just a real quick one to let you know that we are moving on to Hondurus tonight at the ungodly hour of 3am! Managed to book our 10 hr coach tickets today, we are going to Managua the capital of Nicaragua first then catching the coach to Techulchigalpa in Hondurus at 5am then we are travelling north to San Pedro Sula to catch our connection to the Bay Islands in the Carribean here goes!!!

had a long long last day in Granada trying to book these damn tickets but it was all made better this afternoon by a magical horse and cart ride through Granada and on the shores of Lake Nica,got about a million photos sorry guys! *but you are right adel they would be very good pictures to sketch from I might have a go when I get home*

however to continue, we then got a bit ahead of ourselves and thought we should try the national dish in the central park because we`d already tried the purple cactus juice which is a drink local to here and it was gorgeous and this dish looked really cool all wrapped up on your plate in a banana leaf, but when it came it was basically pork scratchings served on a bed of yukka which is a bit like stringy potato and topped with tomatoes and cabbage, yum!! we`d been joined by two little street kids tho so they were more than happy to finish it off when we couldnt face it anymore!! its sad to see the kids here, you have to try to give to one on the sly before the others catch on,so far we are not too good at it tho, theyve had a few dozen of our small coins and our bags are always topped up with chewing gum from them and today claire bought Maisie one of those flute things shaped like a bird from a little boy who was only about 8!

anywho, we will try and call once we reach our destination, staying at least a week in Utila so will give us a bit of a chance to unpack at least!

Lots of love,

Claire and Victoria XXX

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just to let you know that we arrived in Nicaragua safe and sound yesterday afternoon, was a bit of a shock to leave Costa Rica and reach the hustle and bustle of Granada!

We are in a lovely backpacker hostel called the Oasis in old colonial Granada on Lake Nicaragua,the place we are staying in is very atmospheric and relaxing,its in a really old historical building right in the centre. Yesterday afternoon when we got here we went for a walk around the town and it really is the most beautiful place, lots of crumbling cathedrals and squares and horse drawn carriages!today we went to nearby Mesaya on the bus to check out the artisan market it was very good, lots of traditional crafts and art,I`ve bought a nica doll tho and victoria thinks she`s a bit scary!

its very different here to Costa Rica, it all looks very different, the people are alot more darker and more indian looking and the street layouts are more eclectic and alot poorer nicaragua is actually the poorest central american country so there`s lots of oppportunity for volunteer placements if only we had more time. its also lots cheaper than costa rica so we are going to get to practise our haggling skills!Ooh and the local beer here is only called Victoria!**insert your own gags we dont do brackets!**

we left Liberia yesterday at 6am and took a bus to the border, it wasnt anything like we expected, for one thing it was down a country lane amidst a load of trees!we just walked in and got our passports stamped then walked thru another dozen checkpoints,paid some american dollars then they opened this metal gate and we were in Nicaragua!the roads were all dirt and the buses all painted in mad colours and jam packed with people and vendors trying to sell you things!we`re going to buy lots of copied reggaeton music for you to enjoy back home lucky you!

we managed to find a bus to a place called Rivas which looked like what we would have imagined mexico to look like with all the chaos and noise then we hopped on a bus to Granada and found the hostel after some other backpackers recommended it-its fantastic, free internet (which is how im writing this right now), hammocks around the spanish garden in the centre and a little pool. we are staying in a dormitory with really high carved ceilings and fans thankgod-its hot! and all for 3 pound a night!we have somewhere to lock our things away and its really quiet away from the hustle and bustle of the main streets, so far so good!

anyway i must dash the shower is calling me i feel really dusty and dirty right now!

lots of love,

Claire and Vicky XXXx

PS photos are coming Peter and Catherine, Victoria is working on them right now!!

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hope you are all doing ok, just got a chance to read all our emails now we´ve spotted our second internet place in the last few weeks, thanks guys! sorry we havent had chance to reply to all the emails direct but we are reading them!

we are now in cowboy country in Liberia where we are staying the night before our crossing to nicaragua tomorrow morning. we arrived here this morning after staying an extra couple of days and there were more than a few tears to leave our family and friends in Zapotal...we´ll definately want to go back!

