In which I enjoy some Havana nights, politicize icecream and find there ain't no party like the Communist Party.

A few weeks ago I woke up with a hangover and an email stating I and my friends Isabelle had just bought ourselves a ticket to Cuba. This being one of the less dramatic and dangerous fall-outs from a night of partying I was happy, and besides we had plenty of time to plan the details. However, it appears time in Central America moves faster than back home, much like water going to wrong way down the drain in the Southern hemisphere (and yes I realise that comparing time passing to water down a drain is a pretty darn depressing analogy... all the more reason to carpe the diem and live it up in Cuba.)

Touching down in Havana and driving in to town past all the huge propaganda posters brought me right back to my trip here three years ago with Eve (it had been our graduation treat to ourselves- though were so poor we ate nothing but cheap rum and rice and subsequently got very sick- a money saving trick of it own, you can’t spend money if you are laid out.) We even stayed at the same lady’s house that Eve and I stayed at. In Cuba if people have a spare room they can rent it out to tourists to make some extra money (the taxes from the renting go to building new houses for couples- which is nice.) Our taxi wove its way through the dilapidated grandeur of Havana’s centre to the apartment. Stepping back in side was like déjà vu, the high ceilings, the central open courtyard; even though the outside was, like most houses on the street, slowly crumbling, inside was as beautiful as ever.

Miriam, the lady we stayed with had two rooms and we stayed in the different one to Eve and I last time, though we shared an intersecting bathroom. I had a very weird Borges-eque moment when in the bathroom I spotted someone’s contact-lense equipment, remembered the eye-trouble Eve had had with her contacts last time (necessitating an exploration of Cuba’s renowned eye-doctors) and had the strangest feeling that we were staying in a room next to Maeve from 3 years ago. They say video games are bad for the mind but I swear Argentinean surrealists can mess you up.

We spent the next two days exploring Havana- this city takes a hold of you, the classic cars nonchalantly cruising down the streets, crumbling facades and colours everywhere. Our casa particular (the house) was in a fairly plain neighbourhood but walk 5 mins down the road and the street opens like the mouth of a river to the Prado, the main street. Here it is easiest to see the luxurious grandeur of a world frozen in the 50s- the Hotel Inglaterra, National Theatre and Capitolio (huge, domed, ex-presidential palace) peer down on the bustling street below.  

We also did a fair amount of hanging out in my favourite square, the Plaza de Armas in the old quarter. These days the plaza is full of second hand books stalls, brimming over with political writing and fiction (I got myself some Marx and Hemmingway- when in Rome.... mobilize the proletariat and go fishing.) I also love that the “Arms Square” is full of books- the revolution will be fought with ideas not weapons.

We managed to actually find some good food to eat too, though I still got more than my fair share of plain rice and tomatoes (unfortunately my vegetarianism didn’t allow me to try the “gizzard and banana sword” at one restaurant. When, oh when, will the world make Quorn gizzard?!) I also dragged Isabelle all over town looking for the famous Coppelia ice-cream parlour where a key scene from seminal gay-rights movie Fresa y Chocolate, thus combining my hobbies of being a massive geek and eating massive amounts of icecream. Unfortunately they were out of strawberry icecream (the symbol in the film for homosexuality) so I had to have carmel and chocolate- I don’t know what this says about sexual freedom... icecream eating shouldn’t be so political.

The only downside to Havana, and the other cities we visited, was that everywhere we went, (and I mean everywhere), we were serenaded with cat-calls and this weird psst psst noise that seems to be a less energetic form of wolf-whistle. It was incessant and got very very annoying. I blame Isabelle for  being a blonde, lovely Swede, (in fact as much as I hated the cat-calling it was a bit of a blow to the ego to hear them all say “linda rubia”- beautiful blonde. I wanted to shout “Shut up you misogynist pricks... and what am I chopped liver?!” Ah the feminist-egoist’s paradox.)

Other snapshots from Havana:

Walking along from the sea-wall at sunset I turned around to see some kids had grabbed Isabelle’s camera and were pulling on her bag. Her being awesome and tough she held on for dear life, I screamed “DEJALO!” (Spanish for LEAVE IT!) and the scamps ran off, dropping the camera on the way. So Isabelle got robbed but didn’t lose anything.

I was stopped in the street by a guy that asked where I was from, I said England and he got super excited and said “ahhhh Ali G- Booyakasha!” There is very little one can say in return to that.

We had a great night out by accident. We met some Cuban guys on the streets and they told us about a cool area to go out. We jumped into a collective taxi and zoomed off back to the North of Havana, right next to the icecream parlour we’d walked so far to find earlier that day. Now admittedly we broke all the rules in the book- allowing ourselves to be picked up by drunk guys on the street and guided to unknown places but I trust my instincts and in the end it turned out to be a great night (except a guy who was chatting me up suddenly stopped, looked at my stomach and said “oh wait are you pregnant”! Worst chat-up line ever.)My non-existent unborn baby and I ended up in this great reggae club filled with rastas. Thought I was getting a lesson in rasta philosophy from this brilliantly-turbaned guy, all about seizing the day and living life to the full, but turns out he was trying to persuade me to cheat on my imaginary-excuse boyfriend (quite the phantom family was forming). Years of skanking to ska helped on the dance floor and we danced the night away (totally sober), before trying to escape by going to the toilet, though we were followed. Shook off most of our want-to-be suitors and got a classic-car taxi home along the sea-front. They tried to charge us $40- I laughed in his face and gave him $6. A day of exploiting our attempted exploiters, dancing, icream and a lot, and I mean a lot, of walking. The next few days would take us out of Havana, though the adventures would continue....

Lessons learnt:

Repeating the same word continuously does make a coherent, persuasive argument. Being asked “taxi?” four-hundred times, despite having said no the first time, is not a great business model.

Smile nicely enough you can get yourself up to the private, roof-top bar of nice hotels... and then nurse the cheapest drink for an hour while taking in the view. Almost setting the place on fire due to a latent pyromaniac desire to play with candles is less likely to be tolerated.

There are a lot of very buff-body builders in Havana- apparently the body politik isn’t the only thing the Cubans have been attending to. 

In which life gets rain-checked, I tick off another childhood dream and I go on the run from the law

You know how estate agents use those euphemistic terms like “cosy” and “bijou”  to linguistically hood-wink their prospective clients (yes I admit I occasionally watched A Place In the Sun, mainly when the remote was too far away to warrant expending the energy needed to change the channel.) Well it turns out my place in the sun has been rather imposed upon by what the guidebooks so charmingly call “rainy season” but which is, it turns out, a period when 2/3 of the world’s water supply is flung from the sky in a constant and torrential deluge onto our little town.

Don’t get me wrong, being from Britain I secretly like nothing more than being able to complain about the weather (there is not so much call for debating the price of fish and chips here), the issue here is the rain has gotten pretty dangerous in the past few days. You may have seen on the news there’s been serious landslides in a suburb of San Jose not too far from here. As for us, our usually fairly treacherous road to uni just turned into something out of a video-game, with falling boulders and bits of road dropping away over the side of a cliff (and giant mushrooms that give you super-powers if you jump on them).

