Road trippin'

Today I returned to Fieldbase from another road trip, much shorter than the last one.

Day One
Set off from Turrialba bus station to San José with Blue and Tess at 7am. From there we got another bus to Puriscal, where we waited for four hours for Simon. The morning and early afternoon, as with the last long wait in Puriscal, involved the park, and mostly looked like this:

We went to meet Alpha 3, the Turrisantos trek team, in the arsehole of nowhere. We trekked for a bit to try and find them and then waited for a bit. It was very pretty.

They eventually arrived and after some minor faffing, we went to sleep in a community centre, where the pups had a creative way of setting up mozzie nets. Like demolition, it was interesting from a safe distance.

Day Two
Up at 4am, leaving Tess with Alpha 3 for a bit, myself, Simon and Blue headed for La Cangreja to the Alpha 4 team. We were greeted with a banner and fruit and juice. The proposed accommodation from the Project Planning Area, across the road from the national park they were working in, was in use and looking much more homely. We chatted with them for a bit and then they brought us over to the park, where they cooked us lunch and then brought us down to a river for a bit of a splash about.

Then it was back up to the camp for dinner and chilling. After dinner we had a fantastic presentation from the pups about their time on project. Then we had a yoga session led by one of the pups. I'd never tried yoga before. It was just like an extension of the stretching I've been doing with karate for twenty years.

After yoga it was time for bed. I had to put Nirvana on in my ears. The pups appeared to have no knowledge of guitar music!



Day Three
Awoke at 5am to the sound of The Bee Gees Stayin' Alive. Maybe there was hope for their musical tastes yet? After breakfast, we headed to work on a trail in the park. During a break, I had a silly chat with one of the pups who was very desperate for a cigarette. Peata bocht:

"Ronan, do you smoke?"
"Yeah."
"I knew you smoked because I had a dream where I was talking to you and you were smoking."
"That's really weird."
"Have you got cigarettes?"
"Yeah, what are they worth to you?"
*Silence from smoker, laughter from the rest of the group*

He tried another angle:
"Do you want to go to one of the restaurants tonight?"
"I'm not bothered."
"But they sell cigarettes."
"I'm OK for cigarettes."
"What about tomorrow, when you go, are you going to the restaurant? You could get me some cigarettes then?"
"When I leave tomorrow, I'm going back to Fieldbase. I'm not coming back here to bring you cigarettes. You know you could use this opportunity to cut back?"
"I have cut back!"

In a last ditch effort, he tried the sympathy angle...
"I just want a cigarette! We've had to resort to smoking roll-ups without filters!"
"What?"
"Things are so bad we're smoking roll-ups without filters."
"Jesus Christ, will you ever man the fuck up?"
*Silence from smoker, laughter from the rest of the group*

We worked until 11am, because it got too hot. We headed back to camp, lunched, showered. The pups worked on some planning activities and I slept, read and listened to music. I was pleased to get quite a bit of my book read - The Passage by Justin Cronin.

Had a few chats with some of the pups. Stairway to Heaven started on one of their speakers. "Yay!" I thought. "There's hope for them yet!" But the dude skipped it about a quarter of the way through. He skipped to Alive by Pearl Jam. Still a great tune, so couldn't be too upset... but then he skipped that! I told him to stop skipping the good songs and then he put in earphones. Good. He could skip all the great songs he wanted without teasing me with hope of hearing a great songs from start to finish.

Tess was brought back from Alpha 3. After dinner and a chocolate drink with more sugar than legally ought to be allowed, it was time for bed.

Day Four
Up this morning at 4am to go watch the sun rise at the ranger's station in the national park. It was very lovely, apart from the bugs. The pups complained of the length of time it took the sun to rise. It occurred to me that it was the first time I'd gone out of my way to watch the sun rise. Obviously I'd still been up on occasion when the sun was rising, but that was either at Relay for Life or just getting home from a night out, I'd never specifically got up to watch the sun rise. It was nice though. We had breakfast after, then myself Tess and Blue went for a wander up a path and a stream and saw some lovely pools. Then we headed back to camp, packed our stuff, and headed back to Fieldbase, via the restaurant, which happened to have a stunning view, where I had pinto (rice and beans) and beef for second breakfast. I did not return to Alpha 4 with cigarettes.

