Costa Rica was originally going to be my last stop in Central America as I had planned to fly to Colombia from there, missing out Panama. However the more I heard about both Costa Rica and Panama, I decided to spend only a couple of days in Costa Rica and head for Panama. Apparently, Costa Rica was going to be very expensive, (about the same as Europe) and was very touristy, whereas the Bocas del Toro archipelago on the North West Caribbean coast of Panama was worth a visit and I'd always fancied seeing The Canal.

It seemed like a long trip from San Juan del Sur, including 2 taxis, 3 buses 1 border crossing and 40km of unpaved roads and finally we arrived in the cloud forest town of Monteverde. The options of things to do there seemed endless, zip wires over the canopy, butterfly gardens, tours of the forest day & night, tree climbing, frog pond - all at a price though. The guys were really keen to do the zip wires and we concluded that the adrenalin rush that they anticipated and I lacked was due to their fear of heights. I am not concerned about heights and wasn't that interested in doing the zip wires. Instead I opted to take a short hike around one of the cloud forest parks including 8 suspension bridges. You can take a girl out of Engineering....! Having done very little exercise it was good to stretch my legs a little, although having been at sea level for a week I really felt the 1600m altitude. I'd taken my iPod too, which I often do on walks, but the sounds of the forest were amazing and I couldn't bear to listen to music, the natural soundtrack was so much better. The only downside was that it was over too quick - I know I have a tendency to walk quickly and that I was excited about using my legs, but I think the route had been timed for podgy tourists ambling about the forest, my power walk was soon over.

We also climbed up the middle of a tree. Let me explain this a little better, there is a type of tree here, called the Strangler Fig that grows around the trunk of other trees and then strangles the original tree. It then kills the original tree leaving a hollow centre, and a perfect climbing frame.

The night tour of the cloud forest was great, although we were very unfortunate with the animals and saw very little. Armed with a torch and a local guide, we wandered about the cloud forest for a couple of hours looking for the local residents, but were rewarded with very few sightings, a couple of tarantulas, toucanet (well the back of 2 of them), crickets, stick insects, porcupines and hundreds of mosquitos, but the sloths that we were hoping to see were not out to play.

The quickest way to get to our next desitination, La Fortuna, was minibus, boat, minibus. As the crows flies, the 2 towns are less than 20 miles apart, but the volcanoes and hills in the way make a direct route impossible and the journey took just over 3 hours. La Fortuna sits at the foot of an active volcano, however apparently only the west side is active and thankfully, the town is located at the east end. We spent the afternoon in the hot spring, nice but ever so touristy, as is the town itself and there's no real feeling that you're in Costa Rica, we could have been in a town in the middle of the States. So after one quick night and, definitely worth a mention, the best shower of the trip so far (hot, clean, powerful AND shower gel) it was time to head back to the coast again, to Puerto Viejo.

After another long day travelling that ended up being a quick stopover too and therefore we didn't really do it justice, but from first impressions I liked it, it seemed more Costa Rican that the other 2 places we'd visited.

And so Panama is calling, as is the Southern American continent, I should be arriving in Colombia at the beginning of August for what I consider to be part 2 of the tour as I think Central & South America will be quite different. Costa Rica disappointed me to be honest, the tales I'd heard from people further north in Central America turned out to be fairly accurate and I never really felt that I was getting value for money there. It's a shame as the scenery is stunning, I enjoyed all my journeys within the country and happy to announce that I've still not been travel sick, well I've not vomited yet and the sick bag that comes with me on each journey is still untouched. Well done me!