Bocas del Toro - Panama

Arriving here from Costa Rica involved walking an old iron bridge across the border into Panama and taking a $10 A-team style truck down the coast to the port town of Almirante. From there we got a massive speed boat for the 45 minute trip out to the islands.

Bocas del Toro (Isla Colon) is the biggest and most populated of the archipelago, we checked into the wonderful Casa Amarilla, (757 9939), run by Dennis from Detroit. We partied the night away in a few cool hostels and went accross the bay on a $1 boat to a pool party with free drinks for the ladies.

Two days later after the hangover resided, we went on a boat trip to the beautiful Isla Bastimentos to a deserted beach and stunning Caribbean views.

Everyone should be able to experience beauty like this in their lifetime....

Last Central America Stop, Panama!

Last stop in Central America - Panama! This was the easiest, most hassle free boarder crossing yet, we literally walked across a seriously rickety old bridge from Costa Rica and into Panama picking up passport stamps on the way! Then we jumped into a taxi and onto a speed boat down river into the Caribbean towards the beautiful islands just off Bocas; Isla Colon and Bastimentos. Here's some snaps of our arrival in Panama.

Manzanillo to Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica

Costa Rica Pacific coast and highland tour was non-stop action, so as a last stop we headed over to the Caribbean to soak up some of it's chilled out vibe. Our journey towards Manzanillo and Puerto Viejo took us past miles and miles of banana plantations, over the most pot-holed roads and through the bustling Caribbean port town of Limon.

We decided to stay in Manzanillo, a tiny and peaceful community 15kms down from the party and surf town of Puerto Viejo. We found a lovely family run hostel in Manzanillo that overlooked the jungle and gave a great view on the monkeys in the morning. With only a couple of typico eateries, corner shop, church and wooden houses doted along the coast and back into the jungle Manzanillo is a perfect little spot.

The stretch of road from Viejo to Manzanillo hugs the white sand coast and is lined with palm trees and tropical flowers. Along the way there's cute little places to stay, eat or drink. To get around we hired a couple of bikes for our time there to tour the coast and get into town, Viejo. Bumping along the pot-holey road was really good fun and the 30km round trip was pretty good exercise!

It was the most scenic route, we saw a cute sloth crossing the road to a new tree, troops of monkeys and lots of birds along the way. It was a really cool way to spend a couple of days.

Costa Rica, Pacuare River Rafting

After trying white water rafting in Honduras on a small river we decided to go all out and throw ourselves down a world class set of rapids here in Costa Rica.

The rio Pacuare is one of the top 5 white water rafting rivers in the world, due to its fierce rapids ranging from small 2's to epic 4's down an 18 mile stretch of river with pristine rainforest on either side of the banks.

We arrived in Turrialba, a small town in Costa Rica's main rafting region, and found a great company called Rio Loco's Tropical Tours Rafting (as featured in the New York Times - http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/travel/22CostaRica.html?pagewanted=all). The following day the team, including the guide Chalo, came to pick us up for our adventure.

Words really cannot describe how cool this trip was, from gentle rafting thought to walls of water enveloping the boat, "Class IV: major obstructions, big, unavoidable waves, distinct risk of flipping — in short, fun."

We had an amazing time with our crewmates from Belgium and Holland. Even though it peed it down all day, the adrenaline kept us pumped and ready. Check out the picks and the vids.

Costa Rica's highest peak, Cerro Chirripo (3820m)

After resting in Dominical we set off to complete our biggest challenge yet. A 2 day hike up Costa Rica's highest mountain - Cerro Chirripo in the central range of the Talamanca Mountains, the backbone of the country.

We were enticed by the prospect of being able to see both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean from the summit, plus mountains as far as Panama and one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet... and we were not disappointed.

After a long bus journey up winding roads we arrived at a small town called San Gerardo de Rivas, at the base of the mountain and the gateway to the park. The temperature had cooled down to that of a calm english spring and we checked into a wonderfully friendly guest house called Casa Mariposa www.hotelcasamariposa.net, run by a pioneering organic ecoliving couple called Jill and John. Their warm hospitality and homely hostel (complete with heavenly duvets! and home made cookies) made for a perfect resting spot before we started the assent the following day.

We set out at 5am in order to complete the 20km hike up from 1600m at Casa Mariposa to 3820m at the peak. The plan was to stay at the base camp at 15km and do the last 5km after an over night rest.

First I'll tell you how nice it was. The change of scenery was out of this world, we went from fields of cows to trees full of monkeys, from cloud forest with trees draped in moss; to bone dry arid land, from burned forest to scrub land, marshes, bamboo ranges of all sizes, and huge oak covered landscapes. The birds were of documentary quality - hundreds of humming birds; powering past us sounding like small helicopters, emerald toucans, birds with red breasts, black turkeys with bright blue beaks; even birds with yellow pompoms on their legs! We were so lucky to see so much.

After 7km going up a 1 in 4 gradient the pain set in. I had to stop every 20 paces for at least 2km. Every flat plane, was a wonderful pain free step - but there were not many of them. We soldiered on, keeping each other going and after 6.5 hours we made it to the base camp. We had bunk beds in the dorm and as soon as we got in their we whipped out our sleeping bags and collapsed, trying to keep warm and stop our legs from pulsating. Eventually we got up and shared soup and sandwiches with the other hikers in the main kitchen.

We decided to get some sleep and get up at 4am to be at the summit for just after sunrise. The night was brutally cold, with us both wearing all our clothes, gloves and hats included, buried deep in our sleeping bags, the cold made getting up in the dark, to go and finish a walk we knew would be grueling even harder.

We had some support, a nice american girl called Meredith was sharing our dorm and was up for the adventure. So we set out in the dark, wet morning to meet our maker. After 20 minutes I was absolutely buggered, Maudie (being fit) was skipping along, as my legs buckled at the sight of every hill. After 2.5 hours and a final sheer rock climb we made it to the top, the sun was just burning though the clouds and everyone, no more than me, was very happy to have done it! We could see the lakes and the mountains of Panama, sadly their were too many clouds to see both seas.

Maudie and I then went all the way back down, 5km to the base camp, and another 15 km down to our friends at Casa Mariposa. I was gushing at how easy it was to go down, how happy I was until about 7km from the end. That's when the burn set in, incredible pain burst through my calves and upper thighs. By the time we reached the Casa our legs were shaking.... but we'd done it.... the sense of achievement warmed us as we told our hosts about what we'd seen and how long it had taken us.

We were proud of ourselves, and the pain was worth it to see such beauty (I am writing this three days after and we still cannot walk properly, especially up stairs, I don't think I'd do it again...)

Dominical, Costa Rica

Dominical is a chilled out little community on the Pacific coast, it's palm perfect beach and fab surf meant we ended up staying put for a few nights. Still suffering from his broken ribs, Pete topped up a fab tan with a book on the beach. It was crazy hot though, about 38 degrees, so thank goodness for the palm trees!

And I hit the surf, picked up some more tips and finally got confident enough to paddle out with the big kids which was exciting. The sea was soupy hot. My highlight though was having a pod of 4 dolphins swim by, pointed out by a 12 year-old local kid Oscar, who said 'people pay to go on trips to see them and sometimes don't see any, if you're a surfer you can see them for free'. Sweet!

On our last evening, we collected drift wood and Pete made a gorgeous camp fire, over which we roasted BBQ chicken on bamboo sticks stuck in the sand. It was pretty special to sit under a mango tree and have a beach feast.