After our gruelling 17 hour or so flight from London, we finally made it to Costa Rica. Despite the bumpy ride, the lack of in-flight entertainment and not so great service, we all felt relieved and happy to be in San Jose, ready for the last adventure of them all. We have no idea what we are up against....Continue reading

I should explain that the McKee Foundation was set up by Christine Crawford – a very charismatic and determined lady who has driven forward the idea of controlling the street dogs of Costa Rica. The Foundation has a no shelter philosophy and whilst I can’t quite agree with this, having visited so many great shelters that do amazing work and met so many incredible people that run them, I do believe in having a strong focus of community outreach and trying to encourage community responsibility for street animals. There is no denying that the Foundation has made a massive impact here and I am sure will continue to do so. Christine really has done wonders....Continue reading

Great day! Kids Saving the Rainforest was a charity founded in 1999 by two girls who developed a passion for the rainforest and conserving the wildlife – within it at only eleven years of age. The project took off and has grown into a big non-profit organization that is multi faceted in its goals and aims. The approach is a holistic one, focused on overall sustainability and ecological diversity of the rainforest and all the fauna and flora within it. Jennifer and Chip (Jennifer is the Mother of one of the girls) are the custodians of the project and are overseeing its development and exponential growth. They employ a vet called Pia who heads up the animal side of things and oversees the rescue and rehabilitation of the wildlife, returning about 50 animals a year back into the rainforest. Jennifer and Chip exude a tireless energy in managing both their hotel business and the charity – which is clearly a complete passion for both of them....Continue reading

Filming a baby sloth being taught how to do its first ever poo is exhilarating enough, but when the person teaching it is Luke it makes for great TV!!...Continue reading

Chris is officially diseased – massive tick on his arm – much to his horror – and so we are now having to quarantine him. It was also one of those really nasty ones that buries incredibly deeply into your skin, sucking out your life force – or so I told him. I think he appreciated my candour.
Big day – we are near Guapil – that should make our location clearer. I have become an equine vet apparently and word has spread I am here to treat lots of horses. All good stuff. Went through a castration with a local farmer – they castrate the stallions here using ropes – enough said. Hopefully, given him a few tips and it went well. Big stallion and hardly broken, but the locals are natural horsemen and the horse was incredibly trusting. I knocked him down so everyone could see what I was doing and thankfully it went like clockwork.
Must go and have a good scrub because I’ve been standing near Chris and don’t want to catch anything....Continue reading

This morning I woke up with just a hint of horror, as I was to discover something had set up camp on my arm. Looking at this black motionless thing buried into my arm, all my panicked efforts to get the thing off failed. Thankfully I was working on a programme following a vet, just slightly alarmed, I was straight to Luke for his professional diagnosis. Apparently it was the ‘nasty variety’ of a Tick….Luckily it did not qualify for the removal to be filmed for the show. I was pretty grossed out by the whole awakening this morning. Luke claims I am now diseased. Having visions of a spider-man like story evolving…. which clearly would be no were near as cool....Continue reading

Today was a big drive further down south – it is absolutely scorching – mid thirties and whilst I do my best not to sweat, I am absolutely dripping all the time. Lovely for the camera. I’m actually a bit beyond caring at this stage in the series, but I look like I am in a sauna, which to be honest, is how it feels....Continue reading

Noah’s birthday!! Mobile reception has been an absolute killer on this trip and there is no phone in the lodge so Christine very kindly lent me her super powerful 3G iphone as a solid back up for the essential call home. Amazingly Greg’s lodge does has wi-fi so I was able to download Skype and phone home first thing this morning (UK time) to blast out my finest rendition of Happy Birthday to a (presumably) very bemused Noah. He did say Daddy down the phone which pretty much broke my heart as I tunelessly sang my lungs out in my very best dulcet tones. Hopefully I didn’t wake Marc next door – but he was incredibly supportive first thing as we crawled out of our rooms about 6am to get to the boat on time so I don’t think he minded if I did. He said not – but I suspect he was just being nice. Noah was planned to meet up with cousin Robyn at the soft play centre in Basingstoke today but the weather in the UK has been the worst in 30 years (apparently) so hopefully Cords and Noah made it whilst we are sweating our socks off, careful not to jump in the water with12 foot crocodiles no matter how tempting. Hard to think all our families are freezing cold and despite the amazing company and great people, can’t help but wish you were at home....Continue reading

Today we went back to see Carol and Earl atthe Osa Wildlife Sanctuary. 700 acres of designated National Park in the rainforest, in such a remote location where it is only accessible by boat with only two hours of electricity a day and very limited phone access, is a wonderful place to be able to visit two days in a row....Continue reading

The last big community spay day of the series! I didn’t realise this until Marc said it to me as we walked up to the boat this morning, laboriously lugging all the gear with sweat already pouring of us at 7.30am. And what a day to finish on. The island is apparently a place where people dump abandoned dogs they no longer want and the population has become feral and dangerous – as well as uncared for. The mission was to get there, catch the dogs and do the job. The truth of it is that the dangerous bit of the job was done by Don Oscar – a world renown dog whisperer who had given up his time (and driven 16 hours) to get down here and perform some miracles in coaxing these feral dogs into his arms. True to his reputation he managed it without any heroics or rough handling and before we could blink he had us a large collection of dogs to get cracking with....Continue reading