Big Apple

As one last attempt to stave off having to come home after our epic honeymoon, we stopped in New York for a day. We stayed in Greenwich Village - which is lovely - but went straight up the Empire State Building the evening we arrived. Here is the view of flat iron on Broadway from the top


Lou has been blending in with the locals. Riding the subway was better than walking around in the rain-sodden streets. We were getting tired of being rained on after tropical storms in Costa Rica, and then this... My shoes are still wet and my socks disintegrated during the day walking around town.


We escaped from the rain at the Museum of Modern Art, in which we skillfully avoided the queues and got to see some things we weren't expecting.


Well it's all over now and we're back in Bristol - it's raining here as well just for continuity. Ah well, it was great while it lasted - and it was nearly 3 weeks long. See you all soon.

¡Ciao Costa Rica!

Well, we are back in the central valley in Alajuela, in the mountains of Costa Rica. Today we went up to the crater of the nearby Poás volcano, which was pretty clouded but it did clear a little to reveal the steaming crater lake. We also went to this lake above the crater, full of green minerals and stinking of sulphur.

We are staying in a hotel overlooking the valley and airport, ready to leave tomorrow. It has some gardens and waterfalls in the grounds that we would go and swim in, if it wasn't so cold up here compared to the beach. Still it's pretty spectacular, but we'll stick to the hot tub..

We have also been into the main market in town to get some final bargains and naturally, eat more local food. Here I am eating a local dish called a Casado, which we washed down with some fruit shakes which are plentiful here.

Here are some remaining pcitures from the beach at Sámara. This one is nice and cheesy.

The mandatory tropical sunset photo-

So, it's bye bye Costa Rica, as we're off to New York now for a quick stopover on the way home. Cheerio from us.

From the Rainforest to the beaches in a day

The cloud forest of Monteverde in the continental divide certainly lived up to its name. We got soaked in a rain-shower going back to our hotel from lunch, and then toured a coffee/sugar plantation in plastic ponchos. Here are our shoes drying out outside our cabin.


We had a walk around the preserved rainforests, where we saw monkeys and birds in the canopy, also getting rained on. The hummingbirds were always around too.

This frog was in the frog sanctuary - not in the rainforest! Sorry for cheating.


We have descended from the mountains and the weather is getting better. Our cabin looks out onto the beach at Sámara, on the pacific. Here is the view from our room.


We have been out snorkeling and even saw a whale whilst being pounded around on 3m waves in a tiny boat - all of which I (and my stomach) found too much, but Lou enjoyed. The trip was well worth it though and I am gradually recovering my fragile appetite. In the background below you can see the beach we´re staying on.

We saw this iguana on the small island where we stopped on the beach for a pineapple break. It was trying to eat our bananas and looked too tough to argue with.


We have also been to beaches further afield on the local bus - this one was pretty unoccupied except for some vultures and a man with a loudspeaker on his van advertising the local health spa.

Next stop is Alajuela in the central valley, ready to come back home via New York. I think there´s still plenty of time for adventures though. We will take advantage of our last night by the sea with some lobster, we think.


¡Hasta Luego!

Things that go bump in the night

Here is some of the local wildlife we have seen. Some of it by the roadside. I am trying to identify it with the help of a costa rican wildlife sheet...

Still not sure what to call these - white nosed coyote I think.

These hummingbirds were hanging around while I was trying to eat a hamburger.

Blue Crowned Motmot - This morning I was woken by a squirrel on my roof, I think, so went out to see what was around. This was behind our cabin and allowed me a photoshoot.

Not sure which beetle, there are 100s of thousands here though.
Cane Toad - outside the golden toad hotel.
a flower.

We cheated and went to an insect farm to see these...

Preying Mantis

Blue Morpho

On a different note here is the bar of the Tabacon Springs Hotel, where we had dinner the other night, after bathing in the geothermally heated river flowing through the grounds which are under the Arenal Volcano. very plush.

