Hotel De Montana Monteverde Santa Elena

*** PLANING ***

Desayuno en el hotel y salida hacia Selvatura para hacer el Canopy y los Puentes Colgantes. Si nos queda tiempo visitar el Jardín de los Colibrís.

Por la tarde alquilar unos Quads para hacer una ruta de 3 ...

... suspension bridges and enjoying the feeling of being completely surrounded by chirping, flourishing life. Then, it was time for the main attraction. We fitted ourselved out with helmets, harnesses, and heavy-duty work golves and set out for the zip-line course. Before we knew it, we were sailing along wires between tree trunks and over gorges, flying through the jungle. We were told to put pressure on the wire with our gloved hands whenever the guides gave us the slow-down signal ...

... tremendously loud it was, though that was indeed tremendous, but how tremedously bloody close it was, the virtually non-existent gap between the flash and the bang putting the fork somewhere within about 250m of us by my reckoning, expert as it is. This occurred about 1 minute into the trek, and initiated a hasty retreat back to the park office while we waited for the storm to move off.

When we did get going, however, we saw a very many ...

... one zipline that was a kilometer long. At the tallest point in the rainforst. My knees were shakey and I really didn´t want to back down so I went through with it and it was definitely fun and exciting. Until the Tarzan swing. This is not like a tarzan swing that we used to make by atta<ching a rope to a tree when we were kids. This was like a bungee jump/free falling tarzan swing. I inched up to the edge and asked the ...

... a welcome respite after the bouncy journey and our landlord suggested we settle in to our 3 bed cabin and then gather some veg for dinner from his garden. Cherry tomatoes, lettuce, cilantro, beets, basil….boy was I in heaven.

Tuesday July 21st: tour of Monteverde Cloud Rainforest with Jairo, our guide. We learned so much about the vegetation and wildlife…..strangling trees, epiphytes, bromelias (did you know a pineapple was one?), orchids ...

... bus ride over, through and round mountains and muddy roads which seemed unfit for a big coach wasn´t particularly enjoyable as I´ve been feeling a bit sick for the last day so the time was spent trying not to (in the words of Gill, our American friend from San Jose) splurge! The hostel here seems nice and I´m glad to have my own bathroom to splurge in now we´re here. Monday was a really uneventful day that we spent lounging around the hostel not doing much except ...

After getting into Monteverde, we decided we had to have some ice cream, of course, (there´s a cheese factory in town that also makes great ice cream). Yummy! We then toured several amazing art galleries. There are many unique and talented artists in the area. After that, we went to a Serpenteria where there ...

Had a gorgeous bus ride from the pan-american highway up thrrough the mountains to monteverde yesterday. Also got luck again with all our connections so moving smooth. Fly through the forests this morning on 14 zip lines, really good fun and now we're off to an active volcano to do a night tour and see some ...

So now we're done with our actual visit in Monteverde and Santa Elena, and while we probably spent the most money here out of all places, it was definitely worth it. There was an abundance of tourist events and facilities all throughout the town, but still plenty of local Ticos who were friendly enough to practice our Spanish with. One Tico even mentioned finding us a job in Cartago and making sure we have a good contract, but unfortunately I didn't ...

... the volcano. Perhaps he thought we meant to the summit. We may at times lack common sense, but we are not utterly stupid. He drops us off with a map, juice, and cookies, and instructs us to meet him three hours later on the other side of the rain forest. The sun comes out and the clouds around the volcano clear a bit blessing us with relatively good views of the lava flows. We have yet to see the top. At times, though ...