speaking. We had a huge meal with a jug of juice which was way more than what everyone else got which was a bit awkward. It was still chicken and rice of course but it was spiced chicken with vegetables and potatoes so was good.

We started the night patrol with Elizabeth, the patrolman and a Costa Rican student who had also just arrived. She spoke a bit of English which helped as no one else did. We walked for about an hour before stopping because the patrolman got a message, the Costa Rican girl pointed at something that looked like a tree stump on the beach and said 'tortuga?', the patrolman said no it wasn't and carried on on his phone. After a minute we walked on and the patrolman stopped abruptly as he realised it actually was a turtle! Him and Elizabeth sprung into mode pulling out equipment and clipboards like it was a reflex action. We went over with gloves on to pick up the eggs she was laying but we were a bit awe struck when we got close to the turtle, that we were lucky enough to witness a leatherback turtle laying her eggs. We stared at the hugeness of it, it was absolutely massive, it was incredible, its head was much bigger than ours and its shell alone was 1.53 Metres long! Its fins were as long as our arms and spotted with an amazing pattern. It kept looking at us but carried on with its egg laying. We picked up the eggs and bagged them, they were squidgy and weird, not what you'd expect. Once we were done and once all measurements had been taken we just watched the turtle kicking sand over the nest it had just dug. We would get splashed and hit with sand from its enormous fins whipping back. Eventually she headed back into the sea after getting confused as to which way the sea actually was. We carried on walking still not believing our luck, we reached the 5km mark then walked back and after about 4 hours reached the base again. On the way back we tried a fruit that grew on bushes, it tasted terrible but others seemed to love it. I don't know what it was but it sucked all the moisture from your mouth the second you put it in.

We left the next morning after pancake breakfast and got a bus from the side of the road to the border with the help of a local that spoke a very small amount of English.

Going through panama immigration was easy and stress free, we then had to walk across an old decrepit railway bridge to Costa Rican customs.

Costa Rica was an ordeal, the queue was huge and there were only two people stamping passports and other people there not doing anything. There was also tonnes of people pushing in, everyone was doing it and trying to justify it, because they were old even though they looked about 40, because they were a group- a family of 4. They were in a hurry, they were fat, they had a child, they were hot, they knew someone at the front, anything at all the would try and push in. It was also incredibly hot and we had to queue outside, then when we finally got inside a guy was shouting at people to move outside which was ridiculous because the queue was so big there was no room to go outside but he kept shouting, he was on some sort of power trip even though he wasn't even an official.

After eventually getting through we luckily hopped on a bus passing through to San José.

We got on but we had to look for two seats together, we couldn't find any that didn't have bags or belongings on where people had got off for immigration. We went to the back seat where there was an oldish Costa Rican couple on the whole back seats, they had bags on the seats which we asked if they could move so we could sit down, the woman threw the biggest huff and screwed her face up when we asked. Yes, she through a huff when we asked if we could sit on the seats instead of her bag!! The man got up and said the two in front of them were now free so we just sat there. When people got on the bus however we were sat in someone's seats, so they just lied to us so we would take someone else's seats so that they could have 5 to themselves! She was huffing and moaning the whole journey as well.