1st February 2016 Peter spoke to the concierge at the hotel yesterday and decided the best way to see Panama and especially The Canal was to have a guide and 'do' it properly. As he had so looked forward to it last year, we didn't want to miss a single detail and as Javier arrived at 9.45am we let him take over our morning.We are driven for 15 minutes to the Miraflores Lock complex which houses the information centre for the Panama Canal and on 4 f...

 31st January 2016So here we are again, moving on. Today we once more get collected from our hotel at precision timing by the company that run this tour for Trailfinders, Travel Excellence. They really are top dogs at punctuality. Every single guide and driver has never been even a minute late. The tours, the trip everything has been brilliant and as we prepare to leave Costa Rica, with very sad hearts, it is one place I would come back to very easily and I know...

 Friday 29th and Saturday 30th Friday comes and it's time to chill, the Parador is a fabulous hotel, perched high on the cliff side overlooking the Ocean with is the most perfect blue. We chill by the pool, slapping plenty of factor 30 on as the sun off the water is intense. We chat to a crowd of Americans who have left the deep snow storms of New Jersey to escape to this blissfully warm water. We bob up and down in hot bath waters and chat of weather thous...

Thursday, 28th January 2016So today is a happy birthday to my eldest sister Geraldine. Hoping she has a great day, but I doubt if she will be a blog reader. Once more, we have to be up at the crack of dawn because we have our final wildlife tour of this entire trip. We rush breakfast not to be late as every single tour guide or driver has been totally and utterly punctual. Joshua our latest guide is waiting on the dot of 8.30 to whisk us to the minibus where our...

 Wednesday 27th January 2016 Another day and another part of Costa Rica to see. We've already seen the Caribbean coast and the rainforest in Tortuguero, We've had time in the central area of Arenal and Monteverde both quite close but very different in temperature and climate. So today we are going to be driven the 190 km (120 miles) to a completely different area of the country. The very warm and quite humid region on the southern Pacific shore known as...