29 June - Karens bag stolen, and monkey park

Well we caught the bus to the Nicoya Peninsula to get to the monkey park, and animal refuge and wildlife park where we are to be volunteers for a week... but more about that later...

The bus trip was hot and long, and after about 3 hours in (of a 5-6 hour ride) I thought it was a good idea to stretch out as much as I could and put my daypack up on the overhead luggage rack. Then about an hour later we realised it had gone. We think we know what happened looking back on it - there was this one guy who was standing in the isle, and he dropped a key and something else and waited for one of us foreigners to bend down and pick it up for him, making quite a fuss - think it was a classic distract move while someone else probably took the bag. Anyway all is not lost and its more an inconvenience than anything else- camera, glasses and raincoat are the main things gone, but I was luck to have my wallet on me, and we'd be in much worse shape if they had got phils bag. Bus driver wasn't helpful, and we're staying in a fairly remote area - no police to report it to yet- we will go next week to make the report for insurance purposes.

Monkey park. There will be another entry in spanish shortly, but I'll try to give a quick outline for everyone else... We've voluteered to do a weeks work through ASVO which coordinates volunteers to work in Costa Rican National parks and wildlife refuges. We were given a choice of a few parks and we chose the monkey park on the Nicoya peninsula, where there is an animal refuge. So we are cutting up fruit and veg, and cleaning cages and looking at the animals....

We'll try to add photos shortly but we're a bit remote, and I've actually made a day trip to Playa Tamarindo to the beach and to visit some civilisation, while Phils feeling a bit crook with a sore throat and head cold so he's stayed put. And I wasn't that keen on bringing any electronic gadgets with me in case someone else takes a liking to my bag while I swim at the beach... yes i'm a bit paranoid now!