Well, the first part of this adventure, travelling myself, has come to an end. Yesterday I arrived in Quito, Ecuador to be greeted by Andrea from my school, Andean Global Studies – having someone at the airport with my name on a sign was quite a novelty!

The rest of my time up on the Caribbean Coast was pretty great – lots of lounging on the beaches, only making my way back up to buy pineapple from the little stall at the beginning of the beach, or when I decided to call it a day. After a few days in Cahuita, I decided that it was time to move on, so bused it about 20kms east, closer to the Panama Border to a town called Puerto Viejo. Also on the beach, but it was a little big and there were a heck of a lot more tourists there – lots of backpackers and one crazy, crazy old man from the US, who is convinced of a conspiracy theory and the existance of the ‘New World’, and was willing to ‘prove’this to anyone who would bother listening. Nuts! I have to say that I preferred Cahuita, but Puerto Viejo was still pretty nice – some good places to eat and great beaches nearby. I only had one full day there and spent it hiring a bike (my first bike ride since the oopsie in January!) and riding along the coast to a little town called Manzanillo (about 13 kms away), stopping and a few beaches along the way to cool off and catch just a few more rays!

This was pretty great, except that it was around the time that I arrived in Pueto Viejo that I started feeling pretty ill again. So I left a bit earlier than what I was planning, as I decided not to waste a day in a beautiful spot feeling ill in bed, and get the travelling over and done with instead. So I began the journey to Panama City. The border crossing was relatively uncomplicated, the only hold up was that the two countries are one two different time zones, so we arrived while the Costa Rican office was at lunch, and then when we crossed the bridge, the Panamanian office was on lunch. Add to this the fact that on the Panama side, there was only one guy processing both entries and exits, so there was a fair line up. Then in a strange series of events and bus rides, I ended up in Panama City at 4am in the morning! Not the best time to be hanging around a bus station, so had to check into my hotel for that night.

I did a half transit of the Panama Canal on the Saturday, and that was pretty great. Amazing to see all of these massive boats passing you by on a narrow stretch of river, all laden with cargo and see them moving up and down in the locks. We were bused up to a town called Gamboa and then got on our boat and made our way back to Panama City passing through two lockes (Pedro Miguel and Miraflores), taking about 4 hours. I even had an incredibly tacky photo “certificate” taken and made up to say that I had done the transit (going straight to the pool room…). The Sunday I did a tour of the city – back to Miraflores Lockes to watch the ships from the observation deck there and go through the museum (in case you didn’t realise, I find the Canal quite amazing), to Panama Viejo (the orignal site of the town) and to Casco Antiguo, the colonial part of the town. Again,  the canal was great, and Casco Antiguo was pretty amazing. Once part of it is a genuine ghetto, and somewhere I would not walk, especially not alone, but then the bottom tip is where the President lives and a lot of the buildings are being restored and is really quite beautiful. The area has been heritage listed by UNISCO and so the government is actively encouraging people to buy and renovate the buildings, and slowly forcing all of the squatters etc out. I had a photo taken with one of the Presential Guards, and my guide was saying that sometimes the President actually comes right up to the gates and talks to the passers-by! I doubt that would happen anywhere else! This is also one of the locations for the upcoming Bond Movie.

By this time, I was feeling especially rotten and could not wait to get to Ecuador where I would go and see a doctor and so did very little else in Panama. Taking away from this, however, was the heart-breaking news that I received that my Grandpa died at home in Adelaide on Monday night. So it was/is a horrible time to be alone in a strange city, especially as there is nothing that I can do one the other side of the world, and it wasn’t possible to get home, but fortunately Mum and Dad were able to get home from Ireland quickly and everyone else is now together. So my love goes to everyone at home, especially Grandma, Mum and Aunty Virginia, I hope you are all managing and I wish I could be there.

Unfortuantely I couldn’t do anything else but continue and I am now in Quito. I start Spanish lessons on Monday and I am staying with a lovely host family. I have two host brothers and a host father, and am a little spoilt as they have all lived in the US for 5 years and so speak English (though I have asked that they speak Spanish to help me pick it up quicker). The only bad thing is that I didn’t make such a great impression being sick - Juan Jose (one of my host brothers) had to take me to the hospital yesterday afternoon, and act as my intepreter, and so unfrotunately now knows the ins and outs of my upset stomach over the past two weeks. I was however, very lucky that he was so kind to take me. But with medication, I feel a lot better today, I have been to the school, met a few of the other students, and am going on a trip to Saquisili tomorrow (a town about 2 hours away).

So, Quito is my home for the next 3 ½ weeks and I am looking forward to my time here. It seems to be a really nice city, though there are things to be careful of, such as only carried a nominal amount of money on you when on the streets and catching taxis after 6pm (no more than $1) . But, I can walk to the school in about 15-20mins and catch the tram to the old town and new town. And now I’m off on my next adventure – to by an Ecuadorian SIM card for my phone!