We´ve had a cool week with lots happening, we had a whole new bunch of volunteers arrive monday from the uk which was fun, they were a college party from Stockport. it was a bit of a shock tho to find we had two extra people staying in our cabin tho..we´d been so spoilt having it all to ourselves up till then!! too many volunteers came to fit in the hostel so we ended up with the teacher and one student! they both turned out to be really nice tho and we had a good giggle. It was funny tho because we do work hard here-on the first day we went out into the cloud forest to help relay the path in the forest again and I dont think they knew what hit them! we were trundling wheel barrows full of gravel up and down the hill and that was even before the path started!...we ended up cutting in extra steps and laying new wood up there to keep the banks steady, and on wednesday they let me and victoria have a go clearing the way ahead with machetes! felt like rambo or indiana jones or something! at first we were a bit cautious with them but by the end we were chopping anything in our way!

what else have we been doing...well we had a go helping put up the new bridge once the water had gone down that is (last sunday it rained torrentially all day and it ended up washing huge sections of gardens away in Zapotal and leaving the river at 20ft deep!...locals didnt seem that concerned tho..it was a great opportunity for them all to get together in the rain and take photos!)anywho so the bridge needed wooden slats fitting under the gurders and we had to cut them to shape, only they all kept coming out either too large or too small, lets say we dont think our new vocation is in carpentry! but building however is another story we´ve been loving it!! since the first day when we were helping them move their stuff out for the work to begin we´ve added 5 extra breeze block rooms to roof level and we have made most of the metal gurders to support it! we taught the new volunteers how to shape the metal on thursday too.

our host family have been absolutely fantastic they are so kind,on sunday betty´s sister in law and three kids had come to stay this week so we all drove out of zapotal into the mountains to visit the grandmother of our host family, it was the clearest evening as it was after the rain and the moon lit up the sky and we could see right over the mountains at cloud level to the sea, Betty´s mum lives near a gold mine so there were lots of beautiful rivers nearby. when we got there they took us into their land behind the house and we went fruitpicking for berries and this strange fruit thats a kind of cross between an orange and an apple..dont ask us to name it tho!!her mum is eighty odd and was really nice and welcomed us into her house for dinner and showed us pictures of her 10 children. big families are the norm here,we were helping an 18yr old on the construction who´s the youngest of 12!everyone here seems to be the uncle or aunt of the next person! our spanish has come on miles since we were first here as we are using it all the time, the little girls staying at our house (Arrianna and Jennifer) were funny as they would just rabbit along constantly to us in baby spanish and we´d just nod and smile! on their last but one day we gave them a colouring book and pens and they thought it was fantastic, think by the end of that day most of the family had had a quick colour it was great, we went through the book with them and taught the girls some english.

we ended up staying longer in Zapotal as it was wonderful and also they had arranged a bbq for us on friday night so we sang kareoke and danced the night away salsa style with the locals! we left at 5am saturday morning with our friends and we all went to the beach in Punteranus while we waited for our connection to northern guanacaste later in the afternoon. the heat was quite a shock after the mountain air! Punteranus was quite shabby but the sea was beautiful, we could see right across the gulf of nicoya to montezuma where we were two and a half weeks ago strange!there was a pier there and a 10k beach run was also going on that day so we were sat watching the crazy runners go by in an ice cream parlour when we realised the last bus had gone! so we stayed another night in nearby Miramar which turned out really well because there was a fair on and everyone from Zapotal had come down so we had another fiesta and left early this morning!

Liberia is real dustbowl country, its stifling hot here and we´ve found ourselves a room in an old building just off the central square near this gigantic white church, tomorrow at 6am we are catching the bus to the border at Penas Blancas and then its on to Lake Nicaragua where we are staying in Granada which is supposedly the place to visit at the moment in Nicaragua. Looking forward to checking the place out as its supposed to be quite colonial in style and the lake has lots of crazy wildlife in it, like sharks... so we wont be going in the water!!

Anyhow, as this is now the second time we´ve attempted to write this all out as the damned computer here lost it the first time we wont push our luck and write much more! just wanted to let you know that we´re safe and just having the most wonderful time, it´ll be sad to leave costa rica tomorrow it´s such a fantastic place.

All our love, hugs and kisses

Claire and Victoria xxxxx

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The weather tho is sooo different, we are up in the clouds so we get lots of fog, rain and some spectacular thunderstorms, most directly overhead which have been quite scary!when the sun shows it is strong and at night its so cold we need blankets-such a contrast to everywhere else save Heredia-we´ve been living in bikinis for most of the time so far!

