Santa Elena, Wednesday

Wed 1st 2040 Not a bad day at all; actually pretty decent, it just feels slightly dull now as been doing a few minor chores and am kind of half waiting to hear how Andy+Pip got on on their night walk.

Was woken at 4am by someone banging on door; in my drowsy state I wondered if I'd overslept for something, but couldn't think what. Turned out it was the woman I'd heard but need seen talking to Andy last night who (as I found out from Andy at breakfast) was getting a bus at something like 4:20 to go to Nicaragua (you have to get a bus from here to somewhere else in CR to connect with the international bus; A+P are doing this "tonight" AIUI). And she wanted to know if I had a key to unlock the door. I pulled my trousers on and bustled out with my key, only to realise (as I did in theory know) that the sliding door to street is actually locked/unlocked with a knob on the inside so no key needed, and in fact she probably locked it herself with that when she came back from her night walk last night.

We both tugged and pulled at the door a bit. I lent her my phone (G5 with Claro SIM) to try to call hostel MoS - she tried one number and it rang at the desk behind us (so switching the mode on my phone from "LTE" to "Global" probably helped), but no use to her. Not sure if she tried another number. She was a bit distraught and muttering stuff (in English, although I suspect she was Dutch or German) like "I was so early and now this has happened" , which was reassuringly the kind of thing I'd be saying in that situation. One of us - it might have been me, but I wouldn't swear to it - suggested there might be a way out off the balcony and she went out and said there was (and in fact I had to get out that way at 1015ish myself as I couldn't get the front door open, it has perhaps been fixed now). I shut the balcony door behind her (but didn't lock it) and went back to bed feeling vaguely shaken - really a nightmare situation to be in. She was very apologetic about waking me but I didn't really mind, I hope I was some help but as I say I can't really be sure who came up with the idea of a possible exit on the balcony. (The route round there is slightly rubble-y and narrow and I wouldn't have fancied doing it in the dark as she probably did.)

I did feel a bit woozy and reluctant to get up on 715 alarm, again I snoozed on it til 725 and forced myself up for breakfast. I don't seriously attribute this to the 4am wake up though.

Spoke to A+P at breakfast, they went to Santa Elene Cloud Forest (something I'd suggested to Andy last night) and I went back to my room to prep for the canopy tour (at 100% Aventuras). I didn't feel that edgy, though did keep wanting to go to bog and in fact was rushing for a final dump at 1015ish when I was due to be picked up at 1020.

I wore my fleece, didn't wear my cap and left both phones at the hostel. I also emptied all the change out of my (zipped, but no point taking chances of the weight/bulk causing problems with the harness) pockets as well. I suntan lotioned my head and also took (but didn't wear) my bandanna in my knee pocket with the camera in case I wanted it. (Incidentally I took very few photos as it was a bit hectic in its way and also hard to get it out while wearing the chunky leather gloves.)

I was probably distracted from feeling too nervous by attempting to construct a glasses-holding loop from a piece of "string" (some kind of nylon, I think - the ends were fraying like crazy as I had neglected to "seal" them when I cut it off the reel back at home). I consulted the web for various knots and attempted a round turn and two half hitches on each lens-side-of-the-hinge nub and then (to avoid cutting the string to shorten it, as I wanted to keep it maximally useful for anything else) I did a sheepshank at first and then saw that was apparently crap so did it with an alpine butterfly loop. I probably looked a bit silly with this chunky white cord on my glasses and dangling round to the back of my neck, but I figured it might be a conversation starter (I did exchange a few words with people during the tour but no one commented on it) and more to the point I sure as hell wasn't *not* wearing glasses as I'd see bugger all and although my glasses are pretty tight fitting the guy at the tourist office had said it was "recommended" not to wear them as you might lose them, and some web sites I had browsed that morning re what to wear (I did wear the fleece in the end, and I'm glad I did, though some people were just wearing T-shirts and seemed fine) had said the same, so I wanted to take precautions as it would be an expensive hassle to get new ones made up here.