Back at Fieldbase, I had lunch, washed clothes, had a shower, and got stuck into a blog post for publishing over the weekend. The weekend will be the end of phase one, so all the Project Managers and pups will descend upon Fieldbase for reallocation. It will be manic.

Tomorrow, I head for San José at 8am with Blue and JJ. We have to leave one of the Land Rovers in for repair at 10am, and meet the Explorers tomorrow night at the airport. The Explorers are Venturers who are only doing the second and third phases of the expedition. We'll be staying at the British School tomorrow night. Between dropping of the car and picking up Explorers, the day will involve shopping for sandals, flip flops, and a coconut ring. Then probably eating bread and cheese in a park. I can do that.

At La Cangreja, Project Manager Mel was reading a book called The Chimp Paradox. It's a life management book, which I was really skeptical of, because I always find that kind of thing to be a load of gumph. She read me a bit from it and I was surprised at myself by how much I related to it. Basically, it uses a model where people have human logic and their inner chimp which is emotional, and the book talks about balancing them.

But the bit that got me interested was about how somebody being human and using rational logic communicates with somebody who hasn't got control of their inner chimp. It really struck a chord with me, because in my old life, I struggled with presenting logic to people who just wouldn't have any of it - people who I now recognise as chimps - and because I was getting paid less, my logic couldn't go anywhere. I got back to Fieldbase, looked it up on Google Play, and it was only a fiver. If I end up working with chimps again in the future and need to get stuff through to them, it could be a fiver very well spent.

Anyway, I've to be up early to hang out in San José. Buenos noches!

Pura Vida!

Nothing to see here.

I haven't blogged in a few days, because nothing very interesting has happened.

After coming back from projects, I've had four full days at Fieldbase, and I'm off out on project again tomorrow for a few days, back to La Cangreja, where I went for the PPV.

So the past few days have mainly been about making sure there was content for the corporate blog while I'm gone again. There are no interesting photos to go with that.

Apart from blogs, I had radio training for when I'm on radio duty, which I was a couple of days ago. Radio duty lasts from the end of the morning meeting until the end of the following day's morning meeting. It means you're the person who answers the phone and radio when project groups are checking in twice a day, or any time in between, meaning you're quite glued to Fieldbase, to the extent that you sleep in the bed in the Comms Room, which is OK because the bed is far more comfy than anything in the sleeping quarters!

Being back at Fieldbase has also meant that I'm on the rota for chores. Yesterday I was on lunch and opted for the humble sandwich for everyone: cheese and tomato; tuna, mayo and sweetcorn; and ham and mustard. Keep the menu simple, just like Gordon Ramsay is forever telling the morons on Kitchen Nightmares. It went down really well. People had obviously forgotten just how good sandwiches are.

Today I was on dinner with Sarah and did as I was told.

That's kind of it. I've been thinking about what I'm getting out of Raleigh. Even though my approach was not to have any expectations about expedition and to just go with the flow, I still knew what I wanted to get out of it. Having been here almost six weeks, I can say that I am getting what I wanted out of it.

On a professional level, I'm earning bragging rights for when I get job hunting, by creating and editing content with high engagement levels for a global organisation, as well as learning more about leadership and making me think more about the kind of organisation I'd like to work for.

On a personal level, I'm seeing and doing things I never thought I'd see or do, and I've enjoyed it. I'm not sure what that's doing for me but I like it.

I also write a personal blog and stick some thoughtful stuff at the end. You know what else had thoughtful stuff at the end? He-man and the Masters of the Universe. Just saying.

Until I return from project...

Pura Vida!

Eight days.

Get a cuppa and a comfy seat. This is a long one.

