Note from Christopher: It appears that the comments section is becoming some kind of forum for the discussion of my underpants, and I feel I need to just clarify matters a little: I have three pairs with me (only two of which are blue). I know many of you may feel this is a little excessive for a trip of this duration, especially since I can only wear them one at a time, but I felt I should err on the side of caution when I was packing. The first pair began to get holes as a result of over-enthusiastic washing on the part of my wife before we had even left Alaska (I think she really liked the bar of pink handwashing soap with a nice lemony smell that we had bought in Sarah Palin's home town of Wasilla). The second pair was hijacked by a crab. The third pair are doing fine and I am considering putting them aside for my birthday, and other special occasions. Thank you all for your wonderful comments - we all love reading them.

22nd August

Leaving Granada today - and off to Costa Rica. We had an early start again, but not ridiculous luckily. Our first bus was at 7am to Rivas. Once we were there, we changed buses - our next bus was due to leave very shortly. Minutes before the bus went, Dad and Jack disappeared to the baños (toilet) while Mum and I sat on the bus without any money to pay for the bus. The boys had a hard time too. They had 7 minutes and Jack was really desperate! They crossed a road, asked 2 people where to go, went through the market, asked someone else where to go. They went this way and that way in the maze like market, asking more and more people where to go until finally, after asking a grand total of 9 people, they found it - what a relief! All the while Mum was practicing how to say: "STOP! My husband is not on the bus yet!" in Spanish. A few seconds before the bus went, they got back. So off we go again. This journey was to the frontera (border) with Costa Rica. Some passport stamps and a few dollars for taxes later, we got onto the next bus to Liberia, then from there we went to another place in order to get a bus to Tilaran where we were hoping to get on a final bus to La Fortuna. But, on arrival at Tilaran the last bus to La Fortuna had already left. A taxi driver tried to persuade us to take his taxi there for $70, so we stayed in Tilaran for the night.

23rd August

As you know we are going to La Fortuna today. When we got there we found a little flat to stay in, looked for lunch, made lunch, and went to see a waterfall. The waterfall was a long way away, but we got there (eventually after a lot of walking up and down hills). When we finally got there the waterfall was enooormous! As soon as I could I got changed and jumped straight in to its icy depths. I regret that. It was freeeezing (but probably not as cold as Crater Lake!) It was really hard to swim because the massive force of the waterfall was pushing us higgledy-piggledy.

24th August

Arenal volcano today! Ahhh we are 3 years too late! This volcano was active until 2010, but not anymore. Jack and insist that we saw smoke coming out of the top, but Dad says it was just cloud... Walking around he base of the volcano, through the jungle we spotted lots of interesting animals, including a massive dragon fly and two cotimundi's. The path took us to the lava field, unfortunately it was not molten, just hard cold rocks. On the way back to the the bus stop, we stuck out our thumbs to hitch a ride and guess what? A pickup truck stopped and we all climbed into the back. It dropped off at the bus stop, where whilst we were waiting for the bus we tried to hitch hike again. And would you believe it, the SAME truck picked us up again. This time we had a longer journey with the wind blowing us so much that when we got out our hair was sticking out everywhere like a bush. Our hair was soon flattened by a tropical rain storm, which turned the road into a river in a matter of seconds.

25th August.

Started the day at 4am with a bowl of porridge before catching the first of 3 buses towards Jaco. On the 3rd bus we crossed over 'Crocodile Bridge' and saw our first wild crocodile lying on the riverbank. We stopped at a stop in the middle of nowhere and got in a truck. This truck took us to the edge of a brown river, and drove off abandoning us! Mum and Dad didn't seem too concerned, and we sat down on a bench a chatted to a man who was there. Whilst we were there we saw a couple more crocodiles and a Jesus lizard (a lizard that can run on top of the water). We waited for a while and a little boat turned up and a man called José (pronounced hose-ay) told us to hop in, he then introduced us to his friend Loco (crazy) Jimmy! And off we set. Suddenly the boat pulled up onto a very muddy bank. Jimmy got out, swinging a chicken leg. An enormous crocodile, 3 or 4 times as big as Jimmy emerged from the murky depths. It climbed out and snapped at the chicken legs. Jimmy moved back, but the croc followed, snapping as it went. Eventually Jimmy gave up his chicken leg, the crocodile won! Our next stop was an even bigger crocodile, Jimmy didn't think we would get a good enough view so he shoved the croc back in the water to turn it around. More chicken and enormous snapping crocodiles followed, we even got to hold a crocodile's tail. And we definitely know why he is called Loco Jimmy. Caught our last bus of the day to Jaco, still excited by our Crocodile adventures.

26th August

Hung around in Jaco, swam in the Pacific Ocean, dodging the rip tides, then caught another bus to Quepos.

