Having been gone from Costa Rica for a few days, when I look back on it, I think of beautiful forested mountains, sun-scorched dusty streets, tough sabanero cowboys, and borderline dysentery.

It was sad to leave Argentina. George found it so hard to let go that she continued to attempt to spend Argentinian currency in Costa Rican establishments. However, the sun was shining when we landed in San Jose. We left that city straight away, and headed north, towards the cloud forests of Monteverde. The long drive to San Elena (the small main town in the area)came after the long flight from Buenos Aires via Lima, so it was lovely to arrive at our hotel, be shown to our room, a small cabin on the edge of the jungle, and watch the glow worms floating around in the dark outside.

"Eco-tourism" is big in Costa Rica, and particularly in Monteverde. I'm not sure exactly what Eco tourism is, but it always seems to involve zip-lining. And so it did here. The following morning we found ourselves in an eco theme park, occupying several thousand acres of the cloud forest. Our ticket first entitled us to walk a trail, a concreted path around part of the forest, occasionally interrupted by narrow footbridges, which took you over the forest at the top of the canopy. The forest itself was beautiful - the giant trees, dripping in moss, continued unceasing into the distance, the clouds breezed though, every now and again deigning to rain on us. But we wanted to see some animals - a couple of monkeys maybe, or one of those funny guinea pig things. Unfortunately, there wasn't a chance of this, owing mainly to the gangs of tourists who march up and down the path very loudly discussing the price of fish. Any wild creature has long since scarpered - even, I noticed, the birds.

In the afternoon came the inevitable zip line. A series of these send you speeding through and over the trees, giving you (if you're able to concentrate at such speed) amazing views of the forest. This was good fun - especially the 1km long line that George and I did in tandem over a huge valley - but it was tarnished by the fact that we were in a group of around 25 people, and spent much of the time sitting around waiting. On leaving the Eco theme park, we resolved to visit the nature reserve proper the following day, in order to avoid the other tourists and walk a proper trail.

Sadly our resolution did not take into account the painful and tenacious stomach bug with which I was struck down that evening. By morning, I had a fever. I made it with George to the nature reserve, but about 20 minutes into our walk I resolved to turn back, as I was feeling uncommonly cold, my teeth were chattering and my hands had turned blue. This was not before we spied a giant tarantula by the side of the path, all legs and hair. George carried on for another 7km or so, and said she had a lovely walk.

On our last night in Costa Rica, we found ourselves, after a day traveling north, in a town called Liberia. I was still suffering vile complications from the bug, and it was with reluctance that I stumbled out of our hotel behind George, in order to find some supper. But I'm glad I did. We got to the main street to find a huge festival underway, apparently celebrating the proud sabanero culture of Guanacaste, of which Liberia is the capital. The street was packed, in either direction as far as i could see, with hundreds of cowboys and girls on top of hundreds of very excitable horses, madly stamping their hooves up and town. I had the impression they were weirdly dancing to the music which blared from brass bands sat in the back of pick up trucks, slowly motoring between the horses. It was a spectacular sight.

Click here to add a comment

Our return to Buenos Aires might only have been distinguished by more steak, shopping, a severe stomach bug for George and severer haircut for me, had it not been for George's insistence that we do something Polo related, whether that be watching or playing it. Apparently the gauchos all took to the sport with enthusiasm when it was introduced by British settlers in the 19th Century. I hadn't really appreciated the game´s popularity in Argentina before. Possibly that's because my connection with Polo is limited to ill-advised use of a Ralph Lauren aftershave aged 17.

There were no matches to watch that weekend, so we ended up traveling to a peaceful estancia outside the city for a lesson. We were in the company of two middle-aged American ladies and a couple of young London City lawyers. Apart from George, none of us had really ridden a horse at all. Naturally, this meant she was in her element.

Our teacher was Fernando, a slightly peculiar Argentinian, who insisted on warming up his horse before starting the lesson. This consisted of us having to watch him gallop back and forth up the Polo pitch, wresting the horse this way and that, before heading back towards us at full pelt and making the horse jump to a stop. I note that none of our horses required warming up.