Day One.
After staying up until 1.15am writing my last personal blog post, I was up at 3.30am. I got on the bus with Project Managers Charlotte and Sylvie and their Alpha One group to the starting point of their trek at El Progresso, somewhere around here.

One amazing thing about Costa Rica is how easy it is for trekkers to find somewhere to stay. You basically rock up and ask the local shopkeeper if you can camp in a public flat green area that every settlement, no matter how small has. For free. Can you imagine that happening in the UK or Ireland? Yeah right. It would take at least 20 emails, three meetings and a minimum fee of a fiver per person.

The local shopkeeper said we could camp on grass for free or stay in an area with a swimming pool, shower and toilet for 1000CRN (2USD or 1.22GBP). We opted for the latter, set up our sleeping area, chilled, had dinner via Trangias, and were in bed by 7.30pm. I went to sleep to the sound of the Venturers playing cards against the sound of the jungle. The last thing I saw before closing my eyes was the stars through my mozzie net. Magic.

One of the Venturers said that one of her earliest memories was rushing home from school to watch High School Musical. I was in university when that came out. Ho hum.

Alpha One!

#justchillin

Day Two.

Got up at 4am and kicked of the day with energy bombs for breakfast - that's porridge, condensed milk, chocolate powder with optional nuts and raisins. We set off trekking at 6.15am. We walked up a big ass hill, saw a snake, completed two river crossings, saw an orange tree, and hacked through jungle with a machete to find the path the route card told us we should be on.

We stayed at a ranch that night, which was like a little community. It's called Alturas, but it's not on the map. Again with the asking locally if we could camp, to which they directed us to a lovely spot by the river. They also had a shower and toilet behind their shop which they told us we could use.

I went to the shop all by myself, and using barely there Spanish with an Irish twang (Hiberno-Spanish?) and the international language of Pointing, I managed to buy Coke, crisps and chocolate. This was a very big deal for me.

It was funny listening to the Venturers during the day. One started talking about some rapper, then asked if I knew who they were, and I hadn't a clue. #oldfart

Day Three.

Up again at 4am. Walked. Lots of hills. Not a particularly eventful day. Encountered a severed bull's head in a cage, but nobody seemed to have any ideas of why. There was a lovely hot spring on the way to our camping area for the night.

We were ahead of time, so managed to splash about there for a good hour. Then it was another kilometre uphill to the camping area, which was a community centre next to a bull ring, in a place called Aguas Callientes, which I couldn't find on Google Maps. It was nothing like the Bullring back in Birmingham. We slept under our mozzie nets under a sheltered part outside the community centre. The rain hitting the roof of the shelter, combined with the general wildlife noise was something special.

A couple of scorpions were spotted. Apparently a couple of police officers arrived up in the middle of the night to warn us against snakes and robbers. Which was odd because we'd already been told we could stay there. Whatever, I slept through it.

Day Four.

My final day with Alpha One mostly involved hills. Lots of hills. Specifically a big ass 3.5km hill at the end, which lead us to the ranger's station at Pittier, super-near the border with Panama, where we were to stay that night, and where we would meet a road trip from Fieldbase who would bring food, stay with us that night, and who I would depart with the next day.

We got to the ranger's station in plenty of time to shower and rest before the arrival of the road trip, which comprised Deputy Programme Manager Blue, and JJ and Sarah from the Logistics team. There was food and lols and bed. Here's a picture of some scenery from ranger's station.

Day Five.

Despite repeated pleas from Alpha One, I bade them farewell, having walked about 36km with them, and cementing a reputation for being able to sleep anywhere, such as the side of a Costa Rican road during a rest break. The road trip was to drop off food for them at four places along the rest of Alpha One's route. I saw lots of pretty scenery, which ended at Carate beach. That's karate with a c. There was an airstrip there that people were saying was used in Jurassic Park. Except there is no airstrip in Jurassic Park! The only thing I could think of was that it might have been Jurassic Park III, but that film wasn't very good. Anyway, they had a badass a lizard there.

