We spent a few days hanging out in Costa Rica with Christina and Kevin and a few people we had met at the hostel, we all went out for drinks one night and met for breakfast the next day. I spent a day laid in the shade and STILL managed to get sunburn and heatstroke! A real acheivement! It was nice to be somewhere ‘holiday like’ and to have a break from driving. We wandered the beach, laid by the pool and planned when we would leave for Panama and what we would do there. We had been trying in vain to arrange to ship Peggy over the Darian Gap for several weeks and weren’t getting any nearer to getting her on a ferry for under $2000 which we really couldn’t afford. For those of you that are unsure about what the Darian is, it is one of the last ‘truly wild’ parts of the Americas. The road ends in Panama and starts again 150km further on in Colombia. The break between Central America and South America is known as the Darian Gap, literally the end of the road. The dense jungle is used heavily by Colombian guerrilla, narcotraffikers and general all around baddies. The only way to get Peggy into Colombia is to sail her around the gap. We can fly or sail or if we had a death wish we could even try to walk it!
Anyway, we decided to head into Panama and spend the time there exploring and continuing to try to make arrangements for Peggy. We drove through the beautiful mountain scenery in the sunshine and stopped for lunch by a river and watched the women washing their clothes and drove until we found somewhere to stay for the night. A restaurant allowed us to stay in their large carpark if we ate there and we wandered the grounds as the sunset and watched the ants busy with their daily routine.

We spent the night (aside from playing with the dog) working on crossing the Darian and didnt realise until the next morning that we didnt really have any idea where we were! We carried on and stumbled upon Golfito, a lovely port town with yachts lining the bay. We spent the afternoon photocopying and building our case for returning our American visa’s. If you remember, as we left Mexico we tried to hand them in with no luck, we have tried at almost every border since with absolutely no success and decided to post them back! Who knows if they will get there but we had to try. We popped that into the post box and looked for a place to stay. It turns out Golfito is quite fancy and after stumbling accidentally into the ‘best hotel in Central America’ and asking if we could park in their carpark we took a cheap hotel room at the other end of town. We enjoyed a hot shower and watched a movie and hit the road early the next day to cross the border which we did with relative ease apart from me having to show my face at the passport control (a novelty in itself). We were excited to get into the cloud forest and spent the day driving to get there. We were arriving as the sun went down, as per usual, and somehow took a wrong turn. We couldn’t agree that it was the wrong way and so drove 20km, THEN Alex admitted that I was right and we had gone the wrong way! We drove the 20km back and then went the 20km in the CORRECT direction and finally arrived at our destination. I had read about an eco-hotel in the area that accepted campers and we went in to ask if we could stay. The friendly owner showed us around and welcomed us no problem. The misty, damp clouds were all around us as we walked around in our shorts. The difference in the temperature was unbelievable! We had been melting every day and night in Costa Rica and on the coast and now we were maybe even going to be cold in the night! It was so welcome! I NEVER thought I would hear Alex say he would be happy to be cold but he was so pleased we weren’t roasting for the night! We settled in and hit the sack excited to explore the hills of Cerro Punta!

Find out what happens next on our travelling wedding adventure!