New Year and So On..

It's almost time to wish you all a happy new year, so we will do it now before we get distracted by other things. We have been invited to a New Years Eve Party tomorrow night at some neighbours (meaning about 1/4 kilometre deeper up into the jungle) house who plays the drums/bongo's. We will be attempting to fill in with our guitars. We better practice our Reggae rhythms! There is a great party atmosphere in town for New Year, they even have Dj's playing latin and reggae outside the supermarkets, very loudly!

It's been pretty much raining the whole of Christmas week though. We almost packed a beach bag this morning as we saw a glimmer of sun, but by the time we'd brushed our teeth and downed a coffee, the rain had started again. See the video, that's the garden and surroundings of the house that we are sitting. The house on the hill opposite is derelict so no onlookers, just jungle and random wild creatures, adopted pets and us.

We are managing to keep ourselves amused though and our very kind friends keep giving us a lift to do grocery shopping. We are on the lookout for some sort of vehicle ourselves that has more than two wheels and a roof, as grocery shopping on a bicycle in the rain isn't much fun! The price of 2nd hand vehicles here is shocking, and there is a very limited choice. For $4000 you can buy what would cost about £500 at home and is just about ready for scrapping. So if anyone has any import contacts in Central America...good business idea!

Ok Happy New Year to you all, hope that it's a great year ahead for everyone.

Christmas in Costa Rica

In summary....it's been wet!! On Christmas day though the sun shone for a few hours, just long enough fortunately to attend the two outdoor events that we had planned.

First of all, we were the entertainment at the soup kitchen Charity Xmas dinner. We have to admit, we had had a very lovely and late night with our neighbours on Christmas Eve and didn't have much song in us on Christmas day! We managed to pull it out of the bag though, with the help of our neighbour and fellow volunteer Jana providing harmonies and tambourine percussion. We performed a selection of sorts of Christmas carols, including a Spanish one, and some random pop/blues songs during lunch! So the indigenous people of Costa Rica were not only nutritionally nourished but experienced a brief history of British/American pop music on Christmas day. I'm not sure that they would thank us for the latter but the organisers and fellow ex-pat volunteers seemed to be tapping their feet!

Following that, we attended a party in the botanical gardens where we met lots of fellow ex-pats and made some new friends. It's funny, that here the term 'neighbours' takes on a different meaning. Despite being friendly people, we barely knew the people in our street back home, but being in a country that is not ones own, has an effect of making the most unlikely people bond. I guess it's that old tribal instinct in us all, and that there must be something about being in the minority that makes us stick together.

Sad News

Blogs can't all be happy news.

We haven't written for a week or so, due to having received the sad news of Rene's Father passing away on Tuesday just gone - 14th December. The funeral is tomorrow in Romford and very sadly we won't be there to pay our last respects. This is the hard part of living so far away from family.

We are sending our love to all back home, and tomorrow we will be paying our respects in the best way possible that we can from afar.

Bits and Bobs

The term 'bits and bobs' seem to amuse our American colleagues so I use it quite often. Also this post is going to be a bit random!

We have had a lot of rain this week, as it's still rainy season so we've had a few days rained in at home. Nothing to do but read and work on my Spanish studies (very slow going!). Rene is pretty fluent so helps me out a bit, and does most of the talking in public. We don't want you all to think that whilst you are freezing your butts off in blighty, that we are on the beach ... it's still winter here ,although not quite as harsh of course!

We still worked three days though, at the rescue centre http://www.jaguarrescue.com/ for two days where we had the responsibility of the baby monkeys for a few hours. They are both orphans and are crying for their Mums (who died) all the time, so it's quite traumatic for them still. The owner of the rescue centre is their new Mum and they are mostly attached to her. Then one day Rene and I took 9 of the older monkeys into the jungle for them to have their two hour play, and after a while, 7 of them curled up on us/with us on the rug on the grass and went to sleep. It was a bit surreal at the time but very cute. We had cramps in our legs and aching backs after an hour, but dare not move and wake them up! One of the mature females is flirting with a wild male that waits for her most days, so hopefully soon she will stay wild with him. That's the plan anyway, and from what we are told, usually happens when they get to about two and half years old.

House Sitting Job

' It can't possibly be true' we thought as we were driven up this driveway by the owner of the house, who was showing us his home with view to house sitting the very next week for around 7 weeks. We chatted with him and his partner for around an hour, and they showed us around, and then said 'how about it, do you want to house sit for us?'. No pause or consulting each other required, 'yes, of course, it will be a pleasure', we replied in unison, trying not to look too desperate!

So that's how it goes out here. Ex-pats are scared to leave their houses vacant for more than a few days as once the locals know that they are away, they will either end up broken into or occupied by locals!! Works for us, free lovely home of a standard and location that we would never be able to afford to rent! Being in contact with a number of ex-pats through the voluntary work we are doing, we were put forward for the job, so maybe it could happen again.

So we moved in on Wednesday and spent the last few days, testing out the hammock, observing the wildlife in the garden and (Rene) fiddling around in the kitchen marking his terittory! We are still full on with the volunteering and just spent two long days there, looking after the tinyest baby orphan monkeys in betweeen revamping the tropical gardens at the Rescue Centre. It's a long term project which is really interesting and we get other volunteers to work with us (getting the young ones without bad backs to do the digging!). It's a half hour cycle ride away so by the time we get home, we are so tired we can barely speak, and then of course a long shower is required to remove the animal debris! Love it though!

Panama but no cigar!

So, as visitors to Costa Rica, we are only allowed to stay for 3 months before we have to leave for 3 days, in order to be able to re-enter for another 3 months...and so on. There is no official visa renewal procedure in place. So we went to Panama for 3 days, to the Islands just off Panama to a place called Bocas Del Toro. It's a small group of islands just off the coast and they are pretty and very tropical. We are told it's where they film the series Survivor. Anyway we hired a hotel for 3 days and explored on our pink bikes, see picture! Rene didn't choose that colour by the way, it came with our hotel booking but he didn't seem to mind too much! It's very similar to Costa Rica, pace-wise and culture, except a bit cheaper.