We arrived in San josé on Thursday 8th November; we stayed there just 1 night before heading to La Fortuna! We were glad to leave San José! La Fortuna was really cool, we saw Arenal Volcano and had an amazing day in the Baldi Thermal Springs. We saw quite a few wildlife including a turkey bird, spiders, monkeys and lizards.

We then headed to Monteverde, the day we arrived we went on a coffee, chocolate and sugar cane tour. As soon as we saw the word chocolate we booked the trip straight away! The tour was really interesting and Suhanya actually tasted some coffee. The highlight of the trip was making the chocolate bar....it was very yummy but the guide put some of it on top of banana slices which did not go down very well with Suhanya but Nicole enjoyed it. He also gave us a chocolate with coffee and banana which is Suhanyas' worst nightmare when it comes to food. Nicole had an expresso which was good. Later that evening we went on a night walk which was really fun; luckily there weren't many people doing the later walk so we had our own guide. We saw a kaikaroo, sloth, viper, owl, blue and orange bird, stick insects and spiders. Our guide had an English accent which is rare in latin america.

The next day we went to Monteverde's National Park - the cloud forest. Our guide was pretty quirky and strange but was good in spotting wildlife. He showed us a Quetzal which was really cool. It was very colourful and had a very long feather. We wondered throught the cloud forest and saw alot of different plants and trees. There were stick insects which were very hard to notice because of their camouflage.

We then went back to La fortuna before heading to Tortuguero. The journey was quite long and we had to get a bus and a boat but we saw alot of interesting things on the way. When we stopped off at a rest stop and saw 2 sloths in a tree which was amazing, they were just hanging out. There was a mini red frog too on some plants. When we headed off again the spanish ladies on our bus started singing which was very entertaining and funny. We went past a banana plantation which was interesting and then headed to the boat stop. We then went through canals to Tortuguero, there were a few caimans in the water and when we arrived we saw massive lizards on the roof of a house. That night Nicole noticed a dead cockroach under her bed and there were dead flies on our towels. We made sure we were fully in our sleeping liner before going to sleep. Then in the morning we noticed a toad in the room - we figuered it was best to move to another guesthouse! We then went on a canal boat trip to see the wildlife in the national park. We saw loads of monkeys and birds. Then we hit the beach to see turtles hatching, we waited a while in the rain but managed to see some. It was amazing watching them come our of their nest and make it to the sea, we saw some being eaten by birds though which was sad to watch. There was one turtle which struggled alot but managed to make it to the sea, we cheered alot when he made it. That night we went on a jungle walk, it rained soo much that we got drenched in 5 mintues, even our raincoats couldnt keep us fully dry. The jungle was really cool and interesting, we saw some more monkeys which was cool and then we went to the beach to see more turtles hatching. We then went for dinner at a place recommended in the LP. The food was a huge fest and delicious. Then we got back to our gueshouse and tried to dry ourselves, water was just seeping from our hands because they were soo wet. We used all the hanging space in our room to dry our clothes.

Then the next day after our delicious pancake breakfast we got a boat to the mainland and then headed to Manzanillo. It was raining the whole way and we hoped it would be better when we went further down the coast. We stopped off in Puerto Vieje and had yummy vegetable smoothies before getting on a bus. Manzanillo was a little beach town. We were really close to the beach which was nice but sadly we couldnt escape from the rain. We wanted to go kayaking the next day but it was raining so hard we figuered it wouldnt be safe. We went for a walk along the beach tho which was nice. That night be treated ourselved and had a yummy meal with organic wine. The restaurant was half outside which was nice and for most of the time we had the place to ourselves. To end the meal we had an amazing chocolate brownie dessert!

The next day we made our way to Panama