As it happens (spoiler) my glasses didn't come off (perhaps the helmet also helped a little) but I realised afterwards that one of the round turn and two half hitches on the hinge "nubs" had come loose and was only loosely hanging on (TBH I may have done these incorrectly; I tried multiple times but trying not to have a huge dangling loose end of string both for appearances and to avoid the annoyance of the strings floating around in my peripheral vision I think contributed to these knots being prone to coming undone even if I did do them correctly, as the end (fraying a bit too) could easily "slip" back through the knot) so I'm 95% sure that if they *had* come off the string would have done no good. But no one took the piss out of me (I was fully prepared to acknowledge it was practical but silly if anyone said anything) and I didn't feel particularly self-conscious about it and it probably did help me not worry about my glasses coming off even if I was actually living in a fool's paradise.

I did have a very quick look round the rest of the group (though it's a bit of an amorphous concept as it's more like a conveyor belt of people going through - the whole operation must be super heavy on staff, I had naively assumed you would have one/two/three guys with "your group" who would go round with you, but there's one or two guys on each intermediate platform who stay there and just deal with a stream of people all day) and one or two were wearing glasses but (shock!) no one else had improvised as I had, and I don't know if they were just chancing it or had a proper elastic strap at the back of their glasses arms.

So as I say apart from having two last minute dumps and also taking one (nothing coming out - isn't this a charming tale? :-) - but I really didn't want to take chances) at the site before getting the harness on, I didn't actually feel that nervous. A bit of nervy anticipation, but none of that physically shaking kind of stuff I have had (but can't specifically remember when or what caused it right now).

We got a "how to do it" talk at the start - dominant hand loosely "finger and thumb loop" over the lower cable (sometimes incidentally there *was* only one cable, somtimes two - don't know why, I'd say two for safety except if so why can some - the longer ones I think - get by with only one?) as far behind you as possible, other hand holding the cable you're dangling from, you go down (in theory) slightly sideways on and have to stick (in my case) your head out to the left to get this, if you don't keep your dominant hand "as far back as you can" you tend to swing round and what to do if that happens (key point: don't put your hand in front of the sliding gadget!).

You can bail out at two points but otherwise you have to go through with it. The first two cables were relatively short and although I apparently had a tendency to grip onto the cable a bit instead of doing the "loop" thing with finger and thumb I didn't do too badly - oh, and to start with I don't think I was putting head out to left to get the slight "not facing forward" thing.

I had read on web that morning it was not like a roller coaster as the acceleration was smooth and lateral, and indeed it is. It was a bit of a "shock" at first but not that much of one and it was kind of fun rather than scary. I'll say now that I managed to avoid getting stuck mid-cable, although I slightly over braked and stopped a few feet short - within grabbing range of the guys on the end platform, so no need for me to pull myself hand-over-hand along the cable, in other words nothing major.

I did notice - although I am not entirely sure how the guy launching us could know, as he couldn't have been watching us doing earlier cables - that on the first long cable, some people (including me) were given a carabiner thing to slide along behind us with just a finger of our dominant hand holding on to that, rather than putting our finger-thumb loop round it, but some people weren't. I think the idea being to avoid braking too much as that would be a problem and lead to getting stuck (oh, incidentally, I didn't notice any big delays so I might guess no one got stuck), but as I say I don't know how that guy knew who "needed" this (I assume) assistance with not braking so much (and you could still kind of brake as the weight you put on the dominant hand increased friction of carabiner on cable) and also this didn't happen on any of the other cables regardless of length.

