Today was a moving day. There was still damp in the air and Kevin went out to a supermarket to buy pastries for breakfast.

We ordered a taxi towards the airport sector to pick up our hire car. It maybe says something about the roads here that the standard 4WD hire is not a Toyota HiLux but a Toyota Rush.

The route 1 heads north towards Liberia and Nicaragua. It is part of the Panamericana route that links Alaska to Ushuaia. Apart for slow lanes, it is mainly single carriageway. The traffic fell away as we headed away from the capital. Our taxi had told us the route to La Fortuna would take about 2 and a half hours. The scenery is lush and rolling with stalls and stores along the sides of the road as well as food sellers. We could see the currently active Volcan Poas shrouded in low cloud.

At San Ramon we turned north onto a smaller road. It was paved and not disimilar to the wider roads in the Peak District. Occasionally the road became wide enough for one vehicle to cross bridges. There seemed to be mainly small holdings selling vegetables and artisan cheeses.

The weather was overcast with clouds but the unmistakeable conical shape of the bottom of Volcan Arenal soon appeared.

Joan had spent ages memorising the location of the house we were hiring and took us straight to the spot where it was indicated on the lettings website. It was nowhere to be found. Having called the owner, Grant, we discovered it was not on the edge of town but some 5 kilometres away near where the thermal springs are. We found it easily enough and were very pleasantly surprised to discover that it was as picturesque as the photos on the lettings website.

Grant, the Canadian owner and the housekeeper, Mariana greeted us. We'll post lots of pictures later of the house but what was most amazing was the garden full of multi-coloured birds. It was paradise!

It gets dark early here and there are no street lights, so we headed back into town to a supermarket and bought provisions. Prices are similar or maybe a little more than at home.

Mossies feed at dusk so we shut all the doors and ate inside - Aubergine Parmigiana. The darkness was all encompassing - very black. Mossie danger over - we sat outside on the terrace with a wine.