Living in a log cabin in the mountains and me and Victoria are helping build a house at 1500 metres altitude!! We´ve been laying bricks and mixing cement and everything check us out, gonna be ripped by the time we come home with all this work and walking-we walk everywhere! we have to wear wellies and waterproofs all the time as its so muddy and we are always really mucky but its great! in the evenings we´ve been known to do the odd kareoke song and dance salsa they love it here!! spanish is coming along too as we are using it all the time, making sentences tho is still a bit challenging,claire realised the other day that where she thought she was saying really early she was actually saying really weather-no wonder we´ve had a few funny looks!! (she´s looking forward to going on all the school trips to spain when she´s teaching back home lol!!)

we´re staying in a place called zapotal-dont think its even on the map but its closest to the port of punteranus. as we are in the mountains we have to travel for 2 hours to the nearest town for the internet and shop-they dont even have phones in their houses just a public phone which constantly rings for different people in the village!so far this week we´ve helped lay the foundations for the house, built a rainforest path in the reserve, churned cheese and milked cows-and on thursday we went trekking on horses in the mountains with the farmer and saw vultures it was amazing!

last saturday it was a clear morning and after the soccer (dear oh dear where did it all go wrong?!)we travelled higher into the mountains with our host family in the back of their pick up truck hanging on for dear life and when we got there the views were fantastic-we could see right across into about 3 different states in Costa Rica and there´s a total of 7! ooh and next week we´re helping build a bridge!! made lots of lovely tico friends and Claire´s now permanently Clara as they cant pronounce Claire!

anyway must dash we have got to catch up on emails...may take some time!
been lovely to hear from you guys tho, hope you are all doing ok,

lots of love and hugs,

Claire and Victoria XXXXX

PS, we want to hear about the orange party if you´ve had it SGP!

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just a quick one to let you know that we'll be leaving earlier than planned for Puntarenas tomorrow instead of saturday as our teaching project has finished early,we've had a minor hitch with it, and we've been given the option to move on to our next project. We're excited to be starting our next project and seeing a bit more of Costa Rica and what its like in the mountains! Keep you informed soon as we can find an internet cafe,

Lots of love,

Victoria and Claire XXX

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the actual place here tho is very beautiful,its on the pacific coast with waves crashing everywhere and loads of hippies in montezuma so sure you´d all like it! right next to us just off the pebble beach we´ve got an island that we are looking forward to exploring. it´s very safe here, the kind of place where you say hello to everyone you meet along the road. we live in a...shack....in a wood next to a pebble beach. Its baaasic-claire´s lucky as she has an ensuite:well a toilet plus a "shower" which is basically a cold water pipe!!! when we arrived we realised it was actually rooms rather than a homestay but we are practising our spanish with the kids non the less!Rosaura our landlady was turning down claire´s room when we first got here and a bat was roosting there and flew out! it´s new roost is above victoria´s door in the corridor! walls are open to the elements at the top also so alot of companions come to visit!! first night a huge cockroach crawled onto claire´s back and she about screamed the place down!we´ve made friends with the cat now tho and last night we let her hunt in our bedrooms before bed and she caught it! also the german girls who were staying there the first week with us have very kindly left us their roach spray so we are now prepared! not as many mossies as in samara tho thankgod, just alot of fire flies instead which are way cooler as they light the whole place up! we can see monkey´s from the house balcony and today at breakfast a gecko ran up claire´s leg!

kids are very cute, we are teaching them loads of vocab, yesterday we went to the local nature reserve at cabo blanco-in the back of the warden´s pickup truck(!!) and looked for animal tracks with the kids and helped them make plaster moulds of them-we ended up with one good deer one and about twelve other squashy messes!

food is good tho-we are cooked for morning and night and can have as much rice beans and meat as we like tico stylee and there´s a local man there who goes around making monkey sounds all the time which adds to the entertainment!!-both missing the choice (and fruit) that we had in Samara (yeah we def were completely spoilt there!) but there´s some excellent coffee/icecream down in montezuma instead! By the way our last night in Samara was absolutely amazing-it had rained the last few days but that night was the clearest ever and it was all lit up with the brightest stars so we all went out onto the beach to get a better look and realised we were looking at the milkyway, then as we watched, Sarah our friend from switzerland and us all saw the same shooting star literally drop out of the sky-was a very special last night.

we have rented bikes now too so that´s cool, they are amazing trekking bikes with suspension thank god! although its only 4 miles to montezuma from cabuja where we are based the bus only comes every two hours and that´s on costa rican time!! its ok tho..all experience hey, we all need challenges right?!!

with love fron Victoria and Claire XXX

PS;

has anyone seen the latest OC?! oh my god!! if anyone saw it please comment-we randomly saw an episode in samara and couldnt believe what happened!!