After an uneventful flight (which is actually quite fortunate, given that a plane from the same airline crashed the following day in Honduras, albeit at take off or landing so no one hurt) I landed in San Jose, Costa Rica, to be greeted with pouring rain. That dashed any chances of getting a cheap ride via the bus into town, but fortunately I found a fellow from Argentina who was also in the same situation, so with his Spanish we got a bargain rate for a taxi, and made our way to a hostel not far from the main pedestrian mall of the city.

Because it was absolutely teeming with rain, there was not a lot that we could do so made a dash to the main street to find somewhere for dinner. Fortunately I love all the food over here, but my new friend (maybe his name was Francis??) really wasn’t keen to try anything too different and definitely doesn’t like beans. Quite a dilemma for someone who is planning to spend two months in countries where bean are a staple and served with every single meal, regardless of what you order. Anyway, had a typical Costa Rican meal – rice and beans and plantain with chicken/beef. I have to say that the food in San Jose is the least exciting that I have encountered so far, and I also noticed that there is an awful lot of deep frying going on there.

Anyway, the following day the sun magically appeared, and so was a perfect day to be out and about. There’s really no need to spend more than one day in San Jose itself, as we saw all of the main sites in a couple hours, and then the one museum that I did want to go to was closed. So for the afternoon we went out to the Cartega, about 40mins from the City where there is a famous statue of the Virgin Mary in the Basilica de Los Angeles and apparently there is an annual pilgrimage and more than one million people converge on this church to pay homage to this statue. Following a fleeting visit there, we caught another bus to the town of Orosi in the Orosi Valley, which is a really pretty village with a river running through it, coffee plantations and jungle up and down the sides of the hills.

Now the rain in Costa Rica has actually been quite significant, and on the day that I arrived, most of the roads out of San Jose were actually closed b/c parts had been washed away or were underwater. So this meant that the river was flowing really quickly and had broken its banks in a number of places. This looked quite amazing and it was almost a little scary to be crossing it on a suspension bridge which was swaying in all directions!! As we got back on the bus, it started pouring again and seemed to set in for the night. Costa Rican cafes/diners are called ´sodas´ and there is no shortage of them, so we tested out one for dinner that night – Soda Chelles -amazing empanadas.

Yesterday I caught a bus up to the Caribbean Coast, and I have to say, this is pretty darn close to paradise, albeit a very simple one. It was a four hour ride through the mountainous jungle, which turned into banana and sugarcane(?) plantations, through the port town of Puerto Limon and finally to Cahuita. This is only a small town of about 6-8 blocks, and all of the building are wooden and open air. For a small town there are plenty of restaurants/cafes and bars, and the people are incredibly friendly. There is a really strong African influence, so people speak Spanish, English and/or a Creole dialect and everywhere plays reggae music. The food is also a lot tastier up here, with a Caribbean/Creole influence – awesome coconut based curries/stews and Rice & Beans.

But what makes this place unbelievable is the beaches. I have only been east of the town, but there is a beautiful, white-sand beach which stretches 3 km and is bordered by a national park (rainforest). So today I walked along the rainforest path, spotting monkeys (which were quite cheeky and stole a guys chips out of his backpack at one stage!), a million little lizards, a gazillion hermit crabs, some beautiful, vibrant butterflies and more. I walked a fair way, but made easy by the fact that I stopped at about 4 little beaches along the way to swim and sunbath and read – this is the life!

The only animal that I didn’t see, that I wanted to see, was a sloth (I love the idea of being as lazy as a sloth), but that was soon fixed as there is a resident sloth living in the Parque Central, and so the owner of the restaurant adjoining my hotel/cabina had one of the local kids find it and point it out to me. So mission accomplished!

Tomorrow I am going to check out Playa Negra (the black sand beach on the other side of town) and spend some more time lazing around under a palm tree on the beach or in the hammock out the front of my room! The weather here is conducive to doing not much – it is hot and very humid (so I have vowed never to complain about another Brisbane summer after being here!). I do wish that I had more time to spend along this stretch of the coast, but unfortunately there is a flight to catch in Panama City and a transit of the Panama Canal that I am really looking forward to. I am, however, pretty pleased that I will back this way (the Caribbean at least) when Luke and I get to Cuba. And with weather like this, I am having trouble justifying why I am carrying all this thermal gear (though looking at the weather for Cuzco, Peru in July/August, it gets down to 3-4 degrees at night, so I think that we´ll need it – Anna take note!!)

  When I find a computer that has a UBS port or has decent speed, I will upload photos, but for now, nothing new.