Flipping back, after the second-ish cable there was a hanging bridge with biggish gaps between the slats and just a couple of cables along the side and I was a bit edgy about that as it felt like I could actually fall, unlike the ziplining. Only when I got to the other end and tried to walk away and nearly got yanked back like a dog on the end of a lead did I realise I'd been clipped to one of the cables all along. :-) This was the only time I thought (incorrectly) I was at risk of physical harm. Perhaps because of that - although it's hardly done "secretively" - I did notice that the guys on all the intermediate platforms nearly always (but I don't think always, especially on one or two of the latter cables) had everyone clipped onto these kind of safety cables and would transfer the clips around as necessary, so most of the time it would have been near-impossible to fall off and hit the ground (you'd have had to time your fall for when someone was moving your "lead" from one cable to another). I do think on some of the later cables I was standing on eg a couple of steps (for shortarses, although on the earlier and "easier"  cables you would either just go on tiptoes sort of pull yourself up with both hands on per cable either side of the slider gadget to ease the tension on the support cable and let the guy do his hooking work) and we were on the top of a high platform and I *wasn't* at that point clipped to anything for a few seconds (and because I'm on this narrow mini-stepladder thing the prospect of missing footing and falling, probably just onto the platform but maybe not, felt within the realms of possibility) and I did feel a bit particularly edgy then. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'm not saying it was a serious risk even if I'm not.

The heights didn't particularly bother me; I guess in that respect it was rather like tandem paragliding. I didn't really get that much chance to admire the view as I was moving too fast and/or concentrating on trying not to rotate and end up going backwards or whatever. A couple of times I did feel like there was some vague danger of my perhaps-not-as-bent (with ankles crossed)-as-they-should-be legs smashing into a tree near the flight path, but that was probably just my imagination.

I did seem to have some difficulty keeping straight (or "not quite straight, but consistently so" ) and on one of the longer cables I did end up going backwards. I didn't really panic, obviously it was a bit dismaying and I do remember looking up at the slider and thinking "no, do not place hand in front of slider!" but without too much fuss I somehow managed to get hold of the cable behind me again without braking too much in the process.

It took a few cables before I realised there was an automatic braking system (I honestly don't know if I missed this in the pre-tour introduction or not) and to be honest although by no means terrible one of the more dismaying aspects of the whole experience was the relatively sudden deceleration on hitting this automatic braking point. I assume that even if you were an expert and there was no automatic braking system you would still be hand-braking yourself similarly "sharply" at that point, but I don't really know.

They had told us before we started that because of excessive winds (so much for tourist office guy's claims this wind was nothing - it is incidentally blowing something rotten outside now, as it was last two nights) that although you can normally do the longest cable (longest in the country, I think) in the "superman" position we could only do it in the hanging position today. I was at the time utterly un-disappointed.

We were offered the option to do the last cable in the superman position and I figured I ought to give it a go. This involves having two of the slider gadgets I don't know the names of, and although I'd probably have given it a go anyway, it occurred to me that there would be an advantage here as that would make it impossible to get turned round due to poor technique. Also no braking, as you have no way to control it and thus just have to let the automated system and/or the guy at the far end catch you, so from a "technique" perspective this is way easier. You just put your hands together behind your back (though they say you can put them out in a kind of T-shape at the sides at the end for a photo; I wasn't going to do this, but the guy on the end platform signalled me to do it so I did - I forgot to say earlier they signal at you to say "keep coming" or "brake" , although given the automated brake stuff I do wonder if they *ever* actually signal you to brake - I don't think they did to me, possibly just because I wasn't going too fast of course) and "let it happen" .

2155 A+P just came back, had quick chat with them, they said it was great and (unlike one they did in the Amazon) you were on a fairly broad path like the open ones near start of Santa Elena forest so you're not fighting through undergrowth with insects tickling you etc etc. I just dropped the tour company a booking request on their website and we'll see what they say; this is Nasua Tours not the Kinkajou (sp) one which seems widely advertised around town.