PPS what´s happening in Lost? (from vic!)

PPPS; added to our total of 4 card games that we know this week by learning to play shithead - does anyone know if you can put a ten down whenever?!..even if a 7 has been put down before?!..it´s been causing issues over the dinner table card games!!

PPPPS; any questions/comments from you lot please forward!!!!

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the actual place here tho is very beautiful,its on the pacific coast with waves crashing everywhere and loads of hippies in montezuma so sure you´d all like it! right next to us just off the pebble beach we´ve got an island that we are looking forward to exploring. it´s very safe here, the kind of place where you say hello to everyone you meet along the road. we live in a...shack....in a wood next to a pebble beach. Its baaasic-claire´s lucky as she has an ensuite:well a toilet plus a "shower" which is basically a cold water pipe!!! when we arrived we realised it was actually rooms rather than a homestay but we are practising our spanish with the kids non the less!Rosaura our landlady was turning down claire´s room when we first got here and a bat was roosting there and flew out! it´s new roost is above victoria´s door in the corridor! walls are open to the elements at the top also so alot of companions come to visit!! first night a huge cockroach crawled onto claire´s back and she about screamed the place down!we´ve made friends with the cat now tho and last night we let her hunt in our bedrooms before bed and she caught it! also the german girls who were staying there the first week with us have very kindly left us their roach spray so we are now prepared! not as many mossies as in samara tho thankgod, just alot of fire flies instead which are way cooler as they light the whole place up! we can see monkey´s from the house balcony and today at breakfast a gecko ran up claire´s leg!

kids are very cute, we are teaching them loads of vocab, yesterday we went to the local nature reserve at cabo blanco-in the back of the warden´s pickup truck(!!) and looked for animal tracks with the kids and helped them make plaster moulds of them-we ended up with one good deer one and about twelve other squashy messes!

food is good tho-we are cooked for morning and night and can have as much rice beans and meat as we like tico stylee and there´s a local man there who goes around making monkey sounds all the time which adds to the entertainment!!-both missing the choice (and fruit) that we had in Samara (yeah we def were completely spoilt there!) but there´s some excellent coffee/icecream down in montezuma instead! By the way our last night in Samara was absolutely amazing-it had rained the last few days but that night was the clearest ever and it was all lit up with the brightest stars so we all went out onto the beach to get a better look and realised we were looking at the milkyway, then as we watched, Sarah our friend from switzerland and us all saw the same shooting star literally drop out of the sky-was a very special last night.

we have rented bikes now too so that´s cool, they are amazing trekking bikes with suspension thank god! although its only 4 miles to montezuma from cabuja where we are based the bus only comes every two hours and that´s on costa rican time!! its ok tho..all experience hey, we all need challenges right?!!

with love fron Victoria and Claire XXX

PS;

has anyone seen the latest OC?! oh my god!! if anyone saw it please comment-we randomly saw an episode in samara and couldnt believe what happened!!

PPS what´s happening in Lost? (from vic!)

PPPS; added to our total of 4 card games that we know this week by learning to play shithead - does anyone know if you can put a ten down whenever?!..even if a 7 has been put down before?!..it´s been causing issues over the dinner table card games!!

PPPPS; any questions/comments from you lot please forward!!!!

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We hope you are all well and having as much fun as we are (you hate us right now dont you!!) Lets just put it this way, life is coolio at the beach con muchas fiestas en la noche!

This morning we actiually saw some monkeys in the trees outside school in our break from lessons, it was a family of about 5 and they had babies with them, the romours have been proved true (although we are the last to see them - Victoria was convinced it was the British accent that put them off!). We also saw a huge iguana right outside our hotel room the other day!Our days in Samara have mostly revolved around the changing tide and classes but if we are not in class we are on the beach and visa versa! On Sunday we rented bikes with our friend Sarah from Switzerland and rode to Carillo beach which is just along the coast from Samara, it alot more remote and less developed compared to Samaras one shop! We set up camp and basked in the sun until the tide caught us unawares and almost swept us and everything we had away including the bikes! Luckily we made a quick getaway and biked off into the sunset and ended up in some remote town in the mountains eating ice-cream and cake!! The next morning we decided to take advantage of the bikes and left our hotel room at 6 in the morning for a leisurely bike ride before school at 8am, it was really beautiful with the mist rising and the wild horses grazing in the fields, all the local children were on the way to school and we followed them back!

