My body clock is not quite in tune with my current time zone, so I may as well get up and post some more pictures. Gill was due to fly from San Jose on the Monday, and we had to give up the house in Tamarindo on the Sunday, so we decided to go to the Alajuelas area only an hour from the airport and visit another volcano, Poas.

We left Tamarindo at an amazing 6.30am having put all the children in the RV the night before so that we didn�t have to get them all up early. The plan was to stop for breakfast around 9-ish and reach Poas about lunchtime. Take note, anyone planning to visit Costa Rica - getting around is not easy. At 9 we had only just got to the end of the washboard road and into a supermarket to get tequila for Gill to hide in her suitcase. Breakfast was taken on the move. By lunchtime we are still several hours short. The roads are dreadful, especially if you care about the suspension on your vehicle. The main pan-American highway that runs through the centre of Costa Rica is much better than the other roads but even then still has potholes right up to within an hour of San Jose - in a way this is more dangerous because once you relax and build up speed, a pothole can burst a tyre. What I�m trying to say is that the journey took longer than planned! At 4.20 we eventually reached our destination - La Paz waterfall - only to find we were 20 minutes too late to be allowed entry. We decided to come back the next day before taking Gill to the airport.

Plans! The next day turned out to be heavy rain and the last thing Gill wanted was to get soaked before the 24 hour journey home so unfortunately she missed out altogether - La Paz was just wonderful! Butterflies, humming birds, orchids, poisonous frogs and snakes, a �casita antigua� (old house) and lastly the 3 huge waterfalls that attracted people to the area in the first place, all in splendid isolation thanks to the appalling weather (well this is the cloud forest!)