When we pulled up at our final food drop contact's house, after being on the road for 10 hours, his Canadian neighbour who owned the land came over to chat. He had started building a shelter at the back of the property and told us we could stay there. There was a toilet and shower we could use, and he even brought us some mattresses. Sometimes some randomer will come along and restore your faith in humanity for a bit. We cooked dinner on the beach as the sun went down, and slept in the shelter under our mozzie nets.

The sunset was too beautiful. I felt like somebody should have to do something to deserve to see such beauty, and I still don't know what I did to deserve to see it. It was like something from a film, not somewhere people like me who are brought up grounded in the real world ever find themselves. We mostly sat in silence, but not an uncomfortable silence for people who only met a month ago. As the sun gradually went down, more stars appeared across the sky.

Lying under my mozzie net, I could hear the sounds of the rainforest in a mash up with the Pacific's crashing waves. Clouds had come, but I could still see the occasional star peek through. Sweating like a pig, wearing just my boxers, to hot to get into my sleeping bag, or even my sleeping bag liner, I worried that I might forget these memories, and that bothers me.

 

Day Six.

Sarah reckoned that at about 2am the night before, some dude had been at the entrance to the shelter looking over us with a head torch. Creepy. JJ said she woke up annoyed that somebody had their torch on, but when she opened her eyes it was the moon.

Had a delightful steak for breakfast, and spent eight hours driving to Puntarenas, where we met Home Country Volunteer Coordinator Ani, and got the boat to San Lucas, where the Alpha Five group, with Project Managers Tony and Ailsa, were working on an environmental project. They showed us their camp, brought us to a beach for a barbecue, and brought us to sleep on the pier, in the open air, without even a mozzie net, just our sleeping bags and roll mats, and the stars and moon.

Day Seven.
Got up early and joined Alpha Five in their trail-building project. I was given a machete and charged with hacking away at bushes that had grown over the path. No problem! They finish at 10am because it gets too hot. I decided to go for a swim before lunch, and ended up cutting up both of my feet on rocks. Ouch. I didn't realise how bad it was until I got out of the water. I hobbled back to camp, cracked open my first aid kit, and bandaged myself up.

After lunch, us road tripping guests were invited to take part in a treasure hunt. Unfortunately, the treasure had been buried on a beach the day before, and the X they made to mark the spot had been washed away. Somewhere on a beach on San Lucas, there is a buried bag of porridge.

We went for a wander around the prison. I fell asleep on some large concrete area in the middle of the prison. Turns out it was the pit prisoners got thrown in when they were naughty.

I read a comic written in Scottish accents, had dinner, and went to sleep again on the pier.

Day Eight.
Got up with Alpha Five, but instead of going to work with them, we hung around their camp until our boat came to bring us back to Puntarenas at 9am.

After hamburger and chips for breakfast, Ani insisted we try a Puntarenas speciality ice cream. I have no recollection of ever eating anything so sickly sweet in my life. It was a struggle to finish it, but I refused to be beaten by an ice cream. It was scraped ice, with a load is syrup, powdered condensed milk, a scoop of ice cream on top, and a little tub of condensed milk to pour over it. Bleurgh.

We finally headed back to Fieldbase, dropping Ani in San José end route. I showered and clipped my nails. It was lovely.

It was great spending time on projects and find out what the hell I'm talking about in the corporate blog. It was nice to get to know the Venturers a bit better, even if they did make me feel damn old.

I've thought a lot about how the same attitude that goes into trek could be really well applied to the workplace. On trek, sometimes the path in front of you isn't what the route card says should be in front of you. And you just deal with it, there and then on the spot. Decisions are made quickly, and there's a fantastic positivity in just getting on with it, not spending hours in meetings deliberating over mostly nothing. Adapting what you're doing as you go along isn't a big deal, and there's no drama when things aren't as expected. I love that!

