Costa Rica is a beautiful and diverse country. Heaps of wildlife, tons to keep adrenalin junkies happy and endless beach on each coast you can easily see why tourism has boomed here.
Travelling down the west coast from Nicaragua I found myself monkeying through the forest canopy one day and relaxing on a beach a few days later.

For the record I am petrified of heights, to the point where I once blacked out on the side of a mountain. Serious. However, in the spirit of facing your fears and all that and zip lining being one of the 'things' that all he other travellers had done I decided to give it a go. With two new friends I felt safety in the group and the day started well.
We went with Extremo Canopy Tours in Monteverde who offer all kinds of tours, the big draw being the mile long 'Superman' over Costa Rica's fabulous rainforest canopy. It started easy enough, with each zip line gearig you up for the next. However as each line got longer I started to freak out. The free fall Tarzan swing bought me to years and by the time we reached the 'Superman' line I had taken to closing my eyes and praying for it to end. I vaguely remember opening my eyes for a split second, seeing the sheer drop below and quickly closing them again. Saying all this I had a great day. I faced some fears, saw some beautiful scenery, learnt I NEVER want to do a bungee jump and now never need to put myself through the ordeal ever again. Yaaaay!

After seeing almost all Monteverde had to offer we headed to Montezuma, a beautifully quiet beach town on the west coast. We'd heard it was a bit of a party town but were pleasantly surprised by its laid back feel. The three of us managed to bag ourselves a beach side villa with cable TV and kitchen for a surprisingly small amount and we were set for 3 days. We had the beach to ourselves to get on in the day and sat around beach fires drinking rum by night. We also saw an AWESOME lightning storm from the waters edge one night and trekked up to a beautiful secluded waterfall to full one of our days. Fabulous.

Finally! We're on a beach! Man had we waited a long time for this. Tyrona, a national park on Colombia's north coast is where the Colombian's go for holidays. A slice of the Caribbean it's seen heavy development, especially in the sleepy village of Taganga on the outskirts of the park.

After a few days adjusting to the heat and munching fresh seafood we headed to the park. We decided to head to the only campsite with kitchen facilities and took some pasta and supplies with us to keep the costs down. We found a place recommended in the bible (Lonely Planet of course!) and Gemma convinced me not to get a mini bus and to walk 4km with 5 liters of water in my rucksack. I almost killed her. Once we'd done that we realised why the mini buses couldn't go any further and took a 30 minute hike up and over huge boulders to get to the beach itself. You can take a horse but with the steep ups and downs I reckon that'd be pretty traumatic too! It was tough but the scenery was great.
Once we'd settled into our hammock and had rum and pasta in our bellies we were planning tomorrows beach action.

Tyrona really is paradise. We stayed in a campsite just back from the beach (£3.50 a hammock) but for a little more (around £8) you can have a beach front hammock on Cabo San Juan. We stayed at Finca don Pedro which had kitchen facilities as well as a restaurant and a great communal atmosphere. A 10 minute walk to the nearest beach and another 30 minute jungle trek to pristine waters suitable for swimming, it was stunning. Logs washed up on the beaches and it was possible to find a secluded stretch of sand somewhere along the way. There are lots of treks to keep you busy within Tyrona as well as wildlife spotting trips but we stayed true to ourselves and spent lazy days on the beach sipping cerveza's.

On arriving in Bariloche I found it hard to not be slightly surprised by the wooden chalets and vast lakes. When I envisedged my time in S. America, this was not a backdrop I had prepared for. However after only a couple of days I was in awe of my surroundings.

Sat on the pebble shore attempting to skim stones I felt peaceful and relaxed and the Patagonia museum taught me about my surroundings. A steep but pleasant trek up mount Llao Llao Provided an amazing view and Gemma and I sat looking at the landscape contemplating life.
Back in town we treated ourselves at one of the many chocolate shops. Apart from its scenery this is another aspect to bariloche's tourism draw. There are chocolate shops on every corner which sell by far the best chocolate I have ever tasted. Gemma vowed to retire and get extremely fat there while I promised to visit her on weekends.

After deciding to take the plunge alone and heeding the advice of rio-carnival.net on safe and accessible places to stay I booked my hostel in Copacabana (& spent my remaining days in England with Barry Manilow playing repetitvely in my head). Copacabana did not dissappoint. Turning the corner & seeing the fine sands and azul waters of Ipanema, it was easy to see why the majority of travellers preferred it to Copa. However it had a charm that fixated me. Copacabana is a people watchers beach - all backgrounds of people parade themselves along the (3km?) of sand. Strolling in the warm breeze you pass a flurry of favela kids, mothers meetings and the bronzed and beautiful refining their pecs. You can sense the era's of magnificence that the playa has seen when looking up at the Copacabana Palace Hotel which offers a sense of nostalgia mixed in with the ever more modern rich and beautiful faces of Rio!