We left Tamarindo on Saturday and travelled down the coast to a small town called Santa Teresa. The journey was pretty horrific after one too many at 'Ladies Night' the night before but again, the views are amazing as you drive through the countryside. We didn't enjoy Santa Teresa that much and moved on after one night to Montezuma, down the road, which was a much prettier town with a more friendly feel to it. The rainy season is definitely kicking in and we had 2 massive storms in Montezuma, but we still really enjoyed it there and took advantage of the cooler weather to do some walking - very tiring as it is so hilly. None of us slept on the second night as we had somehow convinced ourselves that there was going to be a flash flood or a tsunami and we would have to be evacuated - over active imaginations - but we were still there in the morning and set off to Santa Elena, where we are now. Santa Elena is the town just outside the Monteverde Cloudforest reserve - Costa Rica's best preserved national park and a great place to see wildlife. We have been here for 2 nights so far and are staying 2 more. It is absolutely stunning and while it's cooler than down on the coast, we love it. Yesterday we tried zip-lining in the trees. You are attached to a wire and whizz through and over the trees. It was absolutely brilliant. The longest line was 700 metres and the highest was 460 metres - all at about 1500 metres above sea level. We had to climb a metal tower to get to the highest one and my legs were like jelly by the time we got to the top, I couldn't wait to fling myself on to the wire but you could see for miles to the Arenal Volcano which still spits lava everyday. We couldn't quite see that but we could see the smoke soming from it. We went right through the clouds and over the canopies. It was brilliant. Today, we went on a horse trek. We booked 2 hours thinking that would be plenty but once again, timing doesn't seem to matter and in fact we were out for 3 hours so we're anticipating very sore bums and legs tomorrow, if we can walk at all. The ride was fantastic, again going right up into the clouds and looking out over the mountains and out to sea. Katie & Sarah were forced to get over their fear of going faster than a trot fairly quickly as the horses pretty much made their own decisions about how fast they wanted to go but we all stayed on and it was great fun. Hopefully we'll have worked off some of the pancakes we are eating for breakfast everyday! Tomorrow we're going to go for a guided walk through the rainforest in the hope of seeing some of the rare animals they have here. They have tapirs, pumas, quetzals etc but I think we will be very lucky to see any of those, however I think monkeys, hundreds of differents types of birds and occasionally sloths are easy to see. We then leave for San Jose on Sunday, where Katie heads off to finish her sailing and Sarah and I go to the Caribbean coast to rescue some turtles!!! I really love Costa Rica. It is such a beautiful country and the people are great. I've been speaking a lot of Spanish although they all take the mickey out of my Andalucian accent as no one here speaks with the lisp that I have learnt. Still it's really good to be getting the practice and they appreciate the effort made.