It's that time again! 

Just a little recap for you all, flow from London to San Jose, then to Puerto Jimenez. Sounds easy, well it wasn't. Day 2 of travelling and I didn't have my bag with me, Couldn't have a shower so I was just a big emotional ball of sweat. In my hostel room, thinking what the f*** was i doing there. 

If you have read my last 2 posts you will know that I hadn't had the best start to travelling and I can tell you now it got worse before it got better. I got an early night because I was so tired, but also emotionally drained from the journey to Costa Rica, however, I didn't get the best night sleep either. Well for a start it was REALLY hot however me being the overthinker I am, I didn't want to leave the fan or AC on overnight in case it overheated and that's the last thing I wanted. So I left the windows open a little bit, however again that caused my brain to worry about mosquitos (You will find out later how much I love these guys...not) 

Half my brain - "omg I'm going to get eaten alive"

"what if they carry malaria"

"omg I'm going to get malaria"

"I'm going to die right on this bed and I won't have explored the world!"

"what if my bag gets lost"

"What if they leave it at the airport or take it to a different hostel"

The Other half of my brain - "Soph chill, there isn't a risk of malaria"

"you have had the injections, you will fine"

"you gave them your hostel details, the bag will turn up!"

"man the f*** up"

So as you can imagine, I was all over the place. This just makes me laugh when I think back to this, especially with what happened at the end of my trip 

I got up at 6am and went for a little walk into town to get some food for the day, I went to the bakery that I had passed the night before. There was a loaf of what looked like a raisin bread. It cost me a whole 1,000 colons, which works out to be £1.35, just in case you were wondering. I also got a big carton of apple juice as well because I was lucky enough to have a small fridge in my room. I had some bread and apple juice and then left to go for the dolphin and whale tour that I had booked when I checked in. 

So there I go, walking in the humid, sticky weather of Costa Rica in a t-shirt and fleece joggers as I try and find the Pier for the dolphin tour. At the Pier, I would meet Jose and go looking for dolphins and whales. Sounds easy right? Well as you all know by now it wasn't. I didn't have any idea where I was going, so I just walked along the beach till I found what I hoped was the Pier. Also, I don't know ANY Costa Rican Spanish so I couldn't even ask anyone for help! So I walked along the "what I hoped was a Pier" Pier and sat on a bench and just waited. 

2 clearly not Costa Rican people came walking down the Pier so when they got near me, I asked if they were doing the tour as well, which they were! This honestly made me so happy because I at least had some people to talk to, who also knew basic Spanish so we were able to find Jose (whose name wasn't Jose) and began the tour. 

May I also add to get down to the boat you had to walks down this really slippier ramp, however to my surprise I didn't fall!

Oh, also at this point my phone had died because I had left my adaptor in my other bag, I had the charger with me but couldn't use it because it wasn't the right plug for the wall! So I wasn't able to take any photos.

At the beginning of the tour we didn't see a lot, the view itself was beautiful and the water just looked so clean but no dolphins or whales. It was the wrong time of year for whales anyway so I was able to get to know the people more, they were on their honeymoon there for a week and lived in Alaska. They were travelling more around Costa Rica before heading home.  Jose, but not Jose got a call about some dolphins being seen over the other side of the Pier so we quickly raced over to that side. 

There were 2 more boats in the area so we knew we were in the right place. That is the moment when I remembered why I had gone there. There was a school of 30 or more Dolphins all playing around in the water and beside the boat, they got that close you could see all of the spots on their backs. I couldn't stop smiling. It was one of them experience that you just can't describe. Next thing we knew now Jose starting driving the boat really fast towards the middle of the school of dolphins, I started to panic, what was happening! Only to my surprise at the back of the boat in all the foam/bubbles the boat had created, the dolphins were jumping through it, they loved it! Not Jose said they got so used to people coming to see them that they now get playful! That's why they would happily come up to the boat. 

This to me also shows how human really do have an impact on animal behaviour, if we respect them and care for them then they will be kind to us back, it's as simple as that. Because the dolphins aren't hunted or harmed at all by the people or their boats they would happily go up to them because they knew it was safe. IT'S CRAZY!

Because we only saw the one school of dolphins we still had a lot of time left over before we had to head back to the pier so there was the talk of snorkelling. I had never ever been snorkelling in my life and I'm going to be honest with you, it wasn't something that I was too keen on, but when in Costa Rica, am I right? so we parked the boat up, the happy couple happily jumped into the water, leaving me on the boat with Not Jose. I was a bit nervous about going in the water but I thought I might as well give it a go. I took off my fleece joggers, leaving me in my t-shirt and underwear and got into the water with the goggles and snorkel. 

This might be a good time to add that I'm not the best of swimmers. I was "swimming" in the water when in the magical place I call my brain I had the amazing thought of "oh I cant touch the bottom"

Which lead to a panic attack in the middle of the sea and being helped back into the boat by Not Jose and the happy couple! AND I THOUGHT IT COULDNT GET ANY WORSE.

On our way back Not Jose took us to see all the animals within the mangrove around the edge of town. There was these beautiful white ibis, that looks totally out of place amongst the beige mangrove. Crocodiles in the water's edge and loads of macaws. Costa Ricans call them pigeons because of how common scarlet macaws are. Also, my t-shirt had dried slightly and I was back in my fleece joggers. a win, win might I say. 

The boat literally dropped us off at the beach right in front of the hostel, Not Jose helped us onto the beach, we gave him the money and then we were off. 

I went back into my room, still wet and really really hoping my bag had turned up so I could have a shower and just chill after the events on the boat trip. But as you can guess there was still no sight of my bag. I had also discovered that my phone hadn't died, that its screen was just on a low brightness setting! so I face timed the family. I want to be honest with you, by this point, I really just wanted to be home with the family, back into my comfort zone but this was what this whole adventure was about! being out of my comfort zone and doing the things I would never thought I would have done. 

Finally, my bag turned up later that evening finally! whilst I was eating more of that delicious bread and writing in my journal, which I'm reading back through to get all the little details I couldn't remember for this post.  I was about to have a shower and finally got into some clean clothes.

This is the first time that made me realise how we need to appreciate the more simple things in life, just a nice warm shower and clean clothes really changed my mood, I no longer missed home that much and I was ready to face what the jungle had to offer the following day.