Scribbling #7: A taste of Costa Rica...

So, there I was – hanging on a wire two hundred feet up in the air, completely stuck, suffering from dehydration and feeling a little bit like a complete idiot.

The guide wasn’t the least bit happy with me. I could feel his glare fifty feet away from me like the Death Star ray on Alderaan. Turning my body around on the spindle, I weakly reached up and tried to pull myself along by just using my arms.

Nope, not gonna happen.

I could hear Christina (AKA Mrs C) yelling at me from the other end, being generally encouraging and wishing that she could actually help.

I look down. And I think to myself, without a trace of fear, wow, it’s really beautiful here. I’m very lucky to be alive.

Costa Rica is a really lovely place, especially when you find spots that are a little – well, a lot out of the way of the main cities and towns. The people are friendly enough (well, they have to be, since their country hasn’t had an army since 1948) and I was glad that Christina and myself were having a great time on our honeymoon so far, especially since a lot of it was outside, adventurous and within the confines of ‘civilised’ wild nature. The country certainly ticked a lot of boxes when it was first suggested to us by another couple, so while my at-the-time-bride-to-be (otherwise known as ‘ATTBTB’ in the on-line gaming world) was working with preparations for the wedding, I was chasing up after companies, getting the nine or ten day honeymoon set up.

Yes. Good choice.

A sharp buzzing noise interrupted my dehydration-induced state of euphoria – it was a handle attached to a rope, running down the zipline towards me. The guide shouted at me to grab at it, which I did, without too much success. Then he started to encourage me - to not be afraid of the height, that everything was okay and above all, hurry up as he has a lot of sleeping and reading to catch up on. I wasn’t afraid – I just didn’t want to leave any time soon. Especially when it involved moving away from the really nice view of the canopy, overlooking a river set into a valley. What did he think I was? Crazy?

I made another lunge and unfortunately caught the handle. Our guide pulled at the rope, dragging me unceremoniously along with it, and got to the other end without too much trauma and a fair bit of sympathy from my new wife.

Our guide – let’s call him Pelé, because he ironically looked the exact opposite to the famous football player – said to me something along the lines of, ‘Don’t stop on the next one. There’s no rope to help you on the next one.’

To which I said – nothing, because I was too knackered to speak.

Nevertheless, I only got stuck because it was my own fault anyway, thinking that I had to slow down from the breakneck speed in which I was going. Slightly too much, it seemed.

The next few ziplines came and went without any incident – they merely had a cumulative effect on me in how great the views were and how pretty the country was, particularly when viewed from a greater height. Costa Rica seemed to have been set aside for the postcard industry.

Scribbling #6: Designated Driver

For some reason, the transition of driving from the left side to the right side of the road was never a big deal for me. My Canadian and Slovak counterparts did think, upon occasion, how hard that must have been to do. No - it was really easy. It's just the language transition that's hard. And that includes understanding Canadian - especially the cute way that they think I have, in some way, paused while speaking and immediately leap in with their opinions that they were conjuring up just a moment ago, thereby completely derailing my train of thought. Brits like to take their time during conversation - letting it flow back and forth, mulling over the words in the same sort of way as one would sip at a vintage wine, savouring each letter and phrase.

Conversations in the car between Mrs C and I have been rudely interrupted in the past, especially if we are in the fast lane of the local highway. You may think that you're fine, no-one is behind you at all. Check that rear-view mirror again, sunshine. Yes, that's a Mercedes coming up right behind you at over 240 km/h. And he doesn't look as if he is stopping. I pull over to the middle lane between two cars, lightly stepping on the brake, and the Mercedes roars by, the driver gesticulating at me wildly as if to say 'see what happens when you keep at the speed limit? It automatically puts you in my way!'. And neither am I particularly surprised to see the registration plate beginning with 'BA' - designating that the car has been registered in Bratislava. Any country road, any blind bend, going up a hill - you will be overtaken by some nutter from the capital city of Slovakia.

It's easy to drive defensively here. You just get out of the way of the idiots. But sometimes, you really can't - like being on a roundabout (translation for Canadians and other aliens: 'traa-fiic cirrr-cle')and you want to turn left, so therefore you want to be on the inside lane, then move to the outside, right? Not if the car next to you on the outside lane has anything to say about it. He wants to turn left as well, but just to be 'safe', he will do just that on the outside lane, cutting you off from the exit and making you go around again. In the UK, they have a great system, where the lanes are painted to actually force you out onto the correct exit, keeping everyone in their place. Which would be the 'proper' thing to do as we are British.

I've been honked at a couple of times as well, especially when waiting for a gap to drive into on a roundabout. So I ignore their horn and wait some more for a random mahoosive gap in traffic. It may take a couple of moments and I may be getting a strange look from Mrs C in the meantime, but I wish to savour the moment of holding up traffic. I should really name our car 'Dick Turpin'.

But of course there is always my personal favourite - winter tyres. To a Brit, these are like manna from Heaven. We revere them, but we have no way of obtaining them on the Isles - they're just too expensive. We like to blame the Man for not obtaining a stupid amount of salt for our roads, for not investing in snow ploughs, for not... and so on and so on. In this country, I've driven on snow at over 120 km/h.

I may have been drinking a cup of tea at the time as well. Which would also be the 'proper' thing to do.

Scribbling #5: New Year Shenanigans

New Year's Eve here is otherwise known as Silvester, named after Pope (or after he kicked the bucket: Saint) Silvester I. I'm not sure exactly what people did back in the 4th century AD to celebrate, but it would have probably been along the lines of conversation and food, which is what I experienced this year. The Wii hadn't been invented then, or Dutch Blitz. Or fireworks.

It would've really sucked to have lived in the 4th century AD.

With the clock nearly at midnight, we all went outside and walked up the street towards Zobor hill, in order to get a better view of the city. 12 am was struck and we beheld the Seige of Nitra, except with less Turks and fatalities. Colours filled the sky at a dazzling rate, with two-ers and three-ers exploding like nobody's business. And of course, since it was Slovakia and health and safety only applies here when someone actually gets recruited to fulfil that role, people were quite happily lighting them on the street, in their hands, aiming at their neighbour's house and generally not caring.

Slovaks love their fireworks, as opposed to the UK, where we merely like them and try not to get too excited by such things. For some reason we're very happy with sparklers, thankyou very much.

We flew Chinese lanterns (well, not actually FLY them. We didn't get on board of a massive one and floated our way to Prague or something. That would have been a daft idea. What were you thinking?) and then some more fireworks were lit by our Slovak compatriots. On the balcony.

Perfectly safe. Just don't set the garden or the dog on fire.