On trek, there's a problem, you deal with it, it's no longer regarded as a problem. In the workplace, there's a problem, you deal with it, it's still regarded as a problem because somebody didn't check their crystal ball, that somebody gets sternly spoken to about the resolved problem in a meeting, and has it put in a report to highlight how useless that somebody is due to their lack of clairvoyance abilities that was never on the job description in the first place. One of those methods of dealing with problems makes a lot more sense than the other.

It's taken a long time to write this blog. There's a lot more pictures, but I'll be putting them all in some kind of online album after expedition. But I'll leave you with this image from the beach at Carate.

Pura Vida!

29 days later.

The Venturers arrived a few days ago. When 120 kids show up on a bus to your little bubble, it's a bit overwhelming, but by the end of the day, I was kind of excited.

I had a couple of funny chats with them:

"How did you find the fundraising?"
"Oh, I didn't do any fundraising because I didn't want people to pay for my holiday."
"I look forward to catching up with you in three months."

The excitement got me away from my desk for a bit. I helped with the shop, and some young fella came up:

"I need cigarettes."
"OK, we have Marlboro or Derby."
*look at me as if I'm mental* "I smoke Marlboro Lights."
*look at him as if he's a fucking idiot* "Take them or leave them."

I was told I'd be going on the Corcovado trek for four days at the start of phase with Charlotte and Sylvie and their Alpha One group, followed directly by two days at the San Lucas environmental project. Very, very exciting. The consequence of spending so much time out of the office was that I had to get enough blogs written to be posted while I was away. No problem - it's all done and signed off and ready to go.

We had some lols at Rich's expense...

That's Rich's bed. That's his mattress on top of the cupboard.

Allan struck a very philosophical pose the morning after the Venturers arrived...

"My name is Allan, and I'm about to become a meme of inspirational quotes from the gents' toilet in Fieldbase."

Not very much happened after that - I ploughed on with my blogs, and helped out other teams with their stuff. Just, you know, work really.

This morning I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. I came down to Fieldbase just before 5am and wrote a bit of a song. I tried to demo it, but people started arriving. Hopefully I'll get to it again at some stage. It's practically impossible to get alone time here. 5am or earlier is the best. This is what my songwriting session looked like.

All the clichés: guitar, plectrum, pen, paper, coffee mugs, earphones, tablet with a DAW open...

Later, I picked up my lunch for the trekking.

Even the picture on the front of refried beans can't make it look appetising. It looks like what somebody lands in their toilet bowl the night after several pints of Guinness.

Today I also learned how the comments bit of the corporate blog works. I basically copy and paste from emails into a Word document and print them out. I then give the to whoever they're for. It's a nice feeling bringing people messages of love from their family and friends a bazillion miles away.

It's the last night before phase starts, so it was decided to put on a disco for the Venturers. Introducing, Club Raleigh!

Where the fuck is Ibiza now? Hah!

So I'm writing this now. It's the day before phase starts. Everything has been leading to this, but it's just another horizon to be brought to us.

It's 29 days since I first arrived in Costa Rica. In that time I've eaten a tongue sandwich, gone whitewater rafting, tried salsa dancing, and got fed Haribo whilst holding a razor in one hand and a shaving mirror in the other.

I've met great people, who in the space of a month have become drinking partners and dancing partners, sharing cigarette breaks and swims under waterfalls, and putting our heads on each other's shoulders to laugh and to cry.

I'm already such a long way from the last cigarette I had outside my back door, when it finally sunk in that I was doing this, and had a sudden sense of "Oh my god, what the actual fuck am I doing!?", and even further away from the depressing existence that drove me to seek adventure in the first place.

Thank fuck for that.

I'm definitely going to be copying and pasting some of that for a blog at the end of expedition.

I'll be without internets whilst I'm out hanging on projects. You'll see an update when you see an update.

Now... bring me that horizon.

Ar aghaidh.

Pura Vida!

Dry.

Last night's céilí was in fact a céilidh, which is a céilí but Scottish. I prefer the Irish one. It was all a bit organised and people were actually trying to follow the steps.