Volcano

We hope you all enjoyed the wedding -we certainly did. However we were pretty tired afterwards and now we have arrived in Costa Rica and are slowly getting our strength up. The flight over was about 18hrs via New York. For the first few days we were in the capital - San José - which isn't much to write home about but was nice for a rest. In fact we spent two days acting like zombies Even now though we can't stop getting up at 5am and going to bed at 8.


We are now near the Arenal Volcano and Arenal Lake and are planning to go up there later to play in some lava flows, as it is very active. This is the view from our window - it's another volcano though. There are also some hot springs nearby so hopefully we can stay up past 8pm and enjoy them.

So far today we have been lounging around and trying to get my new wife into cue sports. Here is the Bat on the pool table. Remarkably, this ball actually pots.


Anyway - better have a nap ready to stay up till at least 9 tonight.

Wedding Countdown

Dear All,

We are now into the final stages of the wedding planning and everything is happening fast. Here is some last minute information.

Timings and traffic
The wedding ceremony will start at 1.30pm prompt on Saturday, so please be there well before. The Bristol to Wells road (A37) leaving Bristol can be slow on a Saturday morning. If you're coming on the day from the north you might consider taking the M5 to near Weston-super-Mare (Junction 21), and coming that way.

Getting to Folly Farm
Thankfully Folly Farm's drive is clearly signed from the A368 near Bishop Sutton village, but the Postcode is BS39 4DW if you're relying on Sat-Nav. Folly Farm's web site is http://www.follyfarm.org/

Staying on Site?
If you're staying at Folly Farm, we hope you can join us on Friday afternoon or evening, as Chris and many of both families will be there from then. We have full use of the site from 2pm Friday. We'll provide a light breakfast on both mornings. We are expected to leave the site by 11am on Sunday.

If you have a small child, please bring a travel cot, as they aren't provided by the farm.

Anything else?
Please email, or phone us if you need to know anything else before the day.

Thanks, and look forward to seeing you all there,

Chris and Lou.
x

Happy Birthday Lou

Despite all the wedding preparations there was still enough money in the kitty to take Lou out for dinner to celebrate her birthday. After collecting our wedding rings on Saturday in Totnes, we went to Dartmouth. Here we are having drinks on the quay.


A sea food banquet was on the cards. And here we are enjoying it. By the end of the meal we were both sweating out only garlic and butter. By then the sun had set over the harbour and we could try to walk off the sea bass.



This car, however, wasn't one of her birthday presents. A shame though as it's a perfect match. We found this in Clifton during the 'open doors' event at the old Clifton Rocks Railway.


We have also been out with the family in Bristol...


We look foward to seeing everyone who can make it at the wedding, and hope you are enjoing the start of autumn.

Necessary Wedding Pre-formalities

Here is conclusive proof that our wedding is imminent. Firstly, a picture from Lou's very refined hen party in Bristol.



Also, some evidence of Chris' debauched jaunt on the river Wye, drunkenly drifting between Wales and England and generally disturbing the wholesome tranquility of the countryside.



Yes, thanks to everyone who turned up and contributed to these great events. Chris will try to gain a court order against any more pictures of his party coming out, but may well be unsuccessful.

The next task is to get the guest list finalised, so please reply to us if you haven't already. Also we should make sure the gift lists are accessible from next weekend. Please call us if you need anything.

One piece of information about the wedding is that there is a field for anyone who would like to camp at the site, please contact me to arrange this.

Upfest - Streetart in Bristol

Here are some pictures from the Upfest street art festival in Southville today. This was on over this weekend and was complete news to me. Apparently it's the largest festival of street art in Europe - if so that doesn't seem to be difficult to achieve, even though Bristol is known for this type of thing.

Here is everyone milling around outside the 'Tabacco Factory' venue checking it out:-


Some samples:





These were particularly bristolian:-






BP came in for some abuse;-





a few more favourites...





And here we are, obviously enjoying it too much to look at each other...