Alastair Simpson Zoe Bowden Travel Blog (Home)

More highlights from the trip….we saw our fair share of world class beaches, so here are our favourites:

- Playa Ancon, Cuba.  The small part of this beach before you get to the main stretch of sand is isolated, quiet, white sanded, palm tree backed with crystal clear turquoise waters.  Click here to see more. 

- Rendezvous Caye, Belize.  An uninhabited island in the middle of the ocean next to the Belize barrier reef, paradise.  Click here to see more.  

- Santa Teresa, Costa Rica.  Mile upon mile of uninterrupted white sand beaches between Montezuma and Mal Pais, backed by jungle and with world class surf.  Click here to see more.   

- Punta Del Diablo, Uruguay.  Quiet, no real roads, chilled out, endless sandy beaches…heaven.  Click here to see more. 

- Arraial D’Ajuda, Brazil.  Endless Brazilian beaches with lots of local stary dogs to make friends with.  Click here to see more.   

- Uvita, Costa Rica.  Long stretches of empty sand backed by Costa Rican jungle with a perfect beginners wave.  Click here to see more. 

Now we know where all of the Fyffes, Dole, Del Monte and every other banana or pineapple brand comes from!  Mile after mile of banana and pineapple plantations on our Costa Rican bus journeys….  

Zoe Fact: Zoe loves sloths!  The sloth sanctuary in Cahuita Costa Rica looks after injured or abandoned sloths.  Unfortunately their natural habitat is being encroached on by roads, banana plantations, humans etc…The sanctuary aims to release sloths back to the wild if they can, or provides a safe home for them if they cannot.  Orphaned sloths are given a teddy bear to cuddle when young, one of them couldn’t be separated from his teddy bear as an adult, see pics! 

Sloth facts: 

- They sleep 12 - 15 hours per day! Awesome!

- They only pee and poo once per week by leaving their tree and coming to ground level

- They only eat one type of leaf and have cow type stomachs to digest

- They are slow and cool!

Apparently a long long time ago, sloths used to be as big as elephants!  Glad they are not like that now!  Prior to our sloth sanctuary tour we went into the jungle in a canoe to spot wildlife, caymans, lazy dogs, but unfortunately no sloths! 

Cahuita on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica where the monkeys have big, hairy white balls it appears (Check the pics and look closely now)….Another jungle backed beach, with monkeys casually swinging in the trees….

We had to include a post about one of the nicest hostels we have stayed at, Flutterby House in Bahia Ballena, Uvita, in the Costa Rican jungle with all the bugs, but only 3 minutes walk to the beach.  Eco-friendly recycling everything, composting, planting pineapples and any other seeds they can, free range chickens roaming the garden.  The sign on the toilet read: “If its yellow let it mellow, if its brown flush it down, please conserve water”.  Treehouse dorm rooms and cabins with no walls ( it was too hot for walls…) along with the nicest hostel kitchen we have used…..a great place to spend a lazy 2 weeks….  

Hanging out at a waterfall for the afternoon, drinking beers, escaping the insane heat and generally relaxing….Ali managed to cut his feet just on the rocks in the pools so didn’t slide down the waterfall…but our friends Kaisa and Georg made it look easy….

We have been very busy lately…..this is only half of the books we have read in the last 6 weeks!