The rains really started coming down last Wednesday and we were called on Thursday morning to say campus would be closed. Unfortunately the rains also caused a power-cut and, ironically, our water supply cut off. Stinky and sat in the dark it wasn’t the funnest day, so I de-camped to my friend who was house-sitting our ex-diplomat, professor’s house equipped with all the modern luxuries of flushing toilets and functioning lightbulbs. The next day the uni team decided we should go to school so we took a harrowing hour’s journey edging up the mountain in a big yellow school bus only for the heavens to open again and for us to be sent home early before the entire place dissolved.

But honestly I got away so luckily, a lot of people died in the landslides in Escazu and a few friends here in Ciudad Colon were evacuated from their homes because it looked like a dam was breaking and the river was going to flood. To be honest I had a bit of a strange experience, my friend Marion and the two girls staying with her were evacuated because Marion’s house is right on the river.  She called to say could she come here and of course I said she should come on over, it was pouring down and had had to hurriedly pack all her prized possessions. I then went and checked with flatmates all of who said it was ok except one girl who said she didn’t want them staying because we didn’t have much water for showering. Now, as Ciara will be saying to her computer screen, my attitude towards showing may be slightly more lax than your average person’s but I was pretty shocked, I hadn’t prepared myself for the notion that anyone studying at the University for PEACE would turn away people in need. But Marion managed to find somewhere else for her and her friends to stay and I learnt a lesson about making assumptions on people’s characters. Generally though it has been wonderful to see how all the students have pulled together and taken care of each other.

Ok other news..... Well for one glorious week I had a dog! Diego’s cousin Daniel was driving down the road when the car in front of him opened its door and kicked out a beautiful golden retriever onto the road. Shocked Daniel stopped, opened his door and the traumatised door jumped right in. Now, Daniel lives on the 6^th floor of a block of flats so he asked if he could bring the dog round to us while he looked for a home for it (we’re not allowed to keep pets here- boooo- but the landlady said he could stay while we found a home). We named the poor thing Stinky Pete and ironically christened him by giving him a good wash to get rid of the smell. The next week was lovely- insert montage scenes of me walking the dog, trying to teach a Golden Retriever to play fetch, trying to teach a Golden Retriever the ancient art of alchemy, slowly winning the poor thing’s trust, etc. But after a week the other flatmates were sick of him, and possibly my constant goofy grin and dog slobber covered clothes, and Diego’s parents agreed he could stay with them, which is great cos it means I can still see him on weekends and every other Tuesday.

I also managed to get myself to a gig, Green Day came to San Jose and at the very last minute we decided to go. There is a very ridiculous story I can’t really go into here but it basically involves me and my friend Isabelle almost getting arrested twice but instead getting chatted up by the policemen involved, giving them our numbers and then getting 53 missed calls from said weirdos that night. I fought the law and the law persistently tried to hit on me. Anyway it was a very fun night of bouncing around at the gig and scurrying into taxis post gig on the run from the cops, I finally got an opportunity to jump into a taxi and shout “JUST DRIVE!” to the poor, bewildered, Spanish-speaking taxi driver.

So basically there hasn’t been any travelling, because we’ve mainly been trapped in this town letting the days go by and the water hold us down, but I’d been having fun, doing lots of work (Mum and Dad!), almost getting arrested (Bad-ass friends), have found an awesome singing partner and am teaching him all of Slow Club’s back catalogue so we have a little sing virtually every night, and generally holing up from the rain.

In two weeks, weather permitting, Isabelle and I are off to Cuba (this is a girl who has been banned from Mexico because of a “Spring break” incident- I pick the best travel partners!) So holding out for that to sate the travel-bug. For now am enjoying the intermittent sunny spells and excuses not to start training for the 5k Santa Run which I know all you delightful people will be sponsoring?  Pretty please?

Lessons learnt:

When other classes can’t go to campus they will creatively find new places to hold classes. International law students will say “ah screw it then” and just go back to bed- this is a quite worrying prospect for future legal challenges to human rights.

Even though it got vetoed Yo Momma is still, in my opinion, the greatest dog's name possible. "I tried to go for a walk by Yo Momma kept humping my leg", "What smells so bad- Yo Momma", etc.

It is quite frustrating when it has been raining for 3 days straight but you can't get a glass of water from your tap.

In which I am shaken and a little stirred, on the volcanic rocks and with a childish twist.

Oh hey parents... look over there....

Ok while they’re distracted I can quickly tell you about the drama of the past week. First- there’s been a moider (murder) in our tiny, sleepy town. Apparently a drug dealer was killed by a pirate taxi driver (illegal, not really a pirate, many times I have been disappointed by the lack of in-car parrots). This is the second murder in Ciudad Colon in 10 years and apparently the man killed was the suspect in the first murder case! So suddenly things have gotten dramatic- but if you haven’t been sufficiently distracted parents don’t worry, as long as I am not encouraging people to snort the plank I’ll be fine.

Secondly- last Friday we had a 5.9 Richter scale earthquake. You’ll be pleased to hear I kept my cool so while I did admittedly run out into the garden shouting I managed not to scream “this is it, it’s the apocalypse, the sky is falling.” Our Japanese flatmate came out to find me and the other two girls bouncing round the garden and, having felt many an earthquake before, gave us the most withering look possible, while still vibrating slightly.

To recuperate from all this excitement and from a three week crash course in international public law me and three friends (Marion (France), Isabelle (Sweden) and Ben (UK), took a long weekend to a place called Arenal, four hours north of San Jose. As we stiffly dragged ourselves off the bus we were warmly welcomed by the sight of a huge volcano looming over the town, its peak hidden amongst cloud and smoke. Had to hope the rule of threes wouldn’t come into play- didn’t need any more drama, especially with an active volcano so nearby.

We grabbed some lunch, found a $10 hostel with a pool and jacuzzi then headed off on a 6 hour tour. It started slowly with the guide showing us a coffee plant  and saying “look- have you ever before in your life seen a coffee plant?”!” to which we had to reply, well we drive for 20 mins through coffee plantations every morning so you’re going to have to up your game buddy. Fortunately things got awesome pretty quickly when we rounded a corner to see an amazing, wide waterfall. Within seconds we’d stripped off and plunged ourselves into the freezing, turbulent water below. It was great fun getting bashed around by the current and battling to get ourselves hidden behind the waterfall. Other people were climbing up the side and jumping off but the best our little group got was me divebombing off a log at the side of the pool.

From there we headed on up hills and across cable suspension bridges back to a lookout in the shadow of the looming volcano where we watched the sun go down and strained our eyes trying get a glimpse of the red-hot lava dribbling from the mountain.

Having warmed up with mint tea and coffees we headed off in a minibus only to come screeching to a halt to look at a snake and two, tiny, brightly coloured frogs. Having got our fill of the cold blooded we moved on to trail our way to the edge of a fast-moving river. By this time it was pitch black and we only had a few torches showing us the way. No amount of light could have prepared us for what came next though; we peeled off our still damp clothes and stepped into the river- it was boiling! Hot springs, warmed by the underground magma turned the river into a bubbling, natural Jacuzzi. We started on a concrete slab, were instructed to sit down and then without warning were pushed down, off the ledge waterfall into the natural pool below. It was blissful lounging in the river. The fast current meant staying in one place was a challenge but if you lodged yourself tightly behind a good rock  the river pummelled you a natural massage.

I had one of my most beautiful moments since coming here holding onto a creeper hanging from a tree at the river edge, lying star-fished on my back and feeling the hot river holding me up and pulling me away. Above us the stars peeked through the trees and were echoed by the glimmer of fireflies flickering in the trees above. Magical. (I also discover less spiritual fun, the fast pace of the river meant, holding onto the creeper, you could hurl yourself forward like Tarzan swinging through the trees- think my screaming broke the peace a bit.)