Anyway, to return to the canopy tour, as I think I already said, I was a bit edgy as I was standing on the mini stepladder being hooked onto the cable for this final superman cable but not too bad. Being sort of head first face down felt weird and mildly alarming as I was held in place, then for a second or two when I started to move it was kind of (hard to remember and describe) sickening (probably more in my head than my stomach) and then it was absolutely fine, I did my best to look round but it was pretty fast. I was in a fool's paradise about my glasses not coming off (not that they felt like they were going anywhere) but I kept thinking "this wind is going to blow my (baseball) cap off" and then realising I was wearing a helmet instead and that wasn't an issue. The worst (and this is relative; it was on the whole fun and I suspect the mild edginess would be reduced now I've done it once) bit was coming in to the end, as although I knew I was going to be automatically braked, it *felt* as though I was just going to plough headlong into the final platform.

In hindsight it *is* slightly disappointing we couldn't do the penultimate cable (longest in country) superman style as well, although from an "experience" point of view I guess it's better practice to have done an extra cable with the need of the appropriate techniques. (Not saying I was great, but I think I only actually got turned round on that one cable earlier.)

After that there was the optional tarzan swing and although I wasn't entirely sure what this involved (I had a very vague idea) I said I'd do it, as I was really quite enjoying it all (if I did have a criticism it would be that sometimes at the start it felt like no sooner did you arrive on one platform than you were being conveyor-belt hustled onto the next line - hardly a fair criticism given the alternative would be a long wait, just saying it felt like that - with the longer cables the waits were bigger, though by no means insane or a big deal).

Before I forget, let me interject to say we got taken in a group of five or so in a waiting mini 4WD vehicle up part of the way to the penultimate cable, then we had to walk up the rest of the way.

So I got the harness adjusted for the tarzan swing and went out across a solid-ish metal bridge (but still I think safety-hooked on) to the launching point. The basic idea is they have a long rope which pivots from a suspension point horizontally a way in front of the launch, they fasten you onto that cable and (after for some reason posing for a photo with arms out in a T) you also grab the cable with your hands (which is probably smart to stop them flailing, and probably "looks the part" too, but does also - at least in my case - induce a brief (there wasn't more than a couple of seconds to think) irrational but understandable thought that "fuck, I don't think my grip on this rope is going to be strong enough to stop me letting go of it and falling" ) and then they open a little metal door, you bend your knees slightly and step off the edge. (I was a bit worried I'd somehow scrape my back down the platform floor, but presumably that isn't actually a realistic possibility.)

There's a guy with a camera sitting (with safety cable, obviously) on a little plastic-looking platform out part way towards the swinging cable suspension point and I think while I was waiting for the one or two people ahead of me to go it gave me more a sense of vertigo to look at him perched out there in the middle of space than the idea of the actual swing.

So once you step out (as I had been told) you sort of free fall for a second or so and then the rope goes taut and you start to swing in a big arc, there's a weirdly (obviously hard to describe/remember all this perfectly) floaty point when you finish rising at the far end and the start to fall again, and you do maybe three-ish fairly big swings before they use a long rope to kind of catch the rope you're suspended on and stop you slowly oscillating for ages. I watched a couple of people come down from the ground after I'd done it; I honestly don't know if I'd have done it if I'd watched that first.

But it was actually fun, and although there was a kind of slightly enjoyable terror to the brief free fall and the sensation of speed with the first swing etc was quite intense, it was fun and I was probably all adrenalined-up but not in a state of active terror for most of the swinging.

It's a fair old trog back up to the starting point (and you have to carry - but not wear - your harness and a couple of pulleys - ah, is that what the sliding gadgets are called?) and I had formed an impression you could watch the tarzan swing from the top but I never got to see that.

They try to flog you your photos for an extra USD10. I went and had a look at mine (after collecting my water bottle, hostel key and binder-clip wallet from locker BTW - I could have taken all those except water bottle with me, but I figured the less in my pockets the better for comfort - they also give you a cup of water at the start of the penultimate zipline - oh, and the wind really seems to be getting up as I write this) and they were OK but not amazing, I don't really like photos of myself and of course I look a bit silly with the string on my glasses. I said I'd think about it and went off to mull. Spoke to the MoS who'd welcomed us and he said (in a nice no overt pressure way) you couldn't decide to buy afterwards as they had no way to take electronic payment.

