Hotel Montelena Santa Elena

EVER. Lauren speaking.

Hi, friends, family, and faithful followers,

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 itīs 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 ...

... are no direct roads on the east end of the lake to Monteverde, we had to go around the northern side over to the west and around. It was a really pretty drive through the clouds and the rich and pristine rainforest. We stopped at a German coffee house along the way. It was literally called the German Coffee House. The coffee was great but a little overpriced. Then we proceeded south to Santa Elena.

Once we got ...

Our family trip (3 kids, aged 14, 11 and 9 years) to Costa Rica began last Sunday, July 19th. We flew San Jose, CA to San Jose, CR with an unfortunate 4 hour flight delay in Dallas. It was fine really and we managed to distress in a book store, giving the kids $5 to spend in the candy shop and playing "detective agents“ in the departure lounge. Flight landing at 11:30pm, to lights off in the nearby Hampton Inn Suites by 12:30 has to be a record. Next ...

... twice - it reminded me of talking to granny! Earlier in the day we had booked to go zip-lining above canopes in the cloud forest and, knowing that photos are taken whilst you do it, we headed into town and all of us except Natasha (who decided to be a slave to fashion) purchased the most garish, disgusting brown tye-dye T-shirts we could find! Tuesday was a day packed full of fun and adventure. In the morning we went zip-lining across canopies and had a go on a ...

... Keli arenīt too into birds, they couldnīt help but be infected by his enthusiasm. He managed to show us a tarantula and a Quetzal, which is a very hard bird to find, and also the national bird of Costa Rica. That afternoon, Dave and Keli took a zipline tour. Ziplines are metal cables that are strung ...

We started the day by cooking a yummy breakfast and going to see Felipe, who does guided horse rides for free . . you can give whatever tips you feel like, and believe me, after that experience, you definitely feel like giving a generous tip. He does it for free because he is taking care of several horses and they need to get exercise and practice being ridden. We set out, just the three of us, across green pastures at the foot of the volcano ...

... but Mike did it and survived fine. That tour goes to show what a small world it is, because one of the fellow clients with us was from UCSD, and even though we had never known eachother we somehow figured out that we used to share the same music class during freshman year. Anyway... That night we went on a guided tour through the frog pond, and got to see all sorts of infamous poison and colorful amphibians. Did you know that some of the frog ...

... it was too expensive and that he would take us elsewhere. After, we took a jeep to catch a boat across Arenal Lake to another jeep which 4 wheeled us into Santa Elena (About a mile from Monteverde). There are so few paved roads in this area that it takes forever to get anywhere. An hour got us 10 miles at most. We check into the hotel (Jeep-boat-jeep has door to door service). Itīs incredibly windy tonight in the ...