We said goodbye to San Pedro and boarded the shuttle bus (basically a mini bus) to Languin a days drive north. The mini bus was jamed full of gringos also going north. Consequently the overloaded bus literally crawled over the numerous potholes and steep mountainous roads.

The first leg was back to Antigua where we had to change buses for the longer leg of the journey. Again we had a mini bus that was almost three quarters full. It is normally against the law to travel without being full, however I could pick up bits of Spanish from the driver indicating that there were more to come. As it turned out a lot more. The people getting on just looked at the bus in disbelief, fortunately the boss agreed to find another bus that eventually turned up an hour later.

The driver was keen to get going, and sure enough we were making a good safe pace with tyers screeching round most of the corners. I thought that I might as well put on the seatbelt rather than have it dig in, but of course it didn't work.

The speed was short lived, soon my head was bobing forwards and backwards in unison to constant acceleration and deacceleration in heavy traffic.

As the traffic started to ease a bit, I started to question whether the driver was being safe. Overtaking on blind bends and driving on the bumper of the vehicle in frount. If we didn't have enough to worry about, large sections of the road were missing due to landslides. They don't have cones here they just put rocks on the road to stop you driving over the edge.

After 12 hours on the road we changed drivers for one that didn't have a death wish. Soon we were on a dirt road that dropped down for an eternity through a heavily vegetated valley. At the base of this valley next to a fast following river is Languin.

At the El Retiro we were led down almost pitch dark paths to some thatched semi detached bamboo cabins. We could here the crickets, river gurgling nearby and some music by the river. Of course we had to check it out.