Well we arrived in Costa Rica on Monday the 5th having spent most of Johns birthday travelling from the Galapagos via Guayaquil to Quito and met up with our rep William from andes connexion. It was good to see him again. We stayed at the same hotel in Quito overnight and had an early start as we had to fly to Lima and get a connecting flight to San Jose. After a night in San Jose, another early start . A group of 16 of us travelled to Tortuguera Beach through some interesting countryside, passing by volcanoes, rain forest and cloud forest. They have so many different climates for such a small country with a population of about 4 million Costa Ricans. We stopped en route for breakfast where we enjoyed some gardens with many exotic plants and trees. We drove over the dirty river, so called because of all the sulphur and other contaminants from the volcano. Continuing on to the carribean side to visit del monte's banana packaging plant. We had only just got back on the bus when we stopped again, for a photo opportunity of a sleeping sloth. Not sure how many toes, as they can have 2,3 or 5 toes.

Finally we stopped to change our mode of transport to a boat to reach our final destination of Mawamba Lodge. After lunch we had a short boat ride to the nearest town / village. After a look around and seeing quite a few birds we walked back along the beach to our acomodation. Life here starts just after 5am and shops etc are closed after dark. apparently there can be the odd crocodile around so it is not advisable to go near the water after dark.

Tuesday 6th I was up early for the 6am tour by boat, John needed more sleep. This was a worthwhile trip as we saw howler monkeys + other type + all sorts of birds, caimen, otter iguanas.

After breakfast it was back in the boat across the canal for a walking tour where we all got drenched and only saw the blue jeans frog.

The afternoon boat trip was similar to the morning one but some different birds and animals.

Wednesday 7th another early start and off to the airstrip by boat. We arrived and there was a limp windsock, a concrete runway and nothing else. Our flight was with Nature airlines. In due time our 20 seater plane arrived , loaded us up as they checked the passenger list , a very brief saftey talk and we were off above the clouds looking at the tops of mountains and arrived in San Jose half an hour later to another airstrip with a very quick passage past the officials who checked our papers, it was exactly how flying should be, easy and straight forward.

We were met by our driver who then brought us to Arenal near La Fortuna where we had lunch prior to reaching our hotel. We were nicely in our cabin and I was washing my hands when I thought John had suddenly got a bit impatient, rattling the door handle. I promptly opened the door to find he was at the other side of the room. We realised the building was shaking and decided the building was on springs as we were next to the volcano. Half an hour later John had put the television on and we learned it had been an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 on the richter scale. There have been a few after shocks and land slides.

We are now here on thursday morning trying to decide whether to take a tour of the volcano or not the sun has come out after a night of torrential rain.