Hotel De Montana Monteverde Santa Elena

... br><br>Heute haben wir dann einen 6-stuendigen Hike durch den Regenwald gemacht. Genauer gesagt, haben wir uns in den Santa Elena Cloud Forest begeben und uns auf die Suche nach Lebewesen gemacht. Cloud Forest heisst der Regenwald hier, weil die Wolken durch die hohe Lage nicht ueber den Wald ziehen sondern mitten durch. Es ist hier also fast ...

... into the fact that the buses<br>weren't running due to the muddy road conditions. Perfect. So we hopped<br>in a 4WD taxi and headed off on the first of our 4-leg journey into the ...

... the (steep) 17 dollars to enter the park, the guide mapped out a 4 hour hike for us, which basically took us in a huge loop through the reserve. And off we went! <br><br>We quickly realized what our 17 dollars went to- the trails are impeccably maintained and well-marked. And the flora and fauna was just incredible. Cloud forests are almost constantly dripping with moisture (obviously, we were in the clouds) so it was a very damp hike to say the least. We didn't see much in way of ...

EVER. Lauren speaking.<br><br>Hi, friends, family, and faithful followers,<br><br>Welcome to the second to last blog entry of our summer adventures. It has been a busy ten days since Amanda last filled you in. Last Friday, we stroled out of our neighborhood, through a coffee plantation, and down a winding path to a beautiful waterfall, hidden amongst the trees. Then, we took an early bus Saturday morning to Monteverde - the national park famous for it´s cloud forest, exotic animals ...

... I have plenty of faith in such equipment and amn't likely to turn milk-white at the prospect of getting in a cable car. The tarzan swing was quite a rush, though, as there is a split second of free fall before the slack in the cable is taken up and you swoop out over the hilside below - it reminded me of my youthful escapades up the woods, albeit on a slightly grander and more safety-conscious scale! The final, 1km long zipline which most of us ...

... very lackadaisical in getting us a new car or SAT NAV. It turns out that the little compensation we did receive was useful but still too little too late; we finally left San Jose at 3pm. If the CEO of Thifty is out there reading this and wants me to remove the aforementioned bad press, please drop me a line and we will talk figures. The journey to Arenal was very adventurous. With it raining pretty much every afternoon in Costa Rica it was highly likely ...

... allow you to see the cloud forest from a different angle, spot birds and appreciate the magnificence of the various flora. Whilst rather sedate, it was nevertheless well worth it. Our second activity was the more exciting ziplining with ´Canopy Extremo´. After a brief introduction, we were on our way, ziplining through the forest canopy and out across the stunning valley on lines of up to 750m long!! The views were beautiful and the ...

... canopy zipline tour - seen to be THE thing to do in Monteverde. Several companies offer these - we went with Aventura who, for about $40 each, took us around about 17 lines of various heights and lengths, a 9m rappel, and a 30m Tarzan swing. If there had been a prize, Natalie would have won it for the length and sheer terror of her scream. We called at the ranario (frog pond) in the evening (when the frogs are most active) to see 35 or so species of frog ...

... at school. We were not the rich kids. At school we met up to do bible study once a week. We weren't allowed to call it Bible Study and we weren't allowed to advertise it in any way. it got around by word of mouth and over the years, we created a core group of christians/catholics at West Van high. there were probably about 20 of us in a school of 1500 (probably something to do with that parable Jesus told about a camel getting thru the ...

... see if we can get a closer look at the volcano. 3.21 5:24 PM We just got back from the rafting trip. It was well worth the money we paid for it. The spot we chose was the Rio Toro, or "Bull River," so take from that what you want. Our guides said the water is down a bit due to the lack of recent rain, but the rapids were still very challenging and lots of fun. It was basically a 3 hour paddle through lush rainforest. We didn´t ...