Yes, I most definitely prefer a céilí with a start time of 8pm so people start drinking at 6pm, the instructions are called out once, and participants just go for it, with nobody really doing it properly and resorting to an assortment of skipping, jumping and falling into each other. Jen the Medic is from Belfast and we agreed that the Irish do it better, and vowed to have a good Irish céilí after expedition when we can drink again. Making no effort to dispel stereotypes, myself and Jen were the last two standing. Until 4am.

This photo was taken after I dropped my phone in the sink. Whilst Jen was washing dishes.

Yes, that's me with Paul Stanley make up. I'm hot.

With the Home Country Venturers arriving today, last night was the last time we could drink until after expedition. I made the most of that fact. It was also the first time that some good rock songs got played nice and loud. My neck hurts from Killing in the Name, my ribs got busted moshing to Smells Like Teen Spirit, and my throat hurts from screaming along to Monkey Wrench. Completely worth it.

As we were leaving Fieldbase at 4am, we heard a sound from the terrace. An investigation revealed a visitor to the terrace in the form of a cow.

I was concerned that a poor farmer might be missing his cow and that we should tell someone, without really knowing who. Jen suggested that cows always make their own way home, and she's from a farm, so I trusted her judgement. The cow had a bit of a moo and headed off.

Then it was today and there has been pain.

During a break in the céilidh, we watched a slideshow of images of us over the past three weeks. It was really nice. We've done an awful lot together and had many, many laughs. We're a good bunch.

Throughout the various tasks we've had to do, I've thought that I haven't really been able to bring much to the group. Everybody else has such specific knowledge and skills, and I'm mainly here to sit at a computer. But apparently people's mothers have been reading the corporate blog and really like it. So that's what I bring, whatever the word is for keeping mothers informed of what their babies are up to.

Also, I apparently give really good hugs. A valuable skill?

Rafting, salsa, céilí.

After some pretty hectic times with the PPVs, we were given a day off on Monday, and most of us went whitewater rafting.

I hadn't done it before, but it was a lot of fun. I'll definitely be looking to do it when I get back to the UK. Here's a picture of the river.

We traveled 19 miles in the raft, and saw the most spectacular views of valleys, mountains and waterfalls. I didn't have my phone with me to take any photos because water, so sorry, those views are in my memory, for me only. You can't have them.

There was a football match arranged for after the rafting, but my nose was bunged up, so I went to the supermarket to get some decongestant tablets. I picked up a couple of other things too.

This was a good shop.

That's right. That's a box of Frosties, covered in chocolate, with marshmallows. Sugar much? That's a bottle of rum. I'm a pirate. Arrr. The night descended into drunken chaos. It was a lot of fun.

Yesterday the Project Managers had training sessions all day, which, as Fieldbase staff, I didn't have to attend. I managed to get four blogs done. It was a good productive day.

I was asked to help out with a role playing session where I had to play the part of a venturer who didn't want to do any work. I essentially had to be a brat and spend an hour saying that Raleigh was shit and everybody involved in Raleigh was a dick. All the Project Managers agreed that I was the most difficult scenario to try and deal with. I was oddly proud of that.

Last night was salsa night. I don't like dancing, but knew to give it a go anyway just to avoid being harassed. It was OK with beer and swigs of Jameson, and the night ended singing and dancing on the terrace.

This morning I desperately wanted a bacon sandwich. With a nice blast of brown sauce. I had to settle for Pringles, ham and ketchup. It was still carbs and piggy, right?

No, it wasn't the same. Not bad though.

Meh.

Work was a struggle but a cheeky power nap after lunch got me through. Myself and photographer Tess have to do a Comms presentation to the Project Managers in a bit. Piece of piss.

With three Scots and two Irish in our little tribe, there's going to be a céilí tonight. It should be a laugh - I have vague happy memories of jumping around céilís when I was at UCD. Good times. It's also the last night we can drink, as the Home Country Venturers arrive tomorrow. Something about that suggests it could get messy...

Nothing really to reflect on today. I'm too tired. Just enjoying getting on with my work and getting wasted with good people.