I dithered a bit but I decided *as it was the first time I'd done it* I would buy the photos, on a regret minimisation basis. I am vaguely tempted to try one of the more extreme ones now; having mulled it over tonight I think I will sleep on it and maybe book one for Friday. This isn't cheap but I am here and it sort of feels like a "seize the opportunity" thing.

Before I forget, I don't know if it's just me or luck or the harness was slightly badly equipped but on a couple of the hanging ziplines I did kind of feel like my balls (or at least one of them) was being compressed a bit and had vague irrational visions of it kind of bursting, but this wasn't a huge deal, just wanted to make a note - truth, though it kill me!

Gonna have a break from writing this now and carry on in a bit.

2227 So I got the included transport back to centre of SE and went into the tourist office (my "usual" one, in a gift shop) and asked about this transport which includes the trip across Lake Arenal (which I saw in guide book tonight is actually artificial). Turns out it's to La Fortuna not Tilaran (sp) - which is actually on *this* side of the lake - but it's jeep+boat+jeep and it's door to door for USD30 cash to the driver (USD50 if your La Fortuna hostel is out of town - anticipating slightly, I think any hostel I'd stay at is in town, this is to accommodate people staying at luxury eco lodge type places), at either 8am or 2pm and it takes about three hours. There's availability tomorrow for one of those times but not the other, but if I book for Sunday in the next day or two there will almost certainly be availability. I will probably do this and it will almost certainly be Sunday, but I want to give myself a little margin for error. It's slightly pricey but I don't actually know what it would cost to do by bus, and I would like to take the trip across the lake so I'm going to do this barring major problems.

I then came back to hostel to pick up my stuff (I didn't even have phone with me, remember) and had brief chat with A+J who came in as I was heading back out after I'd done a bit of fiddling around with stuff and called parents.

Feeling buoyed up in part by enjoying the canopy tour I had thought I might go to this "playing with bugs" place I had had the brief chat with the guy about at the night visit to ranario and maybe have a good look at their spiders with a view to judging whether (bear in mind I hadn't spoken to A+J about their in-the-future-at-this-point tour then) I could brave the night walk.

The "updated for 2022 fully checked post covid" guide book said there was a herpetarium, but Google Maps said it was closed. I trogged over on the offchance and GM was right. I then went back to "my" tourist info office and asked and apparently there is nowhere like that now - I said I'd heard some people say they had seen scorpions the other day and he said (which does make sense) it would have been on one of the night walks. So I suspect the English guy at the ranario was saying he liked the sound of this place, which he perhaps had been told about, rather than that he had done it.

I then figured I'd fill a bit of time by buying some postcards (50 cents or CRC300 each in the shop I got mine in - USD2/3 each in the gift shop containing my tourist office), trogged back to accom to write them out then over to post office to post them (1600 for two) - I got there about 1630 and they were shutting at 1700 FWIW.

I also - of course - went to Raulito's at some point during all this. A possibly French woman speaking very good but non-native sounding Spanish seemed to be hanging around chatting with people and I earwigged on her conversation while they were getting my food ready. I suspect she's some kind of pseudo-ex-pat.

I've just spent the evening in. I went on booking.com (did also check hostelworld but it's much of a muchness) and booked a hostel with free cancellation up to end of Friday for La Fortuna on Sunday. I will *probably* stay there and I did make some effort to pick something which seemed vaguely sociable and eg had reviews from solo travellers, but the main point was to hedge my bets. By insisting on free cancellation I will have restricted my choice a bit but I think it's worth it. I still don't *like* the tourist trap nature of this place but I do want to take advantage of the surrounding nature/activity stuff and I don't want to leave here with major regrets just because I pre-committed to things elsewhere (transport, accommodation) before I realised I wouldn't be able to do everything I wanted.