George took to the game immediately, and was soon cantering up and down the pitch, knocking forward the ball with confidence. The rest of us found it rather less easy to master, our horses wandering around in disarray, mallets swinging chaotically. For me, the difficulty may have been caused by Fernando´s insistence that Polo can not be played left-handed. This put me at a bit of a disadvantage, something that Fernando failed to appreciate, telling me not to "invent things" when I complained to him that I was finding the mallet grip unusual.

However, I think my main problem was the bloody horse I was sat on. The trouble started when I tried to turn him in a particular direction. He simply refused - if I wanted to go right, I would shift my weight to the right, while kicking him with my left leg. In contemptuous response, he would head left. I would stubbornly persist with my "right command" pulling madly at the rein, with no consequence whatsoever. This was nothing however with the trick he decided to start pulling later in the day: stopping dead and refusing to move. I think I could have got into the Polo thing, had I not been sat on a stationary horse, a couple of metres away from the action, frantically and vainly hammering my legs up and down like an angry girl from a Thelwell cartoon.

Click here to add a comment

We took yet another overnight bus to the north-east corner of the country. On a map, Puerto Iguazo is tucked into Argentina in a way that suggests that it's trying to squeeze through into Brazil and Paraguay.

Moonraker conveniently illustrates our reason for visiting the town. In that often underrated classic, Roger Moore, at the helm of a large white speeboat, idles along a river in the depths of the Amazonian rainforest. Without warning, a handful of smaller boats emerge behind him. Henchmen on board open fire and a chase ensues along the river. Perhaps the most threatening hazard to Rog´s afternoon cruise is posed by the boat containing Jaws - or so he thinks. Suddenly we become aware of an enormous waterfall, towards which Roger´s boat is speeding. With a barely perceptible twitch of his eyebrow, he pulls a lever, and ascends from the water on a glider, while his boat crashes over the falls. Jaws, following close behind, wrenches the wheel of his boat in an attempt to avoid the cascade. In his panic, he has once again underestimated his super-human strength: the wheel comes off in his hands, and he looks at it, stupefied, as he disappears into the foaming water.

The waterfalls concerned are the Iguazu falls, actually a series of huge and violent curtains of water that crash down with such force that, at the highest point, "the Devil´s Throat" you have no chance of seeing the river below. We visited this point, via a long walkway that takes tourists over the strangely placid Rio Iguazu. The noise and spray is almost overwhelming, the natural force on show stunning.

The falls are in the middle of a National Park, in which we spent a couple of days. We visited other parts of the falls themselves, including taking a mad boat ride along the rapids on the lower part of the river and under fierce barrages of water. It was like entering a flash storm: the weather is bright and dry, suddenly the rain drums on your face and the boat whirls around in the spume. Of course we got soaked. We also took an early morning walk along a trail in the rain forest, and were excited to spot huge spiders on webs set across the path, a gang of coatis scurrying through the forest, and best of all, a long snake that we caught sunbathing on the trail, before making its escape up a tree. Our excitement at seeing the coatis lessened somewhat when we discovered that they are ubiquitous through the National Park, and can be found hanging out at most restaurant spots, searching for scraps, nosing around in people´s bags, even climbing up the back of occupied chairs. The trees above were often frequented by Capuchin monkeys and toucans.

Puerto Iguazu is about 20 km from the National Park, and we stayed in a hostel about 5 km out of town. It had a great swimming pool out the front, and there was no problem with our room. However George and I marvelled slightly at some of the other guests, particularly the young men self-consciously swaggering around as if it was their first week at university. I was particularly amused/infuriated by one chap who constantly wore a woolly hat. This in a place so hot and humid that you jumped in the pool to dry off and drank coffee to cool down. Being a grumpy old man in hostels is a benefit of staying in them that I didn´t foresee, but am enjoying.