We also discovered that the concrete ledge we had slid off created a little waterfall that you could duck under. Underneath there was a gap and if you held your breath and ducked under that there was an airpocket below and a secret cave.

Just when we thought things were over and we were heading out the guide showed us this long tunnel made from a big bridge going over the river (about 50m long). If you went up river you could lie down in the very shallow, warm water and let the current pull you head first and backwards down the tunnel, through the darkness, towards the light of the guide’s torch at the other end. It felt the way people describe dying: floating warmly towards the light. Thankfully the guide was there to catch us at the last minute before we tipped over the waterfall to certain pain below.

Exhausted, damp but incredibly happy we headed back to town and grabbed a rather fancy dinner. We met up with another girl from uni then a few of us headed to a very sleazy club, full of 14 year old boys. Stuck it out for an hour then home to much needed bed.

The next day we went on a half hour walk down a big hill and found another massively tall waterfall. Absolutely freezing but had some more swimming fun then I had a great time exploring jumping from rock to rock, felt just like being 8yr in Wales again. I now have the same bruised and grazed shins as I had then too. Dragged ourselves back up the hill and back onto the bus for 4 hrs, most of which were taken up with Ben regaling us with tediously long and funny stories. Another brilliant weekend but ow my body aches afterwards!

Other than that uni is going fine and I have started volunteering at a kind of childcare/after-school centre in a under-privileged neighbourhood of San Jose. It takes about an hour on two buses to get to the centre: a tiny room packed with toys. To get there you walk down a dusty dirt track next to the railway line, in the shadow of a huge factory. As soon as I arrived though I knew it was worth the trek, I had barely gotten through the door when I was jumped on by 25 2-10yr each one giving me a massive bear-hug and then eagerly showing me how they could do cartwheels (in a room the size of an average bedroom. (Not my average bedroom, that would be ridiculous)).

I was quickly force-fed a feast of plastic food and then squeezed (one arm at least) into every dress-up outfit they had. It turns out entertaining children is easy- they were all ecstatically happy if I just lifted them up, so tired arms but happy children. So far I have just spent my time there drawing them lions and elephants (I had requests for flowers but I told them that is boring, they’ll have to have cartoon jungle creatures and like it), playing games and reading stories (great for the Spanish, if I don’t know a word I just say “where in the picture is the XX” and those gullible little angels point it right out- mwahaha).

There is one silent, very shy little 6 year old boy, the other day I was playing cards with a group of girls and he came up behind me with a fireman hat on which I said looked great. I would turn round every couple of minutes and he’d be stood there silently with one other fancy-dress item on. By the end I turned round he was wearing a fireman’s hat, a knight’s shield, comedy glasses, a Mickey-Mouse nose, a dragon head-piece and was holding a painter’s roller. I think I cried laughing and got a big, very rare smile from him.

They can’t remember my name so they just call me “La Gringa” (the foreigner). I probably need to come up with something educational to do next time though, just picking them up is probably not that beneficial to their long-term development, though it is a good work-out for me.

Yesterday I went again and at the end there were just 3 little 5 year old girls left. We’d been cutting and sticking and they decided to make themselves paper-moustaches and in that moment I suddenly massively missed my London ladies (every night out would inevitably end with Ella making us elaborate paper-facial hair) and realised how we had exactly the same sense of humour as 5 year olds. So when the lady that runs the place came over she just looked at me as if to say- why would you let children glue paper to their faces?! I think my shaking with laughter gave my response- because they look flipping hilarious and just like my best friends!

Last night I also met up with a Scottish girl called Laura who I met when we were at Amnesty in Chile. She knows one of my uni mates from when they lived in El Salvador (tiny world). We went to a Salvadorian art display then for food and drinks in San Jose. Was great to see her after 4 years.

So better go, have a presentation to give tomorrow on a case brief on a case that happened in 1946, never say International Law is boring! Off to the beach this weekend so just need to hold on til then.

Lessons learnt:

Bashing yourself on rocks makes the water feel less cold- I think it is the blood rushing about. It will not, however, be a great look when you get out.

Children all the world over are united in their love of slapstick (it is even funnier if you fall over by accident).

When a teacher introduces a module as “perhaps the most exhausting and boring week of your life” he is most certainly not lying.

The children are our future, and the future looks like a career-confused Disney character.

I which I enjoy pina coladas (read as tequila) and getting caught in the rain, learn from the spy-school of law and get itchy, wet feet.

Haven’t written anything for a while because in a lot of ways it has been a calmer couple of weeks, in that I haven’t traversed the globe in an obscenely short time. This is largely due to the fact that my mum and my body ganged up against me and told me I had better just sit still for a bit and recover (I got a gruesome cold). Then Mother nature intervened and sent an ocean’s worth of water down as rain prompting the government to call a national emergency and many roads to be shut for fear of landslides. Didn’t stop us going to uni though, oh no, just caused a lot of wet feet. (I have been constantly singing 'If you like pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain' but I don't know how it ends so it just morphs into 'there's lots of tiny little people, they're called the Poddington peas...etc' Is it just me or are those two the same song?)

So to make up for the claustrophobia of the rain’s constant curfew we have had quite a few parties this week. The first was at the Head of International Law’s house as a welcome to the department. Unfortunately the whole Costa Rica not having road names or house numbers caused its usual havoc so by the time we arrived we had been chased by dogs, I had fallen up to my shins in a bog and we had, in our desperation, called the uni’s emergency help line to ask where the party was.  Was a lot of fun when we finally got there though and later moved on to Ciudad Colon only to find Oskar’s is shut!!! Obviously I had a major panic but it turns out that this is a one horse, two bar town so we went to dance at this other place, where they serve tequila far too readily.

Other parties included going out in San Jose, a poker night at our house (when the one guy who knew how to play came back from the bathroom to find us all super impressed Allison had gotten three pairs and beaten us all. We are pretty amateur). We also had a brilliant one at some of the students’ house, which is essentially a mansion! It has a huge living space, a mezzanine and the trunk of a tree as a central pillar. Anyone that knows me around trees can imagine what I attempted after a beer or two. The house has all this ‘jungle’ around it and is just completely stunning (plus they have a puppy), I am jealous. Mine just has a jungle of industrial ants and Diego who is as energetic as a puppy. It is not the same.

So since I have been forced to stay still maybe it is time to say more about Ciudad Colon. We’re a tiny little town with a surprisingly large number of shoe shops (think mobile phone places in Northwich). It is pretty quiet and the most dangerous things, (other than my nemesis dog, who despite being 20cm high still manages to scare the life out of me when I walk home), are the pot holes. The roads get fairly dark at night and there are whole chunks of some of the roads missing. If you don’t watch your step you could end up in some toasty magma.

We have a cool farmers’ market on Saturdays so when I am not too lazy (most weekends) I can go and haggle for misshapen tubers.

School has gotten really interesting even though I am having to force myself to get through the tons of reading we have- I may be an intellectual narcoleptic, I generally fall asleep after every paragraph. We get picked up by a big, yellow, American style school bus from our house each morning. Our professor is clearly very smart but has started to adjust his analogies in an attempt to engage us. So we keep talking about ‘say everyone had the right to play poker’, or ‘what if you had a Porsche but you weren’t allowed to drive it, despite it being your right’. I think he may be confusing us with James Bond.

