volume one.

Dear blog. I am sorry for the neglect. And also sorry to anyone who might drop by from time to time. I have been too busy enjoying my travels to sit down and write about them but I now have a 6 hour layover in the (slightly dull) Scottish town of Inverness, so get ready for my longest post yet. Which is so long in fact, that I am dividing it into two different ones. So here is part one. Enjoy.

I have to go back in time, to about 3 weeks ago, when I was up in the hills of Costa Rica exploring the rainforests of Monteverde. Much to Isabelle's disgust we decided a night time forest tour would be a rather interesting experience, so as the sun was setting we found ourselves wandering around a forest lit with glowing beetles, face to face with two-toed sloths, enormous tarantulas and some breed of Costa Rican raccoon. Perhaps Isabelle has been traumatised by this adventure, but I thought it was a little bit fun.

After this our journey, along with an airconditioned mini-bus, took us somewhere we could all enjoy. Which we did. I cant speculate on what life is like for the locals of Manuel Antonio but for the tourists I would say it is the epitome of relaxed laziness set among palm fringed beaches. A typical day involved an after breakfast swim in the pool, followed by a swim in the ocean, perhaps a short walk, back in the pool, lunchtime, some reading, a sunset walk along the beach and then dinner and happy hour at one of the restaurants lining the road parallel to the beach.

I'm not positive, but I don't really think life could be anymore relaxing than that.

After this indulgence in the human love of not doing anything, it was back to New York for a final two days with the lovely family before I was once more on my own in the world. There was a bit more shopping, a lot more walking around and I upped my street cred by getting a piece of metal through my nose. It immediately went right back down to its regular level of 'not cool' though, when I almost fainted after the event. Oh well.

Then the ladies and I parted ways with an awkward embrace on the subway and continued onto our respective airports and lives.

So ends part one. Get a cup of tea, perhaps some cake, and come back. Or just turn off the computer for a while and return later for part two of this enormous post.