So...we´re currently on day 8 of the rain. After a very soggy couple of days in Boquete, Panama we crossed the border into Costa Rica (fairly straightforwardly) and made it to San Jose where it was....raining shock horror! We´d booked a whitewater rafting trip from San Jose but we didn´t hold out much hope that the river would be safe enough to raft on (also the thought of rafting in the cold river in the torrential rain wasn´t altogether tempting anyway!). Still we hadn´t heard anything from the tour company so we set our alarm for 5.53 and diligently dressed in our boardies and rash vests and waited and waited and waited...after an hour we decided that it had probably been cancelled. After a massive buffet breakfast and a quick mooch around the shops we caught the bus to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca on the Caribbean coast and kept our fingers crossed for a break in the rain...

It rained non-stop for the whole 5 hour journey and just when we thought we were near our destination (it was dark by this point) the driver signalled that the bridge was inpassable and we´d have to walk across and the last 800m to the town. One side of one end of the bridge had totally collapsed and we had to shuffle along with all our bags in the pissing rain, luckily there were some strong boys to hold our hands to help us across or we would have fallen in! Not happy at all! Then we trudged our way through the soggy potholed path trying to find the place where we´d booked a cabin for our 3 days. Luckily it all worked out fine in the end but there were 3 unhappy and very wet people in a cabin with no power! Luckily we´d both thought (accidentally? who knows?) to put our torches in the hand luggage otherwise it would have been a total nightmare.

Anway so today is day 8 of the rain and we still have been unable to do anything a part from reading (finished my book in 2 days and I bought a very long one!), eating, playing DS and cards and getting soggier. We´re a little disappointed to say the least, we´re supposed to be sunning ourselves in Caribbean paradise but never mind! We´re heading north tomorrow and we´re joining a tour through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and to Guatemala so I will be pleased to let someone else take control of all the logistics and worry about collapsed bridges, burst rivers and mud slides. The weather will hopefully be better up there...all fingers and toes crossed please!

Think that´s all the ´news´for now...maybe we´ll go and eat some cake! xxx