Speaking of which it appears me and the other guy from the UK can say anything and people think it’s hilarious because of our British accents! I think when I talk people just think I sound like Mr Bean or someone from Monty Python so they assume what I am saying is humorous.  This is nice for the ego but makes talking about genocide and human rights abuse an oddly comic affair.

Am also writing my article and introducing people to all the UK comedy DVDs I have brought. Boosh and Father Ted going down well, putting in the ground work to introduce the genius of Iannuchi. Have an exam this week and then a 3 day break so we’re all making crazy plans and hoping the rain doesn’t ruin them.

That’s all for now. Must get back to reading, I need a doze.

Lessons learnt:

You can put 4 international law students in a taxi, it does not mean any of them will have researched where they are meant to be going.

If you fall asleep after every paragraph on war crimes you will probably have some nasty dreams.

Tequila makes me happy, but then significantly less happy.

In which I travel the world in a weekend, go big egg-hunting and am guarded by the Masai.

This has been a pretty busy week- seven airports, tens of interviews and many sleepless hours but I’m finally back from my Africa trip. I’ve been off researching an article for The Guardian’s International Journalism competition and it’s been both brilliant and stressful. Things kicked off badly when three days before my departure date I got an email saying I’d no longer be going to Nigeria (having done a lot of research and interviews already) but instead was off to Kenya. After much swearing I got over the panic and started hard on Kenya research. Then the next called to check what we’d be seeing and found out now we were going to Tanzania. If I’ve learnt anything this week it is that I apparently am relatively adaptive, but I may well be developing a stress ulcer I don’t know about.

An ulcer that no doubt would have been fed by the stress of a delayed flight from Dallas which meant I missed my transfer in London. I never thought I’d be one of those pathetic, emotional idiots from Airline tearfully begging the check in desk to please let me in. Anyway begging didn’t work and I had to book another flight (argh!). Good news was I got to nip into central London and have lunch with Ciara, although after 24hours without sleep I was a gibbering wreck. Managed to buy a cheap guitar though so good news for my poor flatmates.

Finally flying into Dar Es Salaam I was all a blur of sleepiness but as we drove precariously close through the busy, dusty streets there was no question we were in Africa. We pulled up to our hotel only to find it was above an Irish pub (that served mash and Guinness!) and out the front a group of Masai kept guard (I never asked from what- perhaps better not to know.) We were right on the beach front so sunsets brought beautiful views of the dows and fisher boats coming in to shore.

I spent most days at a disability hospital in the city as well as some other interviews. I guess it should have been a pretty depressing place to be (especially as the airport arrival zone thrust shiny images of safari, Kilamangaro and the Serengethi in my face), but actually it was an incredibly positive place. The staff and women I met there were all thriving even in less than ideal circumstances and everyone was so welcoming and warm. Plus their hospital food was pretty good, including what I was assured was a traditional Swahili dish but was in fact a chip omelette.

Snapshots from Dar es Salaam:

We’d eat breakfast up on the roof of the hotel and without fail would end up surrounded by big, fearless crows (Dar is full of them), the cook would come out and chase them off with a coathanger. I was exactly like a scene from Birdemic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy-9YLpC5uM).

While I didn’t see any elephants or giraffes I did see a guy on a bike with a stack of eggs in large cardboard cartons towering six feet above the back of his moving bike. You can keep your rhinos, that was pretty impressive.

There are no streetlights in Dar Es Salaam so whizzing around in a tuk-tuk at night is pretty exhilarating experience.

It was awesome to see loads of Masai walking around in their amazing tribal dress but with mobiles clipped to their daggers.

On my birthday we ventured out to this kind of beach side club restaurant. It was a Tuesday so very quiet but we had good food, cocktails and I got to paddle in the dark, Indian ocean.  Another day we went out on a dow for a sunset sail- sat their with a Serengheti beach, watching the gentle waves and glowing sunset I was filled with happiness and a distinct feeling of sea-sickness.

We got a professional photographer for two days which was great and he told me I had a good eye for photos! That pretty much made my week.

And so I return... 2am start an flights via Nairobi, Amsterdam, London, Miami and then finally San Jose.

Arriving in London I got pretty homesick, or more just overcome with love for the city (it may have been the sleep-hazed emotions, or maybe there was something in the hot chocolate I’d had in Amsterdam). This was all augmented by the fact a lady actually talked to me on the tube, this may be the first time this has ever happened and to be fair was prompted by the fact I was carrying half a Tanzanian orchestra back with me (note to self- ze-zes and djambes are good conversation starters). She’d just been to see the Pope and in my dopey sleep I almost said oh yes I just read he’d met with Archbishop Rowan Atkinson. Ciara and Chinese food sobered me up and got a few hours sleep before heading off to Miami and San Jose again.

it's been really lovely to get back to UPEACE and see everyone again. Very silly seeing as I've only known people a month but is such an intense little environment being away for a week seemed like a long time!

Lessons learnt:

I now have some basic Swahili (though turns out I knew most of it before from The Lion King. I actually heard someone say Hakuna Matata! And it was a warthog.)

I am now an expert in the study of airports andand being the culturally sensitive person I am I learnt o adjust my behaviour in them accordingly:

Dallas-  read classic American-lit and ate corn-on-the-cob and mashed potato

Nairobi- rushed right through the busy corridors because I was already late and had missed one plane already

London- got lost as it was toobig, is full of stuff but unforgiving on the unorgainised

Amsterdam- too cool for words, resisted the massage (actually who know how euphemistic that was?) drank hot chocolate, relaxed

Miami- ate dunkin donuts and pizza, drank lots of coffee and watched American football on all the tvs

(In my Rough Guide to airports of the world Amsterdam comes out on top no question.)

In which I go once more unto the beach, perv on some sloths and forget to fast

I've been meaning to write something about day-to-day life in Ciudad Colon/ UPEACE but the weekends just keep rolling round and bring with them more crazy travels.

Last Friday we finished our classes at 12.30 and Marion (a French version of Katharina F.) and I jumped on the bus and headed to San Jose aiming to head on for more adventures beyond. We caught a 4 hour bus to a town called Quepos which is South-West of San Jose, on the Pacific coast. We stopped there that night and escaped the torrential rain in a Caribbean/Mexican restaurant where I had enchiladas and we drank delicious cocktails (my first Costa Rican White Russian- I raised it in Shona's honour).

Early next morning we took another bus for 30 mins to Manuel Antonio which is a little village on the coast and on the edge of a beautiful national park. We got off the bus too soon but the corrective taxi-ride was broken by an impromptu stop at the side of the road because there above us were a group of red-howler monkeys. I had a staring contest with one who had her tiny baby wrapped underneath her, she was about 2m away and bold as anything. I blinked first.

Once we'd dumped our bags we found a great guide and headed into the park. Gustavo our guide had a telescope thing so we got to see loads of tiny bugs, frogs and lizards really close up, including a lizard which he didn't have an English name for, but in Spanish it was Dinosaurio! I managed to take lots of photos using the telescope and my SLR, you can see my budding wildlife photography attempts here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=2491814&id=199709787&ref=mf

Suddenly we spotted a group in front of us who had stopped in their tracks and were pointing into the canopy- there in the trees were about 5 white-faced monkeys swinging and running in the trees. It was amazing to see them so close... little did I know we'd soon get a lot closer.

