Pura Vida!

What an awesome couple of weeks it´s been! I started my Costa Rican adventures in San Jose, but got out of the city as soon as my luggage (which was a little slower than I was) finally arrived.

First stop, Montezuma, a lovely little hippy town on the beach, surrounded by rainforest. It was exactly what I had been pining for for months, so I was pretty content :) I met some lovely people there, and hung out by the beach alot, listening to the howler monkeys calling to each other in the rainforest by the beach. One day I went on a snorkelling adventure to Isla Tortuga, and although the snorkelling wasn´t that great (it´s rainy season here at the moment so visibility was really low) we spent the day by a gorgeous secluded beach. We also hiked through a river to an amazing waterfall, which was fun!

Next stop was Santa Teresa, a surf beach up the coast. The surf was a little crazy for me there, so just chilled out with lots of long walks up the beach and yoga. So nice!

I just came from Playa Ostional, where I was volounteering with an amazing project involving the Olive Ridley turtles there. The trip there was a 12 hr encounter, which ended with me jumping on the back of a motorcycle and crossing suspension bridges of rivers in the rainforest, whilst it was raining at night! It was so worth it though! Ostional is one of the most important nesting sites of Olive Ridley turtles, and is one of the only beaches were these turtles have their Arribada (mass nesting). The project was really interesting, as we were doing research as to finding a balance between the local people collecting the turtle eggs during arribada and whether them collecting a certain amount was actually beneficial. It was a bit of hard work, digging up old turtle nests, but on the most part we got to patrol the beach at night looking out for turtle tracks and collecting data from the turtles when they lay their nests. While we were there we got to see hatchlings, and set them free (I think this was possibly one of the most awesome moments of my life!). And of course, seeing the turtles land on the beach and dig and lay their nests was just amazing!!

I left Ostional today, and now am in Tamarindo for a little surfing. Stay tuned for more Central American adventures as I make my way up to Guatamala!!!

TTFN xo

A long overdue update!

Wow. Has it really been two months since I last wrote!! I really can´t believe it. Well it has been a pretty crazy couple of months....here is a very brief overview....

I ended up going back to London to visit. It was a really lovely week catching up with old friends, and the weather there was lovely that week :) When I got back to New York my friend Sando came and stayed with me for a couple of weeks, which was really fun. A couple of highlights of our time together was A bit of a pub crawl through the city on Independance day and seeing the fireworks on the Hudson River (they were never ending!). We also managed to get tickets to David Letterman, which was reall cool.

My last few weeks of work were really busy. Trying to look after the kiddly winks and pack us all up was hard, luckily Adam was there and did a lot of the work. I was also studying a lot then and getting ready for exams so it was a pretty crazy time! Anyway we got all packed up and away fine. It wasn´t so hard to say goodbye to New York City as I was kind of ready for a change, but it was hard to say goodbye to Jess, Adam and the kids!!!

I left for Montreal at the end of July with a friend of Anna´s who happened to be driving up to Canada. I even had a go of driving myself on our little road trip!! Was a bit scary though as I was driving a van, on the wrong side of the road, in the mountains at night, in the rain and fog. Not the best combination!!!

Montreal was a really lovely city. I had my birthday there, got a new tattoo, and my highlight was going to see Coldplay at a music festival. In the middle of their concert they came out to a stage in the mddle of the crowd and did an acoustic set right next to me. It was so amazing!!!!

Next was Toronto. To me, just another big city (a nice one though!). I went to Niagra falls from there which was really amazing!!! I did a lot of study in Toronto too, and stayed with my lovely friend Cynthia :)

A week ago I returned to New York to meet up with mum and dad who came to visit! We had a a great week together, taking in the sites of New York, lots of live music, comedy, and went and saw Avenue Q again. Good stuff!! And I did my exams so now am free from study for the rest of the year, yay!!!

Yesterday I left New York for Costa Rica!!! At the moment i´m in the capital San Jose. I arrived safely but sadly my baggage did not. So i´m waiting here patiently at my hostel for them to deliver it, so I can get out of the city and straight to the beach!!!!

Vamos a ver......

So there is my update. Stay tuned for more updates with not so much time in between!!!

TTFN xo