Straightforward journey by speedboat, bus and a very sweaty trot across the border and we landed in the little beach town of Puerto Viejo - a ramshackle backpacker haven with rustic bars and restaurants made of driftwood and a lot Bob Marley everywhere!

Spent a while checking out hostels with the help of our self appointed hippie (and ever so slighty whiffy) hostel 'guru' before hitting the hut for a slap up fish dinner. Somehow one bottle of Imperial led to another, and another, and we all ended up in the Sports Bar 'A sunny place for shady people' (!). And fuelled by buckets of draft beer, we accepted invitations into the local pool competition despite some crazy arsed local rules and some barely understoon explanations!

I fell at the first round after going up against the town's 11th time champion, then one by one we all crashed out expect our star player Leah who kept them on their toes until the end. Sadly, despite of all our very loud support, she lost out to some young pretender.

Thankfully it chucked it down with rain all the next day so we didn't feel so guilty lazing in out tropical cabina for most of the day apart from a cheeky sojourn for some hangover curing surf 'n' turf tea.

In the morning, it was lovely and sunny, so we all hopped on bikes for the muscle killing 13km ride to the end of the road and Manzanillo beach. Pretty cool ride, apart from a few annoying chain incidents and plenty of mossies, and we saw Howler monkeys in the trees. Man, they make so much noise!

Also spotted a sloth far far away, which everyone was super excited about, until we got back to town where a sloth was doing a star turn right on the beach wearing what appeared to be some kind of blonde wig.