The thing that made me happiest though was that we saw four sloths (two of which were 'reproduciendo' as Gustavo delicately put it- everything you'd imagine about sloth-sex seemed to be about right!) Our attention was diverted from the lethargic lotharios by a group of white-faced monkey that were suddenly walking down a wire, down to the beach right next to everyone. We followed them down to the most beautiful beach in this little cove. There the monkeys tried their best to steal everyone's food and generally made mischief. I'm no good at judging the size of crowds,but I'd say there were around seventeen million of them. They were soon joined by some fearless raccoons who wouldn't leave people's bags even when they were being whipped with towels.

It was a strange experience sunbathing with one eye open looking out for animal thieves. Swimming in the sea was even worse, it was gloriously warm and calm but we kept having to run out to chase off the monkeys with sticks. Brilliant.

That evening we climbed a hill and found what has to be one of my favourite bars in the world. There on the top of the hill was this 1954 Fairchild C-123 (a massive fighter plane to the lay-person). It had been sold by the US to the Nicaraguan Contras in the 80s but had some how ended up in San Jose airport where it was bought for $3000 shipped piece by piece to Manuel Antonio and then made into a bar! So there we sat: on the top of a huge hill, amazing views out over the bay, next to an abandoned fighter-jet/bar, eating nachos, sipping yet more cocktails and watching the sunset. It was all we could do to not just keep saying 'How AMAZING is this!?' over and over again.

Sunday involved a bus journey back, an attempt to write some essays (researching the English Defence League is one way to bring your mood down). Then in the evening our Vice Rector Amr (from Eygpt. He is a total legend- soooo many brilliant stories) had invited us all to come and break fast with him as it is Ramadan. About 80 people turned up with pots of food and treats and we met at Amr's friend's house. Luckily Amr's friend happens to be a millionaire with a huge ranch and lovely pool-house/bar which is perfect for housing a load of greedy students. I obviously faux-pas'd by sitting down and immediately scoffing the bread on the table right before Amr announced we'd all now symbolically break the fast by eating dates.Anyway soon we were all tucking in and chatting. In my Mrs Doyle way I spent most of the night forcing cake on the poor guys who'd just arrived from Africa and really didn't want any cake, but got to hear some interesting debate on the idea of an Africa Union along the way.

So another action-packed, wildlife-club-pioneering weekend. Hopefully next weekend I'll be in Nigeria (either that or crying at the Nigerian embassy). Pura Vida!

Lessons learnt:

Have had some great lunchtime chats- everyone here has soooo many interesting stories. One lunchtime involved hearing about the South Korean and Bolivian military services (neither sounds that fun) another went from one girl explaining Solomn's Ring, a physics phenomenon, to discussing the welcoming traditions of Inuits.

If you put food in front of me, even if part of me knows I'm meant to be respecting religious practices, I will still eat it. This is probably why I was never an altar girl.

Sloths are the weirdest looking things in the world, but they still get lucky now and then.

In which I walk with the animals, talk with the animals, grunt, squeak, squawk with the animals and then leave the bar and go to the jungle.

Another action packed weekend. Friday night involved a big party at Oskar’s (one of the two bars in Ciudad Colon). My liver’s mortal enemy appeared to have negotiated a two-for one vodka deal which my weak-will just couldn’t control. This was also supplemented to the fact that I was trying to talk in my bad-drunken Spanish to a Costa-Rican boy who in my tipsy state looked like Diego Luna. (Those who have seen me try and talk to boys in bars know I drink unnecessarily copious amounts- last time footwear got lost, clubs got burnt. I just shouldn't talk to boys in bars). Anyway ended up dancing some merengue and either my swing dance lessons or the vodka meant now it seems I’m not as bad as being led as before- I don’t think I broke a single toe (mine or anyone elses).


The next morning the alarm went off at 5.30am and still a bit tipsy I grabbed my stuff and headed off for a trip across the country to Tortuguero a tiny town on the Caribbean coast. Took a bus to San Jose, a taxi, another bus to Cairari (in which the old man next to me told me I wasn’t allowed to sleep anymore but had to talk to him, and later made sure I took his number?!). Managed to buy some individually wrapped aspirin at the bus stop which felt like the lamest drug deal ever (I ahave just started watching The Wire series 2- it is influencing my brain. Next was a mini-bus (over the bumpiest road and through banana plantations) and soon we were sat on a long-thin motor boat ready for the hour boatride into the jungle to the town. Sat there in the middle of this beautiful river, surrounded by banks of lush jungle, with the waves gently lapping on the side of the boat I’ve never felt so disgustingly hungover, it was all I could do to not just totally chunder everywaaar, I had been out on the lash the night before, banter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKFjWR7X5dU)

We arrived into the town (stomach contents included) and realized the only path to the town-centre was via a tiny, precarious pathway over the water made of rusty metal bars and unattached lengths of wood. The combination of shaky sea-legs and shaky hangover very nearly ended in a spectacular dive. Fortunately we managed to find a hostel without drowning and went for burritos to get some strength back. Spent the afternoon on the black-sand beach chilling out and being befriended by the many many friendly local dogs.

Tortuguero is an amazing place- just like something out of A Hundred Years of Solitude especially when all the frogs came out at night. It was filled with cute children and even cuter puppies, they only needed to make the houses out of gingerbread and I may never have left. There are no cars and the only way to get around is by boat. Once side is beach and the other is river and jungle. It is so humid and warm and has a real Caribbean vibe.

That evening we took a boat trip out to the National Park (driven by our tour guide Ruben’s 8 year old son… he’d be driving boats since he was 4!) Ruben led us to the pitch black beach and suddenly pointed out into the darkness. “Look there, a tutle. Do you see?” I strained my eyes trying to make sense of the darkness but dishearteningly couldn’t see anything, just then Ruben turned on his red headlight and there in front of us was the HUGE turtle (the size of a respectable coffee-table). It was the most incredible moment. We followed the turtle as she made her way down to the sea where her mate was waiting in the water. The tide rushed in and she was gone, leaving her eggs buried somewhere on the beach behind us.

Ruben wandered off and then beckoned us over again. There below us another huge turtle had dug a hole and was popping out ping-pong ball shaped eggs like she was in some seedy Thai bar. She had laid about 10 when she scooped her hind-legs in and pulled them out crushing them on the side. Ruben said in 24 years studying turtles he’d never seen one do that- this one must be a ‘loca’. She laid about 100 more then started to pile sand over the top- violently spraying me with a face full of sand in the process and teaching me a valuable lesson about the recommended proximity of one’s face to a turtle’s butt.
Got home wet, covered in sand and turtle yolk but immensely happy.

Next morning alarms went at 5.50am (how am I still alive?!) and we headed out on a 3 hour open canoe tour. Ruben was our guide again and turned out to have phenomenally good eyesight! He kept saying ‘look over there an iguana’ and would point to a load of trees 100m away- we’d sail over and once we were about 2m away suddenly saw what he was talking about. He said that if I stuck around he’d teach me everything he knows about the jungle- I am seriously tempted to go back and take him up on the offer!

