Unfortunately, I had written immense opening blog, only to discover that STATravel blogs was hard to get to grips with and therefore deleted the whole piece, so excuse me if this seems a bit abrupt but it is a bit of mission to write it out again.Anyway, I realized that emails were no longer the way to go, instead Mark put me onto this site and here I am, blogging away!

Having whiled away the day in the great city that is San Jose and purchased a brand new camera,we decided to head back down to Panama and on to Bocas del Toro as the three English/Portuguese guys were going that way and the transportation strikes in Nicaragua were getting ever more violent.So we set off to Bocas del Toro, missing the direct bus as the 'Lonely Liar' struck again so we caught a slower bus to Puerto Limon, stopping off point for Christopher Columbus, a few years earlier.The guide book advised not to stay as the streets were known for curb crawling and drugs.Arriving at the Costa Rica-Panama boarder crossing, known as Guapiles-Sixola, we crossed with ease, (well Guta nearly died, falling through one very large gap, but apart from that, total control).Then into 'miniv'n', for a death defying ride to Almirante and the lonely liar and delayed out arrival and therefore missed the quicker boat.However, we were greeted by free beers and we waited on the jetty for 'la lancha'.We had decided to stay in Mondu Taitu again, but as there were no free spaces, we checked in at Gran Kahuna Hostel.It was a fairly average hostel and we were therefore keen to check out and check in at Mondu Taitu hostel.As luck would have it, there were 6 free spaces in the AC room, what a luxury!The room was soon polluted however as when I open my bag, the wet clothes had started to 'smell', so a trip to the laundry seem like a cunning idea.Following the laundry drop off, we went to Aqua lounge and bar, a newly built bar over the water with a cordoned off pool area complete with diving boards and swings.After a fun day of not front/back flipping and the occasional/frequent/extremely painful belly flops, we called it a day and headed back to the hostel, to freeze in our fridge.It was 80´s night at he hostel so some dressing up was in order.I leave it at that.

The next day, off to Red Frog beach for some football, BBQ and surfing.When we got back, it seemed a good idea to benefit from some free booze, namely, Tequila Suicides.Why not when the Tequila is free, the only downside was the compulsory snort of salt and squeeze of lime in your eye.It didn't hurt so much later on and the night passed quickly.

The next morning, I was up and ready to make the best part of the day, but the others were quite happy to spend to morning in bed and making pancakes with the free batter mix.In the afternoon, we rented scooters and, yes, the did come with helmets, only they were builders hat for 5 year old, better safe than sorry!As it got dark we headed back, and no one was hurt, although mark didn't really get the concept of slopes and therefore was found stuck in the jungle on the side of the road, much to the delight of the local police, who offered no helping hand!The theme night was Geeks, but I found it hard to fit in, Harriet would have had no problem.

As it was the other threes last day in Bocas, we decided to get up early and have a full day before they left.Anthony was not so keen on getting up as it transpired that he had been arrested for swimming back from aqua bar, a large gap, and as it was dark and he was drunk.Someone called the police who commandeered a local fishing boat and chased after him, nearly running him over.So he was locked up for 3 hrs while the police did their usual evening entertainment of racing their tuned up police tuk tuks around the town.When Anthony had recoverd, we took a boat to Wizard beach.A palm fringed beach with no one on it.We did some surfing and headed back as Greg, Guta and Anthony needed to be in Panama city to fly to Brazil.

The next day was Marks birthday, so Gabs and I bought him an extremely cool costume that he couldn't take off for the whole day.That evening, after many a free drink, Mark decided to call it a night and go to bed, at 10:30. But then the whole island suffered a power cut and many people followed suit. It was our last night in Bocas.

The day after the night before, we left, early, as we had hear that getting to Tortuguero was quite a trek as there were no roads, only water taxis.So at Siquirres we said goodbye to Mark, as he had had enough of the strikes in Nicaragua and ventured north.

And that's the end of that chapter…obviously the one before was much better!