Comments (1)

We wanted to go paragliding in La Cumbre. I say that, but what I mean is that George had read that it was an ideal place to do it, and I felt pressurised to go along with it, despite a clumsily hidden terror, so as not to appear weak and cowardly.

La Cumbre is a peaceful little hillside town, set on the edge of the beautiful Sierras Chicas, rolling verdant hills, the launching point for said paragliding. It´s about 2 hours from Cordoba, and we spent a lovely 3 days there. Despite misgivings about the paragliding plan, my enjoyment of La Cumbre wasn´t disturbed - by the night before I had genuinely worked myself into a state where I was looking forward to it, albeit apprehensively.

Alas, that night brought a violent and very wet thunderstorm, and the next morning we were told that the thermals were all over the place, there was a chance of rain, and, in short, there would be no paragliding today. So, we went horseriding instead, being driven to a tiny homestead overrun with chickens and puppies. We rode for 3 hours through the most beautiful and varied countryside - heathland, pastures, through rivers, along a disused railway line (overgrown rails and sleepers still intact, like all over the country). Along the way we saw condors and parakeets up above, while on the ground a skittish fox crossed the path in front of us, and we stumbled across an iguana contentedly munching on horse poo. It wasn´t paralgliding, but it was nearly as good, and this despite George initially complaining about the "dobbins" we had to ride, and talking in horsey terms to me, knowing full well that I didn´t understand a word she said.

At certain points we roused the horses into bursts of energy, and I cantered for the first time ever, holding on for dear life. George seemed to find it extremely funny. I admit, flapping around like that, I did feel a bit like a teddy bear strapped onto the exciteable family dog by a child.

Comments (2)

I really like Mendoza. Its centre is leafy and has a very pleasant feel. Plane trees grow at intervals of a few metres along both sides of every street. They flourish, no doubt, as a result of the irrigation channels, which also line the roads.

However, any tourists worth their salt, and a good many who aren't, head out of the city to one of the surrounding wine-growing areas. We hopped on a bus one sunny mornng, getting off in Maipu. Huge Andean mountains stood on the horizon. Round there various bicycle hire outfits hawk their wares, but the place to go is Mr Hugo's. We, like dozens of other backpackers that day, grabbed a couple of bikes from him, and set about cycling around the vineyards and bodegas, with the help of a leaflet directing us to various points of interest.

I haven´t drunk red wine in around 5 or 6 years, in the belief that the tannin does funny things to my head. But I felt compelled to do so on the bike tour, and started with the free beaker proferred at Mr Hugo's. I had a little more at the region's wine museum (where a bat flitted around the huge barrels in the cellar). But I remained cautious and kept my intake to a minimum and balanced up the wine with plenty of water. However, any equilibrium I maintained was ruined by the shot of absinthe I had at the next place we visited, and then the 2 pints of strong white beer I drank in a lovely bucolic beer garden, while chatting to other wine bikers.

Through the afternoon we visited both huge upmarket operations and little family vineyards. But it was a miracle that we made it back to Mr Hugo´s to return the bikes. Not because of a tannin malfunction, nor any general drunkeness. In the time I have known George, she has always represented that she is a proficient cyclist. Indeed, I understood her to be a London to Brightoner. I now know this not to be the case. First, I had to give up my bike to her, and pedal around the region on a girl´s bike with a basket on the front, as it was apparently "too hard" for her to ride. Then, once the swap had been made, she caused the chain to come off, twisted the handlebars and fell off twice. It should be noted that both falls were on a very flat, very straight road.

A final note about Mr Hugos: It is the place everyone goes, all the antipodean, American and European backpackers. It is advertised in the Lonely Planet. It must make a fortune - there is a very good reason for its success. Mr Hugo himself serves wine, shakes everybody's hand, and in our case, as we didn´t have the right coins for the bus, walked with us to the bus stop, paid with his travel card and waved us off. Thoroughly nice bloke.

Click here to add a comment