We (eventually) saw lots of iguanas, little baby caimans (which Ruben splashed with water to make them sit up in the water- pissing off crocodiles, even if they are the size of a small ikea-lamp, doesn’t seem that sensible an idea to me), chameleons (after much pointing and explaining what we were meant to be looking at), birds and those lizards that run on water who treated us to a display. Out of no-where we heard an almighty crash from around the river bend and Ruben was shaking with laughter- when he caught his breath he explained it had been from a monkey that had fallen in the river- gutted we missed that! We saw a spider monkey and a howler monkey but they were up high and not moving about much (Ruben said they’d probably smoked something)- but later on the bus ride home I was day-dreaming out the window and saw another spider monkey running in the trees.

I realized at one point whenever Ruben would catch a spider or frog and hold it out I was always the one to put my hands out to hold it without first asking if it was poisonous or would bite me. The silliness of this only hit me after I’d be holding a tiny red frog for a while when Ruben announced that it was a poison-dart frog, the Indians use the venom in dart-pipes to hunt. Fortunately Ruben reassured me the only way it’d kill me was if I ate too many off them- just a well he warned me really. Tried to thank him but it's hard with your mouth full.

We learnt about the different trees but mainly which ones were good to play as musical instruments- one has flat board like roots which you can play like a drum, another’s leaves make good whistles. Basically for a while it turned into the Jungle Book and we jammed out on the forest.

Got the canoe back to the town, said goodbye to a little puppy which I have fallen head over heads in love with (I named him Nacho) and headed back on the long journey back to Ciudad Colon. The boat cut out on the way back and it looked like we were going to have to swim for it but made it home finally in one piece.

Lessons learnt:

Household furniture is an effective yardstick for measuring wildlife. Yardsticks might be simpler though.

Weirdly, incredibly long journeys involving boats, buses and taxis are not the wonder-cure for hangovers. Back to the blurry drawing board.

In which I find my first Costa Rican beach, taunt my first Costa Rican alligator and invade personal space and dreams.

So thought I'd update about my first weekend in Ciudad Colon and my first day of classes- both of which went beautifully.

On Sunday morning Diego borrowed his dad's car and drove 7 of us up to the nearest beach, Jaco. (Very sadly saw a dog get run over on the way which was pretty traumatic.) It was about a 40 min drive punctuated by a stop at this bridge which we lent over to see a load of alligators sunning themselves on the banks below! We were all feeling pretty brave until a big lorry crossed the bridge making it sway badly and turning us all temporarily white with fear.

We carried on to Jaco and, after picking up beer, chips and other snacks, set off for the beach. It was such a hot day and the Pacific was pummeling us with huge rip-your-bikin-off-if-you're-not-careful waves. Lovely warm sea but not so much swimming as just battling to stay upright.

In one of our talks a professor had said "one of the best things you'll learn from being at school with people from 51 different countries is more about your own culture." This came true as after five minutes of sitting on the sand Ben, the only other Brit, piped up with "well I guess it's about time to make a sand-penis". I promtly decorated it with doritoes and I think we taught our multi-cultured friends a little something about how we do things the British way. (I resisted showing them beach time the N Irish way which was essentially as soon as you arrive set about digging the biggest hole possible until there is more hole than beach- ah the fun family holidays we had!)

It was pretty flipping hot but I managed to only burn my knees and shins, impressive considering that Costa Rican Diego and his cousin Daniel from El Salvador (who's job is inventing new ice-cream flavours! Dream jobs do exist. I have several new suggestions for him.) got fairly red themselves. Such a chilled out fun day and got home just in time to squeeze in a bit of study before my first day of classes.

Today we started the Conflict Resolution module which we all take together. Had some quite heavy reading but the depressing outcome was basically conflict's going to happen, the best we can learn is how to manage it and resolve it quickly.

Between lectures and seminars we had about 2 1/2 hrs off so we found one of the many many hammocks that are dotted around the tiny campus and pretended to study while watching the bushes moving amongst the fluttering of hundreds of butterflies. In my opinion all studying and philosophical thinking should be done in hammocks. I might suggest this to the UN Security Council next time I see them.

Spent tonight eating pizza (one of which was covered with strawberries and chocolate) with ten of the UPEACErs, having very inappropriate restuarant conversations and basically laughing far too loudly.

Also a lovely girl called Mari Celly from Puerto Rico just told me she'd had a dream about me where she was in a pet store and they were saying "urgh when are we going to do the inventory", then these sliding doors opened and my head slowly appeared from inside. I jumped out with a guitar and sang a song all about inventories and everyone else joined in in a big magical musical moment. I've just seen Inception so now am worried I may be unintentionally invading people's dreams- singing a song about inventories does sound a lot like something I'd do. I apologise in advance for what I might do in your dreams.

Lessons learnt:

In Korea you are 1 when you are born then you wait til the next new year when everyone starts counting up from then! So trying to work out how old everyone is can be tricky. (I also learnt to write my name in Korean- it looks like crop circles) Also in Korea they don't really hug to say hi so I am spreading hugs internationally (and simultaneous invading a lot of personal space).

Costa Rican drivers don't stop for dogs.

Stories about bridges collapsing are all well and good unless they come directly before a rocking bridge over an alligator infested river.

In which I dance for my social life, learn about Korean leg-hair and complete my first week in Costa Rica

It is funny to think I have only been here a week- I don’t know if it is the open, nature of the country or the friendliness of my school-mates but it really does feel like I’ve been here a lot longer. Me and a new Argentian friend Lucilla had a moment on Thursday when we realised if we were this emotionally attached after 3 days at school how on earth would we all leave in a year!




The past few days have been full of lots of orientation sessions at uni and lots of getting to know each other sessions at the pub- culminating in an amazing welcome party on Friday night. The uni had had a no-alcohol policy this year but after 3 days the UPEACErs showed their diplomacy and lobbying skills and got the ban lifted. This all happened in the space of a few hours and by the time we came out to the outside terrace for our party a load of beer and wine had miraculously appeared. So we had bbq and nachos and liquid refreshments and before long the dance floor was seriously shaking. There was lots of big dance circles and dance-off type displays. I feel I represented UK pretty well with my running man moves and Ben (the only other person from the UK) educated everyone on the British art of dancing with you arms rather than the Latin America hips. We’re going to introduce them to dub-step... just so they’re fully warned of its awfulness.



Had some great Shakira and Coolio moments (me and a US guy bonded instantly through our joint knowledge of every lyric to Gansta’s Paradise- wait til he hears me rock it out on the ukulele!) My big-fish-little-fish moves were slightly overshadowed by the arrival of a samba troupe with drummers who did an awesome performance and got us all into a massive conga.



The party carried on at the local bar Oskar’s where while taking part in a magic trick I managed to violently smash a bottle thus completing the UK chavesque moves of lairy dancing and broken bottles.



The next morning I was up dull and early at 6.30am ready to go to Tortuguero to see the turtles but my travel partner was ill so we didn’t go. Shame but will hopefully make it next weekend and have met a Mexican guy called Rafael who was always my favourite turtle so I guess that is ¼ as good as the real things.



Have spent this evening up at the massive house of some friends, eating nachos, drinking guaro the local firewater and discussing everything from getting mugged to reiki healing. Tomorrow we’re driving to the beach (a whole week in Costa Rica without hitting the beach! I need to sort it out!)



Lessons learnt:

People from Korea don't have leg hair above the knee! My friend Hansoal was completely shocked to find out everyone else had hairs on their thighs. Now I feel like a gorilla around her. Gorilla.