I did book a dorm, partly to keep costs down (I'm not exactly on a formal budget and I'm sure it's fine, but the canopy tour today wasn't cheap, if I do the extreme one that's not cheap, the jeep+boat thing isn't cheap, the country isn't cheap overall and this is good - as I say, I'm not exactly on a budget, but the less I spend on this trip - without crippling my enjoyment - the more I have to consider doing another trip perhaps in autumn or whatever - sure I'm repeating myself here) and partly just to prove to myself that (as I already know) it's no huge deal. Was interested that A told me the other night (just saying in passing, like everyone knows) that you do meet people from staying in dorms, but in my limited experience this hasn't been the case, and had there been good, cheap private room options I wouldn't have avoided picking them purely on "meet people" grounds. However, the free cancellation hostels that seemed cheap for dorms nd potentially sociable did not have cheap private rooms.

I could have got a hostel with a bar but I decided against it; it was swings and roundabouts, the one I picked was a bit cheaper and perhaps a bit more solo traveller (probably v young, but not necessarily all and it still probably helps) and I suspect/hope there's free coffee and a garden/terrace to sit on, and while it will be nice to have a few beers at some point I'm not sure it's actually a great way to meet people and I'm not gagging for a beer so it feels like a worthwhile health and money-saving opportunity to not "aim" to meet people over a beer. None of this is saying that I *won't* have a beer, for all I know I'll spot a cool bar with live music in La Fortuna and go there, just that I'm thinking a hostel with a bar is not necessarily the best way to get into conversation.

Also washed a couple of sets of uw tonight and faffed with camera (stashing photos etc) and been writing this and as I say had brief chat with A+J about their tour and have tried to book that.

Oh, after posting the postcards I went to bus terminal (having been reading about other nature stuff nearby in guidebook this afternoon) and fairly competently pumped the guy at the Transmonteverde office and found out where the ordinary buses (not shuttles/tours) to Monteverde reserve itself go from and that it's 1500 each way. Annoyingly the first two leave at 615 and 730 then the next one isn't til 930, and last back is at 1600, but given I saw one leaving as I walked to find the stop (opposite Hotel El Sueño) and the time wasn't on the timetable, I half suspect there are more (maybe another company runs them too, as I only saw Transmonteverde timetable - and the guidebook doesn't have 930 bus in BTW). So gut feeling is I will do a self-organised trip to the actual MV reserve tomorrow, try to get up early-ish for breakfast, head over to bus stop and hope I'm not stuck there for 1.5h-ish waiting for 930 bus. It's USD25 to get into reserve but borderline tolerable and there are apparently a fair few trails you can walk etc, and it would be good to see it.

I am thinking then I will go try to book the "extreme" canopy tour thing for Fri when I get back into town about 1630, have dinner and spend the night in. I have asked for the night walk tour on Fri as I figured that if this plan works out, I'll probably be a bit knackered from zooming round the MV reserve on Thursday. I have to change rooms (I think) Fri morning which may interfere with canopy tour, but I will chat to MoS (owner?) here tomorrow and see what is involved.

This plan gives me Saturday free as a contingency day; if all goes to plan I will probably go back to Santa Elena cloud forest for a second visit on Saturday, walk the small bits of trail I missed and be more relaxed about eg staring at waterfalls for ages than I was last time. If all doesn't go to plan I could eg do second canopy tour on Saturday and SE on Friday, though if I *am* doing the night walk on Friday night that might mean I have to get back earlier or put up with being tired/a bit hungry during night walk.

I think if (assuming I do decide I want to do it) I do the second canopy tour ("extreme"), visit MV and do SE anti-plastic forest a second time, I'll feel fairly happy I've got most of the stuff I wanted to do here done. There are other things I could do (the hanging bridge tours round the forest do sound cool, and you probably get to appreciate the view in a way you can't from the ziplines, but it's not as if I won't have actually gone out and spent time *in* the forest) but none of them quite so desirable and while I have reasonable amounts of time and money, I don't want to go crazy and spend a fortune trying to do "everything" here. It's not inconceivable I'll come back at some point, of course. (I was thinking "on a future trip" when I wrote that, but although I *don't* really want to be doing this, in theory I could pop over here on the bus from San Jose - it's only 4-5ish hours each way - for a few days at the end of this trip.)