27th

August Manuel Antonio is a national park in Costa Rica, near to where Jurassic park was filmed, with beautiful beaches and rain forest. It certainly rained today. We set off in a torrential down pour. I was very wet and very grumpy. Until we heard a howler monkey, I thought I saw it in the tree above us, but Mum said 'don't be silly that is a coconut'. Admitting that I was right, she changed her mind when the 'coconut' lept, howling onto another tree. After a long soggy walk crossing many rivers - only one of which was meant to be there- we got to a rocky beach, where the sun came out and we had a picnic. The beach was covered in lots of tiny shells, that started to move. We soon realised that, they were hermit crabs trying to hide from us. Their disguise wasn't very good, because they would be scurrying around, but when you got near them they stopped and pretended to be a shell. Sometimes the didn't even fit very well. They were really funny and silly to watch. Mum, dad and Jack were studying the crabs when i gave a tremendous yell, they ignored me, so I carried on until they realised what I was yelling about - I had just seen a racoon running towards us. We chased it across the beach to get a picture, but the raccoon wasn't really interested in us - it headed straight for someone's picnic and tried to steal it. Through the rest of the day we saw loads more racoons - mostly stealing food, two very lazy sloths, a spider monkey, millions of little capuchins and some agoutis (giant ratty things) Mum got stung by a jelly fish, a lady got bitten by a racoon and we had a lovely swim. 28th August A few buses later and we are at the Panama boarder, there was some confusion as the bus dropped us off in no-man's-land between the boarders and we tried to get in to Panama before we had properly left Costa Rica. We sussed it out though and went back to Costa Rica, left again and eventually entered Panama.

29th August

Today we got on a series of buses each getting smaller and smaller, and fuller and fuller until we ended up at a cross road in the middle of nowhere with only a small straw roofed cafe. We had some lunch, and Dad walked off to find out how to get to the Isla de Cañas. We waited for a long while, then we looked up to see Dad skidding to a stop using his flipflops on a brakeless bicycle accompanied by a small boy on another bike. The boy got everyone organised and we hopped in to the back of another truck with the bikes and zoomed off to the sea. We got into a little boat with boy and his dad and sped off to the Isla. We arrived to the sound of a band playing. We followed them through the village until we found our room for the night, and we were then whisked off to the deserted beach were we had some races. As dusk fell, we were introduced to the the most annoying and least liked inhabitants of the island. MOSQUITOES! Millions of them, they could even bite through clothes. However they were not what we were here for. After dinner, when it was dark, we all got dressed in long trousers and tops, sprayed ourselves in mosqito spray and crept off to the beach. We walked up the beach in complete darkness, occasionally bumping into other people doing the same. Eventually we came to a stop, we waited for what seemed like hours watching shooting stars and looking at the milky way. Then we returned the way we came, until we came across a huddle of people. This is what we were here for! A turtle had come ashore to lay her eggs on the beach and she had just buried them. We watched her pushing herself along with her flippers back to the sea. It made me feel so happy. It was an amazing thing to see.

30th August

Arrived in Panama City this evening. There are loads of sky scrapers here. We found somewhere to stay and then went out for dinner to a place called cafe coca-cola. But we didn't have coca cola, we had lemonade!

31st August

The Panama Canal was finished in 1914. It is an 80km canal that cuts across Panama from the Caribbean sea (connected to the Atlantic) to the Pacific Ocean. Allowing massive ships to pass between the continents. The biggest container ships have to pay up to $400,000 each time they use the canal. Today we went to Miraflores locks to watch some of those massive ships travel trough the canal system. It was pretty incredible. Apparently they are making it bigger so that ships about 3 times as big will be able to use the canal. I wonder how much they will have to pay? Maybe 3 times as much $1,200,000?????

1st September

Got a taxi, a bus, and another bus all the way to the Caribbean coast at Portobello. We had to take the bus because we couldn't afford the $400,000 to go along the canal. Watched dogs eat soup, played on a castle then got in a tiny boat to get onto a purple sailing boat in the middle of the harbour. This was to be our home and transport for the next 3 days and 4 nights. We are going to Colombia via the San Blas Islands. On board was Captain Daniel, First Mate Cecile, Jean-Charles another passenger and of course us including Jack the Cabin Boy. The boat was called the Basta (Spanish for 'enough') We had a little cabin that was just a bed. We set sail (except we didn't set sail because there was no wind, so they used the motor) that night for San Blas.

grandma oh!wow! your trip gets better and better! crocodiles, turtles, racoons amazing.I would love to see the turtles. I will have to talk to Grandpa about that. I hope Mums jelly fish sting is better. AND I am very glad that dad has enough pants. lots of love.

Sep 7, 2013

Grace and Otis I wonder if your mum will mistake Jack for a coconut because he is a bit of a monkey too. What did the crocodile tail feel like ? Bring home a crocodile sandwich and make it snappy! Was the sloth called Sid (from ice age). Say thank you to your dad for explaining about his pants we won't worry about them anymore. Did you forget to pack an electric fly swatter? x

Sep 8, 2013

Wendy Oldfield Hi, absolutely loving your blog! Thought we might have had to some fundraising at Brownies for some more pants!! Your adventures sound fantastic - think you might need to consider writing a book when you get back home. Tell mum they've postponed the move till January (in her honour) that's if there's enough money left!!! Can't wait for next 'edition'.

Sep 8, 2013

the birds Well I have to say that we are all sleeping so much better now we are clear on Chris pants situation. Glad you are having a fab time and it was lovely to speak the other day! I was however in big trouble with harry that I got to speak to jack and he didnt! Liking the sound of the messy wind blown hair Anya!!!! Keeping it up while you are away I see! X

Sep 11, 2013

Tams & Graaaaa Sounds like you're all having a truly amazing time! Miss you all. Keep living the dream xxx

Sep 12, 2013

grandma and grandpa Hippo Birdy Jack. Hope you had a fantastic Birthday on Thursday. Xxxxxxxx.

Sep 21, 2013