In Costa Rica they don’t have house numbers or addresses. Instead you just say I live 100m from that big tree and next to the large rock. This makes finding friend’s houses hard.



We live 100m north of the cemetery gates- this means I constantly have The Smiths in my head.



My biggest lesson so far is that I now drink coffee! Any of you that have see my pathetic reaction to it (or most caffeine) in the past know this is a big deal. It is so smooth here- not bitter at all. On the other hand I am buzzed all the time.



Have just started the reading for the first course- uh oh apparently conflict resolution is quite complicated... our reader is about 20 cm thick.



I haven’t seen any sloths or monkeys yet. I must rectify this soon.

In which I have my first day at school, end up in a hot-tub and am thankful for Bob Marley

Writing this one quickly and slightly blurrily- yesterday was my first day at school and as a result I've had little sleep, and am pretty hungover. Suffice to say it went pretty well.

We set off early in the morning for the bus up the mountain, Diego had a day off so decided to come with us. We made him a fool-proof cover story, if anyone asked he'd just say he was studying International Hugs- at this uni that was bound to work.

After whizzing up the mountain, pulling in and filling out into the open walled atrium area was a kind of surreal experience, there seemed like loads of people but at the same time knowing there were only 180 people in the entire uni we definitely felt like a select bunch (51 different countries represented! It is awesome.)

Am now desperately trying to remember everyone's name have chatted away to a load of people and basically promised to start clubs, take huge trips and hang out.

We had a series of talks from a series of lovely teachers and vice rectors, etc. Sat in this long room with the professors stood in front of a room-long window with views out over the rolling mountains and forest gave me my first taste of how, even in this idyllic setting, I'm going to have to work hard to concentrate. I knew they were giving us valuable info about the year ahead but watching the 5 condors circling the trees outside was just more attention-grabbing.

What I did tune in for was to hear them say Ban Ki Moon might be visiting in Dec- oh yes, me and Banksey Moon painting the town red- I am quite excited!

Our completely adorable vice-rector also did some "role play" demonstrations to show how we will encounter cultural differences and also how to deal with settlement of disputes when they are couched in values- which probably is fairly serious but they were blooiming hiralious! Hoping all classes are this entertaining.

Anyway, there were lots of stupid ice-breaker things and breaks/lunches to meet my new student buddies.

After school finsihed at 5.30 Nabil who is an alumni and now teacher here invited us all to his place which is 5 mins from the uni and has... wait for it..... a hot tub and pool! So my first day of school finished in a candle-lit hot tub, drinking beer and chatting away to all my new friends who's names I can't pronounce but have forgotten anyway. Someone cracked out a guitar and I played the two songs I can remember. Had a confusing chat about the Mayan calender fortelling an imiment shift in human consciousness?! Then out of no-where this Canadian guy picks up the guitar and next thing I know I am crying with laughter. I basically remember this conversation Fran and I had when I said "Oh Fran what if no one likes me" and he said "Erm at the uni for peace they'll all be hippies- just learn to play Redemption Song and you'll be fine." Next thing I know there we are singing "Oh pirates yes they rob I". Brilliant. Quote of the night: "I'm a little bit aroused, a little bit hungry, but worried about slavery" (these are fun people!)

A bit later we got hungry so got a taxi (blasting regeatton) down the mountain to Oskar's (one of the 2 bars in the city) where I had my first beerarita (beer with lemon in and a salty glass- jury's still out) chatted away to more people. Diego, Patrick (an American guy) and I were obviously the most hardcore and by the end of the night were the only ones left- walked home in our dark little town, stopping for take-away tacos on the way (only veggie option was cabbage- boo!) Then home to sleep for 5 hours until I'd be woken up at dawn.

Lessons learnt:

You can party all night-  the cockrel will still wake you up at 5am. This is a metaphor for life.

Friends in need are friends indeed, friends with hot tubs are better.

I learnt how to say some stuff in Korean but I have forgotten it all by now.

In which I crash mothers' day, improve my Cockney and am so eager I arrive 5 days early to uni.

Well I am in my new home! Took a long taxi drive through the pouring rain (yep "rainy season" is definitely on) up away from the city into the hills and finally we arrived at a little town: Ciudad Colon. We managed to find the house despite there not being road signs or house numbers. When we got there I thought they'd been a mistake- it is such a lvoely, huge place and my room is ridiculous after years of shoeboxes! I have my bedroom and then a whole section off it that I suppose should be a study area but I'm thinking more music/yoga/breakdance room.

Barely got through the door when Iyvonne, my land lady invited me up to her farm and then next thing I knew we were driving 11km up into the forest covered hills to her farm (46 hectares of mountain farming inside an indian reservation!). Some amazing views on the way- this is the most breathtaking place, huge rolling mountains covered in lush, green forest!

We arrived into the farm (they have 4 quad-bikes! Must restain myself, last time I went quad-biking I quickly discovered I am a maniac). Arrived into the house to be greeted by about 25 people- turns out it was Mothers' Day in Costa Rica and I had basically crashed a huge family meal! Everyone was totally lovely and very sweet to me. Some of Iyvonne's family were over from the US and her nephew and his friends were making everyone dinner. I was on garlic brad duty and only managed not to burn it all by the fact that the EZ-bake style oven was as strong as a weak candle. We ate loads of spaghetti, talked away and then had 3 types of cake! Oh yes it appears my new land lady is a master baker- jackpot. The grandmother told me I was now part of the family and to call her anytime, and I've been invited over for Christmas.

Got a lift home down the mountain with Iyvonne's son and his family- chatted away to their 5 year old about all her school activities (she said she'd teach me karate- Plan Karate Kid is coming together.) As we whizzed down hill they were also sweet enough to tell me about their brother who had come off the same road, fallen 30 metres and broken his back! (He's fine now though, but made me think twice about the quad-bikes!)

Arrived home about 9ish and met my new flat-mate Diego. He's Tico (Costa Rica) but speaks amazingly good English- he even showed me his impressive Cockney accent- he did this by using the phrase "Ahhh I shat in a turtle". I think I have found a kindred odd-mind! We also established that because we live opposite a cementary (yep not walking home alone at night!) and he was weraing a T-rex t-shirt (thus validating everything I knew about Costa Rican) that he is the ghost of a tyranosarus. We stayed up drinking horchata and comparing drunken embarrassing stories and music until our next flatmate arrived (Diego isn't a student, he works, and has lived here for 4 months so is full of good advice about where the party's at and how to escape velociraptors).

Ainura arrived at about 10pm, she's come over from uni in Manilia- there are 30 people on an exchange programme from there. She's actually from Krygyzstan so she's going to teach me Russian. So I said the one Russian phrase I know "Goodnight grandmother" which was at least half way appropriate and we went off to bed.

The next day Ainura and I hung out and checked out the town- she's so sweet and I basically got her to promise to go see turtles with me at the weekend so all is good. About mid-day our other 2 flatmates arrived and the house was complete. Maryia (Kurdistan) and Natsuko (Japan) are also from the uni in Manila so they all know each other and are here for 6 months. They're all really nice and I feel totally at home already.

Iyvonne came round and we took a drive 6.5km up into the mountains to see the uni campus- it is stunning! Up in the hills there is the the most beautiful view of the forest and hills all around. The uni grounds are full of busts of inspiring people but even better- hammocks! It turns out this year there are only 150 students in the entire place! So if I bunk off it is going be quite noticeable I guess.