I'm not super tired but I might move towards bed. Unless I happen to wake up unusually early and unusually bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I don't plan to skip breakfast and try to get one of the super early buses to MVR, but who knows? I did buy another 1.8l carton of milk at supermarket during this afternoon's meanderings (didn't get any crisp type things) and although I was slightly tempted to open it tonight the reality is I'm not hungry so I resisted, and this means that I could potentially drink a fair quantity of milk tomorrow as a pseudo-breakfast if I *did* want to head out early to MVR and skip hostel breakfast.

Incidentally if I didn't already say you can kind of see why canopy tour is expensive, it must be very staff-intensive for a start. And FWIW as the price was USD59 I figured I'd take dollars and pay with them, as that way I couldn't get stiffed on a crappy exchange rate except on the dollar change, and I actually unexpectedly got a dollar bill back as change.

(It might have been possible to pay by card, but for personal non-travel-specific reasons I am making an effort to pay cash when I can these days. This does potentially cost me more due to the bank withdrawal fees compared to using a card - although if BCR continue to be fee free, that problem goes away. Here in CR with the constant mixing of USD and CR and getting stiffed on exchange rates either when you pay or when you get change, paying by card in USD would again offer a small saving by avoiding that tourist tax, but again I'm preferring to use cash on principle. I may well, taking my cue from paying for canopy tour in USD today as potential change ripoff was limited, make an effort to get a decent-ish stash of USD from the fee-free machine here and use them selectively to minimise the tourist tax.)

Quick hasty shower and straight into bed I think. Should probably shave but not bothering. I think I'm shaving about every other day and while I don't think my stubble looks particularly good, in this kind of outdoorsy environment I'm sure I can get away with it. :-)

Incidentally all the hostels in La Fortuna seem to advertise air conditioning. Maybe it's a lot warmer there than here, but given the slightly cool room and tepid shower here I find it hard to believe that's desirable. It wasn't stiflingly hot in Alajuela or Grecia either, and that was with me fresh off the plane (I believe there is an element of acclimatising over about two weeks which reduces discomfort from the climate if you stick it out and don't/can't air-condition it away, but that wouldn't have kicked in that quickly).

2327 Anything to put off the shower. :-) FWIW I hadn't actually met the woman from the 4am incident before then, just heard her talking to Andy - I had gone out to ask him a question (semi-pretext) when their conversation ended. And I went out barefoot despite having seen that big spider earlier. :-)

2333 Bed. Shower particularly un-warm tonight. Had been reading about alleged health benefits (invigorating etc) of cold showers earlier by coincidence. I did also do a one-off experiment with a cold shower back in London not that long ago, and I know from all sorts of experience (also true of getting into swimming pools, which even if heated to 20-odd C still feel cold for a few minutes) that it's one of those things which rapidly becomes "OK" if you stick with it past the first 30 seconds or whatever. I'm not saying it was that bad/intense/healthy - I'm sure the water is at 15C or so even unheated, just based on the weather - but it does still feel "cold" and I'm just waffling. Let me actually get into bed proper and send this.

2337 I can hardly believe I've only been here in Santa Elena "sort of" three days (two and a bit). It feels like forever. Not in a bad way. I guess the emotional rollercoaster maybe has something to do with it.

I don't know if I'll ever get used to this constant auditory gale. If I forgot to say I didn't notice wind significantly during ziplining (most of the "wind" I felt was probably due to me moving through air), but then again I have no basis for comparison and it's possible eg this played a role in me struggling to keep facing the right direction (although I suspect inexperience was a large factor). It's vaguely cosy being inside listening to it, and to be fair the air temp in here is not unpleasant - the fancier San Ramon accom was much cooler-verging-on-cold - but it also has a wierdly disconcerting effect. It isn't keeping me awake or anything, it's just, you know, odd.

Finally let's actually get into bed...