It's been a while since our last update as we've been back in the UK for a few weeks for Toby and Karen's wedding (awesome fun) and seeing family and friends (lovely) in between learning to ride a motorbike (Anton) and going out for lots of lunches and drinkies (Katy). And with us just about to embark on the second part of our trip, we first of all need to fill you in on our final place back in April - Panama City!

We were quite excited about what we'd read about the City with its Havana-esque old town and Miami-esque new town. And yep it was worth the 11 hour bus journey to get there. The old town is packed with streets of derelict old colonial buildings with the odd one having been doshed up by some rich American. Will be amazing to see what the place looks like in another 10 years or so. I'll make sure that our next visit is not during the rainy season however... After two months of scorchio sun and blue skies in Central America, the rainy season hit the day we arrived and it hit hard. Never seen so much rain! We had to spend most of our time in the City ducking from cafe to cafe! Luckily the skies cleared enough for us to take a trip out to the Panama Canal - that skinny strip of concrete that shipmen pay thousands and thousands and thousands to travel through. Stupidly we didn't get out of bed early enough to see a cruise liner go through (mega lazy after 8 months away) - would have been fun to see all those grannies waving their hankies - but we did see a big Greek oil tanker that literally squeezed through the locks with only a few feet either side of its hull.

A 15 hour freeeeezing bus journey back to San Jose, Costa Rica (damn air con - apparently they put it on full blast so the driver doesn't fall asleep - er... what about the rest of us shivering for the entire journey?!) and then a hop skip and a jump via Madrid back to London Heathrow. Can't believe the first part of our trip is over... but we don't expect any sympathy as road trip USA awaits!!