The road down was just as picturesque- although we almost ran over two proper gauchos herding their horses. Made it across the rickety bridge in one piece but we all decided the first thing we are going to organise is a fundraiser to buy a decent bridge- the old phobia is coming flooding back.

Now just back at the ranch eating avocado and Belgian chocolate Ainura brought from her 2 hour stop over in Amserdam (I thought my change in Dallas was bad- these girls took 4 flights!). Soon Diego's going to introduce me to the all important liquor store. So far the cementary ghosts are keeping to themselves. I think I'm going to like it here!

Lessons learnt:

Missing the bus is not an option- 6.5k up-hill is not going to happen.

You can come to the otherside of the world and find people who find the idea of T-rex ghosts as funny as anyone back home would.

In which I explore San Jose and get cultural

After hours of beautiful sleep I awoke to the sound of someone in my dorm who had appeared to have wrapped each piece of clothing in a seperate plastic bag and was now creating a one-woman crinkle-fest going through each of them in turn. Yes, I am cranky in the mornings.

Braved a cold shower... apparently, according to the sign, in Costa Rica the more you turn the shower on the colder it gets, therefore to get it warm you have to hardly turn it at all, or in other words, keep it off. In other Costa Rican bathroom news it appears it is much the same as Chile in that you don´t flush toilet paper but put it in the bin, at least I hope so or I have seriously pissed off the cleaner.

Had an awesome breakfast of rice and beans (with magic spices that makes it in Costa Rican favourite ´Gallo Pinto´), plantain, scrambed eggs and little tortillas. I could get used to this! All fuelled up I headed into the city to explore.

San Jose seems like a mix of other cities I´ve been to, it has the grid system of roads, the hundreds of street vendors selling everything and anything on the pavements and the surrounding collar of mountains like Santiago in Chile. But it also has a very tropical feel with the heat and the banana trees and exotic fruits like Havana. Other things about San Jose include:

- the pedestrian crossings make little chirping noises like birds
- there are loads of butterflies
- there are a hundred and one clothes shops but you can´t buy a guitar for love nor money
- despite the heat everyone is in jeans and you´d look pretty silly if you were the only one in shorts having rashly thrown away all your long trousers after getting sun-stroked while on holiday in Wales.

Apparently "rainy season" is not just a turn of phrase and it is really hot and sunny in the morning but then there´s a bit of warm rain in the afternoons. Nice and refreshing though.

After my delicious breakfast I decided to shun the crassness of the many McDonalds and Burger Kings in the centre instead going for real authentic fayre: Taco Bell. But hey, a burrito filled with nachos (?! I need to get better at ordering, at the minute I just say all the words I recognise) for 70p isn´t half bad!

Decided to keep on with the cultural exploration by going to the cinema where I saw Karate Kid (dubbed in Spanish. I now know how to say "Haiiii-ya" in Spainsh! It is "Haiiii-ya"). Watching little Jaden Smith deal with moving to a big, scary, new county gave me an idea....but walking home up hill made me out of breath so instead of learning the complex, discipline of martial arts I have decided to just keep air-karate-chopping at the men who sometimes try and pester me on the street. This is working very well, if only by making me look like just the unstable kind of oddball their mothers told them never to pester.

I quite like San Jose but the wide, grid of roads gives tantalising glimpses of the forest-covered mountains beyond and the hostel is full of people that have been to amazing places. I could go see the leatherback turtles nesting tomorrow but instead my plan is to wait until I have hopefully made friends to go and do the fun things.

I am feeling happy and not too panicked but it did bring home to me how alone I am when I tried to get a SIM for my phone and the lady asked me for the details someone who knows me in Costa Rica and I had to say "I don´t know a single person". But instead of making me sad like I was in my first weeks in Chile I am just really impatient to get on to uni (I´m moving to the town later today) and meet people. Fingers crossed they´ll be someone who wants to go turtle spotting with me.

Lessons learnt:

One UK pound = 785 colones. This means I am quite quickly having to learn my 785 times tables! Also it means everything costs big numbers. As there is no Offspring song that goes up to 140,000 I haven´t had much reason to practice the bigger Spanish numbers.

Everyone here seems to speak really good English but I am stubbornly keeping on in Spanish, even/especially if it means I keep eating nacho-filled burritos.

In which I question it all but am too tired to find answers

So here it is: my first blog (that is not obsurely linked to a UNICEF theme). I warn you in advance that this may be an exercise in self indulgence but I also figured it´d be the easiest way to keep anyone that is interested up to date.

I left London with an all too familiar sinking feeling that once again I am walking away from happiness and a great life for no other reason than this weird impulse I have to keep moving.

I don´t know what started this restlessness, it may have been my over imaginative childhood games set in the darkest regions of the rainforest, it may have been the tantalisng glimpses of other cultures from the books I buried myself in,or it may have been a natural reaction to growing up in a town where nothing ever happens... the constant desire to escape.

So for whatever reason there I was sat in the back of a taxi at 5.30am making small talk to the driver about IRA bike-bombs while trying to repress my stomach´s screams that I am an idiot and am throwing everything away. Still, I reminded myself, this is exactly how I had felt before Spain and Chile and they worked out brilliantly- plus I have the best possible friends who have proven themselves to be infinitely patient over the years. No going back now, I didn´t have enough for the taxi fare.

The flights were full of fairly bad movies but ok food (I don´t know what the comedians are complaining about, but then my meals were seasoned by a little smugness that as a veggie I got served before everyone else. And yes I realise that it is pretty lame that this made me feel special, but it´s the nearest I got to first class after Hannah pointed out that my plan to get bumped up to business by pretending it was my birthday was inherently flawed by the fact I would be handing over my passport at the same time. It is logic like this that makes Hannah a doctor and me, me. (Plus I was essentially wearing my pyjamas- not my most business-class look, although, actaully, they possible are.)

I´d been told 101 horror stories about US customs but they were fine really, to be honest they could have said I was going straight to Guantanamo because in that brilliant Dallas accent anything sounds great. I looked around to find some typical US grub but the place was full of Irish pubs. Managed to resist the Guinness and carried on to San Jose.

I arrived into the capital at 8.45pm which was about 3am UK time (my super-magic ability to sleep anywhere finally met its match in American Airlines seats which were so cramped I actually ripped my trousers/ pj bottoms getting out of them!) Reunited my aching arms with my 3 huge bags and dragged myself off to a taxi.

My sleep-deprived brain could just about make out San Jose, a blur of star-like lights, dark hills and neon signs for McDonalds. Hostel seemed nice with outdoor pool and hammocks. Had a little chat with a girl who was about to do an internship studying frogs in Panama for 6 months, though at this point I might have just hallucinated all of that. There´d be time to explore the city the next day, right then, after 24 hours of travelling and enough crap movies to permanently damage my brain, all I needed was sleep. Need sleep, must sleep, ahhh.

Lessons learnt:

Getting your entire life in possesions form through Kings Cross and onto the Picadilly line is about as fun as you´d imagine.

Listening to The Tallest Man on Earth in Dallas definitely makes you feel more like a cowboy (The Gardener is a good one to have a private ho-down too while in the immigration queue. Though too much line dancing could affect your chances of getting through. (Villagers also got me through some streeful flight moments- The Pact cannot fail to make you feel good, even in bad turbulence)

Little two-years olds, as entertaining as they might be for 10 mins, are not the best people to be sat next to on long-haul flights.