Still loving the beach life, we went south into Panama and to the islands of Bocas del Toro. Apparently these are normally a tropical paradise, but recent storms have swept tons of rubbish onto the beaches, so the white sands are now grey and covered in litter. Such a shame, but we still managed to enjoy the local rum, food and bars.

Christmas day was spent in our own little apartment, equipped with our own kitchen, bathroom, walk-in wardrobe, balcony and best of all...cable TV! Christmas day was as per normal...lots of rain, kiddies films, copious amounts of food and wine and pj´s until late afternoon - just missed the real tree and decor. Our afternoon was spent trudging through 5 inch mud and horse poo to reach the Wizard beach on a nearby island...not what we had planned but we had to laugh!

With 5 days left before our flight to Rio, we left the islands to head to Boquete, a small town in the west of Panama. Unfortunately due to all the heavy rains, the one and only access road had literally been washed away (see video), so our driver (an Avis rental driver who kindly picked us up) took us to the nearest town - Chiriqui Grande...what a hell hole. Luckily for us, some friends had also tried the same route and were also stuck in ´the hole´, so we bought 3 bottles of rum and danced the night away in the local nightclub...DJing our own tunes from personal ipods!

Finally, after waiting over 24 hours we were able to cross to Boquete using the mud road constructed overnight to replace the tarmac that had washed away - scary. After a brief stay in Boquete, we were on the road to Panama City and stopped at a small beach resort called Las Lajas with some friends...more sand and sea frolics...and a desperately needed 5 a-side footie game for James: Gringos 15 - Locals 0!

Panama City was our last stop in Central America, and we loved it. Shame we only had 2 days to explore, before we took the scariest taxi drive of our lives to the airport and had to run to catch our flight, 40 mins before takeoff...what an end to a colourful, exciting, action-packed 7 week adventure through Central America.