I went for the cheap travel option, the 6am bus to the port of Puntarenas to catch a ferry to Paquera. 3 hour journey for £1.50. Arrived at 9.30 and spent a nice few hours killing time until the 1pm ferry with Liz and Pascal, 2 English teacher Brits. Having started the morning in the mountains with jumper and waterproof , I was now in shorts as the coast was boiling. One ferry and another 2 hours standing on a hot bus and I was at Montezuma, a quite little beach town.

I had arranged to stay at Proyecto Montezuma. They give free English classes to local schools and run TEFL courses. I volunteered with them for 3 mornings at the local school in Cabuya. It was certainly an experience! The kids were great but because the whole school appeared to be making vases out of papier mâché, we ended up with all the age ranges of students in one room. I somehow ended up having to amuse a group of 5 year olds that really knew no English at all, while the trainee TEFL teachers, Ryan and Jessie taught the rest. Day one not bad, some drawing and a wordsearch seemed to work. Day two we did numbers, coloured our lips in with highlighter pens and spilt glitter everywhere - I should perhaps add here that the last two things were actually done by the children and not by me! I was saying 'NO' at this point in my strictest teacher like voice, and I might add that 'no' is indeed the same word in both languages. I actually found it very hard not to laugh as they seemed so proud of their blue lips, pulling my arm saying 'teacher teacher' in their very cute accents, to get me to look at them.

Whilst in Montezuma I stayed at the Project's lodge which was right on the beach, this sounds idyllic but the noise of the waves crashing on to rocks all night is incredibly loud! There were a really nice bunch of people there. Weed and one day even magic mushroom tea was on the menu, but it just seemed part of the laid back Montezuma way of life. I just stuck to beer! Kerri and Bill and their beautiful baby daughter Zoe run the project and really included me so I had a really nice few days. Oh and the sun even shone a bit too!