But Project Manager Allan said his mum reads this blog. Hi Allan's mum!

Through my own eyes.

It's yet again been a very busy few days, as I joined Project Managers Mel and Diego on their Project Planning Visit to La Cangreja National Park for an environmental project, which is properly out the sticks.

We set off from Fieldbase at 5.30am, got the bus to San José, another bus from San José to Puriscal, where we stopped for a spot of breakfast, and I learned something very exciting about a traditional Costa Rican breakfast...

Steak! For breakfast!

It's perfectly acceptable to eat steak for breakfast in Costa Rica! I swear this country just keeps on giving! There was several hours until our next bus to La Cangreja, which was passed in the sunshine, in a park...

Not sure what's with a monument made from the McDonald's arches. Art yo!

The scenery on the way to the park was breathtaking...

So was the bus driver's driving: super-mega-windy-narrow road, and the bus driver was alarmingly chilled, drinking a can of Coke and throwing it in the bin when it was finished, which if either side of the road didn't mean plunging to certain death, wouldn't have bothered me in the least, but it would have been nice if he pretended his driving had his full attention. Especially when the road stopped being a nice finished road.

Where we're going, we don't need roads.

When we got off the bus outside La Cangreja, Diego pointed out a plant they call 'sleepers'. Proper witchcraft.

When we stepped into La Cangreja National Park, we were immediately greeted by a toucan singing at us. All I wanted to do was put a pint of Guinness on its beak.

The ranger came and met us and said he was now the park administrator, and whatever the previous administrator had said was happening was now off the table completely. This was disappointing because there was an exciting new and different perspective to this environmental project, which was why I was sent along. It became evident that we were somehow caught up in a big old internal political storm, which I can't be arsed detailing and which wouldn't be appropriate anyway. You can make up your own story and insert it here:






All done? If you didn't make me out to be a Jack Bauer/John McClane-style hero, who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time and had to save the day, please go back and start again. Thanks.

Done now? Great, thanks.

Here's a picture from the top of a hill.

Some more faffing later, and it was our second night. We were staying at the ranger's station, where frogs came to hang out at night. Here's one coming out of a hole.

Toad in the hole! It looks nothing like a sausage in a Yorkshire pudding.

We got as far as San José on the way back, when we phoned in with our scheduled check-in with Fieldbase, and let them know it'd be about 7pm when we'd be back. We were told that despite our average age of 27, we were to find somewhere to stay in San José because we weren't allowed to be travelling after dark, despite the fact that the last time travelling back to Fieldbase in the dark was at 2am, from a bar.

We rocked up to the hostel I stayed in when I first got to San José almost three weeks ago. Our initial frustration was quashed by the sight of a pillow on the beds, a beer by the pool, the thought of a hot shower, WiFi, a pool table... sure we'd be grand!

San José was full of life, as it was the day before the presidential election. It was such an wondrous sight! People had the flag of their preferred candidate hanging out the windows of their cars, honking their horns and shouting their support. The complete opposite of Irish and UK political elections where people are very reserved about who they are supporting. It was exciting to watch, and it was all young people in their twenties.

Finally made it to Fieldbase this morning. I was informed that Head Office in London liked the corporate blog. Yay! I washed a load of clothes and had a bit of a grooming session - shaved head, shaved face, showered, brushed and flossed teeth. It was nice. I wrote and translated a blog, had lunch, started working on a quiz, and here I am finally catching up with my personal blog. Busy day.

One of the many things Diego pointed out to me was the presence of a bar everywhere, no matter how small the settlement. Every one of these bars will have a sign like this outside:

Apparently the Costa Ricans refer to it as 'The Bat-Signal'. I like that.

Over the past few days, heading through the winding roads up and down to La Cangreja, I've really been struck by the sights of the mountains and valleys. I really found it bizarre, and I guess couldn't quite believe that I was seeing all of this through my own eyes. Not pictures on the internet or television. It was all me. I was seeing all this. It was a bit overwhelming.

Maybe I need to get out more?

Pura Vida! ;-)