La Fortuna to Panama

Ben writes - Hello from Panama City. It was Panamanian independance day yesterday and somebody obviously forgot to set off all their fireworks because they are going off right now right outside the window AND THEY ARE VERY LOUD. Tigs is in the kitchen cooking our dinner so I have taken the opportunity to crack open a cold one and dispatch you another message from the other side of the world. We travelled north from San Jose after leaving the turtle sanctuary to La Fortuna in the shadows of the impessive Volcan Arenal. It was covered in Cloud when we arrived so we took the time to visit a very luxurious thermal spa. It was amazing - the waters reached 40 degrees C and the gardens were stunning. Cost a bomb though. http://www.tabacon.com/ Next we took a boat over Lago Arenal and a jeep up the unpaved roads to Santa Elena/Monteverde. We had hoped to have a go on the zip lines that are set up in the cloud forest there. Unfortunately the next day we had to come straight back to San Jose without doing any of it because we had been unable to organise our onward travel to Panama via net and phone and were worried that we were cutting it fine to make our flight to Quito on the 30th. We were able to get a bus straight away once we were back in San Jose so off we set for Panama. We got here after an 18 hour overnight bus journey from hell. To winge a little - it really was very uncomfortable. We had no legroom at all! It seemed to go on forever!! The customs official at the border took a liking to our silver compass when he searched our stuff but finally let us go on our way with the compass. Not fun at 3am. The Costa Rica - Panama border crossing was not as unpleasant as the Mexico - Guatemala crossing but the staff were impressively incompetant and it took a massive amount of time. I am now getting used to the latin lack of urgency however and am trying to shrug my shoulders like everybody else seems to. Also my backpack got covered in engine oil. But we did get to see a Peter Pan cartoon dubbed in Spanish. We have been here for a couple of days at the Voyager International hostel: www.geocities.com/voyagerih/english.html and have had a chance to have good look around the town. We went up to the old town yesterday and saw the residence of El Presidente then went up to Miraflores Locks on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal. It really is very impressive and very big. If you like engineering (and who doesn't?) more information is availiable at www.pancanal.com .

I just found out that the fireworks are not anything to do with Panamanian independance and are in fact to celebrate the opening of 'Casino Royale' down the road.

Equador next.

An afterthought

Ben Writes -

It has occured to me that we have rather absentmindedly missed out an entire country on our blog. My apologies to the people of Honduras.

We left Caye Caulker by motor launch and travelled to Belize City From there the only connecting flight to La Ceiba in Honduras was with a Nicaraguan outfit going via San Pedro Sula. OK we thought. We boarded a small propeller driven, non pressurised, dirty aeroplane with cracks in the windows and cargo on most of the seats - it was great fun. You can see how the plane looked fifteen years ago at www.atlanticairlines.com.ni - its the one on the front page. Tig was a little apprehensive before and during and rather traumatised after.

We arrived in La Ceiba OK and tried to get tickets for the ferry that runs out to Utila in the Bay Islands but it was not running due to some machanical problem. You can see what it looks like at www.aboututila.com/TravelInfo/Utila-Princess/Index.htm (they have painted it green since the photo). We were lucky enough to get two tickets on a small boat across instead.



We did some more diving in Utila at one of Deg´s old haunts, Gunter´s Dive Shop. It was fantastic - we got our advanced diving certification which certifies us to dive to 30 meters. We dived a wreck and did a night dive where we saw a massive Octopus. We did an underwater photography module too and got some great pictures.

We stayed for a week and really enjoyed it before heading back to the mainland. We needed to get a flight to Costa Rica which meant we needed to go back to San Pedro Sula. That place is an absolute dump. Our hotel - ¨San Jose¨ - looked like a less cheerful version of a victorian prison and they were obviously expecting dubious characters to stay as they had the name of the hotel was printed on every item. The heavy iron gates were needed to keep people out. San Pedro Sula is an unsafe place but luckily while we were there it tipped it down like crazy which kept most of the locals indoors.

We got our flight the next day with TACA which was thankfully a return to 21st century travel although they do like turning the air conditioning up to arctic levels for some reason. We changed planes in El Salvador which was quite interesting for a few hours before arriving in Costa Rica in the evening.

La Tortuga Feliz - Costa Rica

We have been staying in the turtle sanctuary which is amazing. www.latortugafeliz.com. It is in the middle of nowhere. You have to take a taxi from Bataan to a little river and then take a small boat for 40mins to reach the island. The scenery is like something out of Jurassic Park. Any second you expect a T-Rex to come out of the trees and eat you.

The guy who began the project is called Paul. He is a really inspiring guy. He has only been working on the island for 2 years but already the project has accomplished great things. In the last season they managed to sucessfully hatch 10,600 turtles. The year before no new turtles survived on the island so they are doing really well. During the turtle season volunteers patrol the beach 24 hours a day to prevent poachers from stealing the new eggs or killing the turtles for their meat/shells. The turtle season finished a few weeks ago so now the work involves preparing the hatchery for the next season. This consists of digging tonnes of sand out of the huge hatchery so that it can be filled with new sifted sand for next season. Very hard work in the heat but after work we sat in hammocks and read a lot and just had time to reflect.

The wildlife here is just incredible. I have never seem so many different birds and other creatures before. In the 6 days we have been here we have seen spider monkeys swinging from their tails in the trees, sleepy sloths, toads, eagles, vultures, crocodiles and turtles - plus a few cockroaches and millions of mosquitos. At night the whole place comes alive with sounds. Last night we were sat playing cards by lanturn light because there is no electricity here and I felt what I thought was the dog around my feet but when I looked down it was an enormous crab. Needless to say I screamed my head off and now wear my boots at night.

We are in Bataan now which is the closest town to the island. We are catching a bus back to San Jose today which will be very strange as we haven´t seen any cars or electricity for a week. From there we are going to La Fortuna where there is an active volcano and after we head to Monteverde where they have a cloud forest and you can ride on zip lines in the canopies.

We are due to fly out of Panama City on 30th November. It is hard to believe we are leaving central america already. The time is starting to go by very quickly. There are so many things we would like to do, but we don´t have the time.

Hope everyone is well. Let us know how you are when you have a minute.

Lots of love

Tigs and Ben xx

Caye Culker

Hi all











I have just spent the last hour trying to publish something on the blog but to no avail. I think the connections here are a little dodgy. Anyway, we are in Caye Culker at the moment which is a little island not far from Belize City. It has a population of about 800 people and you can walk from one end to the other in about 5 mins. It is a major change from Guatemala. Everything here is different. Obviously the language, as they speak English in Belize and Mayan or Spanish in Guatemala, but also the culture and food. You really know you have made it to the Carribean. Everyone is very friendly and chilled out.

Degs has arrived from St Georges Key where he is teaching the British Army to dive, and he has taken us on our open water diving course. Ben took to it like a natural but as predicted I was very nervous and spent the first two days shooting to the surface at any given moment - gasping for air. But Degs is incredibly patient and after I got through my first open water dive I loved it. We saw nurse sharks, turtles, sting rays and loads of amazing fish. So we are now officially 'certified' open water divers. It was definitely one of the best things I have ever done.











We went out to celebrate completing the course last night and the boys haven't surfaced yet, so I am going back to the hostel to give them a rocket.

Hope you are all well.

Tigs x