The nights here are good as there are pleanty of bars to entertains us and our fellow school friends so we normally meet up around 8.30pm at one of the local bars, often in torrential rain wearing waterproofs which is a really good look!! The school has a really nice atmosphere as all the students go out together either drinking, dancing, eating or just hanging at the beach! We have made lots of new friends from Arizona, Texas, Switzeland, Quebec, to mention a few! We are still the only Brits here so our British accent is still a novelty to the fellow Americans, its cool though becuase we are teaching them all our street slang i.e. Mardy, blimey, Sausage roll (for you Amy & Denise) etc!

We have decided to extend our stay one more day and we are travelling to Montizuma on Sunday morning for our next set of adventures to begin!

We may or may not have access to the internet on our volunteer placements which start next week for a month but never the less keep the comments coming and please let us know your news (Leanne keep us posted!)

lots of love,

Victoria and claire xxx

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sorry about the gap in messages-we've now moved to a different part of the country and have just found an internet cafe but its the slowest ever!!We're now in the poorer Guanacaste region on the west coast at the most amazing beach called samara and it doesnt rain so much and the bars are really cool as they all have hammocks-even the school too! (dont want to make you all jealous but the beach is lined with coconut trees and has a barrier reef and lots of surfers!)and our new spanish school is a hundred metres off it-we literally go to school then run into the water!we are loving it-this place is so much more chilled and safer than heredia.
before we left there we actually went into the capital san jose and there wasnt that much to see-it literally had one old building which turned out to be closed and so we ended up just wandering about and watching each others bags!we took the most amazing trip to get to samara beach tho last weekend. we went to the rincon de la veijha national park also in guanacaste with 9 other students from intercultura and stayed in the rainforest in chalets for two nights. we arrived there in the dark in a thunderstorm with fork lightening lighting up the sky and got there via the worst road ever-we had a land rover guide us part of the way and then even he gave up and left us to it!got there in one piece tho and when we woke up we were on a farm with stables right next to the rainforest. we had about 4 tico guides with us and we went on horseback up to the zip lines for the canopy tour which literally zipped us around in and above the canopy - vicky was very good at it but I was a bit of a hazard as I couldnt manage to slow myself down as I zipped into the first stations and the guides had to catch me! got the hang of it in the end tho and it was so cool, at some of the stations we even had visitors; we saw wild parrots and tucans, then we went galloping off (western style like cowboys) to the natural hot springs which were so strange-the area was volcanic and we rode through the forest to this stream in a glade and there were torqouise pools of warm (smelly) water-our guides said we could swim in it but we we happy just to paddle!saved the swimming till later when we swam in a waterfall pool to cool off-the rainforest's aircon!we had lunch in a hacienda in the middle of nowhere-there were so many bugs like we'd never seen before and then we galloped in the rain back to the ranch it was amazing-and we all had some pretty huge bites-lets just say we were so pleased to have brought our hiking boots-thanks mum! we were guarded that night by the ranch dogs who sat outside our doors all night and we had fireflies in the room with us not to mention several million leaf cutter ants (altho they were cool if you just left them alone) and a girl next door who sleeptalked in french!the next day we went on a walk in the forest and the guides pointed out trees and birds to us, we saw the stangulators around all the big trees, learnt that nearly all the fruit on the trees were poisonous,we even saw purple doves, babies in a parrot's nest and sleepy ferns which closed up if you touched them.

after all this we travelled to samara and so far have had a wonderful time - we've been surfing-check us out! and the hotel we are staying at is nice and clean and apparently there are howler monkeys in the trees altho we have yet to verify this! we've made some really cool friends-done yoga and salsa outside next to the beach and watched the worldcup this morning!!looking forward to england's game tomorrow morning-it'll be a 7am start for us tho get in!!
better go now as we are about to go surfing and need to catch some good waves!

hope you are all well, carry on leaving us messages!

lots of love,

claire and victoria xxxxx

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The food here is very heavy, not to everyone´s tastes it´s all rice and beans and lots of bread - Claire´s craving some nice soup and of course chocolate!! whilst Vicky´s just craving being able to eat what she wants rather than being force fed with bean paste and being served bread and rice.... with everything!!!however the tropical fruit is fantastic-we´ve eaten fruit we never knew existed!

On saturday we went with our amigas from our escuela on a cheesy coffee plantation tour of Cafe Britt (who are the big company here in Heredia) and literally had the story of coffee acted out to us by a troupe of actors which was a bit unexpected!!was good fun tho..actually got vic to try some coffee, tho she´s still not convinced! later on we had some gorgeous fish served to us costa rican style and then the heavens opened - we were so glad to be under the canopy! Our hopes of going to San Jose in the afternoon were scuppered so we ended up going to the mall and watching X-Men - it´s like $3 a ticket and popcorn´s 50p!

