Driving through coconuts: Total change of venue!

Life has moved on a lot since the last post - it's been a while but sooooo busy and exciting. Best news is we're EMPLOYED!!

We were both offered TEFL work in San Jose but very part-time with a lot of travelling (fairly usual for this type of work). However, at the same time I was offered work at a language school in Panama City so we decided to risk it and move to Panama - via a 15 hour coach trip!

Amongst the attractions of Panama was that Panama City has the fastest growing economy in Latin America (with interesting work opportunities), it is a country of amazing contrasts - more of this in future blogs, and it is so much cheaper! It's a move we're really happy we made, even though Costa Rica is very beautiful with incredible, accessible wildlife, and kind, friendly people.

I worked at the language school for 2 weeks - part-time work with adults and better pay than we could have expected in Costa Rica. In the meantime Dave looked for work. After a week he was offered a full-time role teaching science in one of the best private schools in Panama City - with good salary and housing allowance. The requirements were that he was a native english speaker with a degree in the area to be taught. At his interview Dave mentioned me, as a result of which I was interviewed and I am now employed to teach English! This is very exciting (although scary) and we started today - with pupils starting next week. Apart from this being a new career start for us (at an age when we could have expected to be forced into premature retirement) this means we should be able to live very comfortably here, and even save some money! On top of this the school is being very supportive and allowing me some extra days on a normal teaching holiday to go back and see family in the UK, including my daughter's kitten that I've only met on Skype so far - v excited!!

Although we'll be living in a crazy, hectic city we have the benefit of incredible Caribean costal villages just a 2 hour drive away, in a land that could be centuries apart from the city. Lots more about this in future blogs - prepare to be amazed!

Before leaving Costa Rica we spent ten days travelling around to different areas and saw an amazing amount of wild life including this brightly coloured chap - a banana viper - venemous but beautiful! He was just minding his own business in a tree where we were walking - a good reminder of why you need to look where you're putting your hands when walking in the jungle!

3 more types of monkeys spotted! Capuchin, Spider and Squirel. The Capuchins were so sweet and not worried about people at all (although this can be a big problem if they get too close and become a pest). As a result we were able to get some great photos, although the Squirrel monkeys were just too fast to photograph!

We did have an interesting experience whilst Dave was taking pictures - three capuchins crossed in the trees above us, two being a mother and baby, all of a sudden the third monkey climbed quickly down a tree really close to us, broke off a branch and threw it at Dave! I think he was trying to tell us something!