Sunday was amazing, we got up at the crack of dawn at 5.45am when our taxi arrived and got them to drop us off at the hotel in san jose so we could get the tour bus to the Tortuga Island in the gulf of Nicoya. Got to see alot of the countryside enroute on the pan american highway ... again quite hairy at times! Boarded our catamaran at the dock and sailed off into the sunrise!!! On the way we saw the most enormous birds ever and were told that they were brown pelicans or the "pirates of the sea" pretty impressive non the less as there were millions of them, enjoyed being treated like princesses on board and getting drinks and fruit served to us while we sunbathed on the nets at the front! we passed numerous other tropical islands on the way and one that up until 1994 had been Costa Rica´s version of Alcatraz!The actual island was beautiful, we went snorkelling before lunch along the coral reef there and felt like we were in finding nemo! then we had lunch outside under parasols next to a coconut grove and there was a traditional band playing who brought along a domesticated warthog which along with charging under all the tables rolled over like a dog if you scratched his tummy! was a really really cool day...we are so looking forward to the beach at samara school!

Pictures to follow, we´ll update soon,

love Claire and Vic

PS thanks for your messages!XXX

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how are you doing? we have discovered a really good internet cafe to do this from just up the road from our language school so we can check emails now if theres anything you need to mail us about (addresses are at the end of our profile)

Who´d have thought we´ve only been here five days? feels like longer we´ve done so much already! first few days were quite awkward as we were finding our feet in spanish...however we have now perfected the art of using the odd spanish word with hand gestures and if all else fails nodding and smiling always seems to work!

Our house in Heredia is very nice-they have three noisy poodles tho and its like a fortress-but then again all the houses here are! We´ve got our own end of the house so we can escape easily if the conversation gets too much!so far we´ve tried some unusual dishes-like chilli con carne for breakfast!-but so far all is a-ok!our house mum has two kids not much older than us (Luiz and Melissa)and she likes to talk to us in rapid spanish! thankfully tho Melissa can speak some English and tonight she is taking us out in Heredia.

we´ve been having latino dance classes in the mornings and we´ve even taken a cooking class and can now make real guacamole sort of...however think more eating than cooking went on to be fair

On thursday we went on a tour up into the mountains outside Heredia/San Jose and saw the coffee plantations and loads of fruit farms-and we got our first glimpse of the rainforest which was amazing, we went to the La Paz waterfalls which were 80ft tall and we got soaked (see photo evidence). We saw lots of frogs, some snakes (behind glass!),huge butterflies and even some hummingbirds which were beautiful. Stopped en route on the way back down at some random restaurant with no menus and no choice-so ended up with chicken and smash...no really!

So far the weather´s been, how do you put it, different; in the morning its really hot and sunny and then the afternoon hits and the cloud and rain move in,by 6pm its pitch black!!

language school´s really like being in GCSE'S again-today we had a test and have been doing tenses all week...and have homework till ten pm at night?! yes we know we are crazy-however next weekend we´ve signed ourselves up for the campus on the beach (hopefully a little more relaxed!)

Tomorrow we are meeting up with Amy and Denise (who thankfully speak lots of spanish) and we´re going on a tour to the coffee plantation followed by a trip to check out the capital San Jose. On sunday we have an excursion planned and are off at the crack of dawn to go on a catarmaran to an Island on the Pacific coast, we´ll tell you more about it soon!

Hope you like the photos, more to come!

Love Claire and Victoria XXXX

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lots of love,

claire and vic xxx

ola chicos! remains copyright of the author claire.vic, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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hiya guys just a quick note to say that we´ve landed in costa rica and everything is ok-albeit our family dont speak a word of english so its a bit of a struggle and a real incentive to learn!!we started school today at 7.30am and you are not allowed to speak english there (!) our tour round the area with our spanish speaking teacher was not really that educating!!the place where we are is really tropical but wet at the moment-we´ve got a balcony though and in the morning its got a really good view over san jose to the mountains. Vicky´s already done a salsa dance class this morning which was very authentic and we can do cooking and jewellery making too,

anywhoo we better sign off as we have to get to class but we´ll do a longer one soon and we send our love,

Claire and Vicky XXX

We have landed! remains copyright of the author claire.vic, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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