14th to 17th Dec
From Santa Theresa on the Nicoya peninsula it took us 10 HOURS to get the buses up to Monteverde. Two buses, a ferry and another bus. It was completely worth it however, this is one of the best places we have stayed at yet!
The last hour of the final bus trip up into the cloud forests was absolutely amazing - tall mountains and deep valleys making up a stunning landscape.
Found a lovely place to stay in Santa Elena (which is the town just south of the Monteverde national park) called El Pueblo which was very cheap and homely.
There is so much to do around the Monteverde that we stayed for four nights (originally it was to be two). We spent he first day walking in the National Park which was beautiful and surprisingly absolutley deserted of tourists.
There was also a Hummingbird garden near the entrance which James became obsessed with and he spent over an hour in there trying to get a good shot of a hummingbird. Katie read her book (Spycatcher, which seemed far more exciting than an hour watching James swearing at hummingbirds).
These photos came out okay, the other 72 didn´t...
The next day, we did a Sky walk though Selvatura forest which was a series of ten suspension bridges hanging high through the forest. The longest bridge was 150m long and so James spent more time looking at the bridges than the forest canopy.
After that walk, we went to the cheese factory (this place just has it all - even a cheese factory!!!) where we could have taken a tour for $8 each but it looked a bit boring so we decided to spend our $16 buying cheese and we did!! (We haven't had a nice piece of cheese in three months so we were very excited...).
After a gourmet cheese meal, we met up with Chris and Jenny (who we met on the bridges earlier in the day) and went to check out the rodeo up the hill. We had heard that there was a big party happening which only occurs twice a year and horseback riders from all over the region come to participate in a rodeo. We were told 4 o'clock and when we got there, everything was sure enough all set up and people had started drinking but typically Central American style, the rodeo didn't start till seven.
Do you recognize Chris? - he was Kat Slater´s boyfriend in a few episodes of Eastenders - and yes he said that Kat really is that orange in real life!!
Still, it was well worth waiting for. What a funny night! The rodeo was really exciting with cowboys being flung about all of the place and a great party with much rum, music and dancing afterwards (Katie danced with a real, live cowboy - fab!!).
The next day, with slightly sore heads, we booked onto a zip-line canopy tour which was fantastic. It was a series of 14 zip-lines strung across the valleys of the forest (the biggest one was 500 ft high and 1500 ft long!!). There was also a vertical rappel and a tarzan swing which was the highlight for Katie (did it twice - so hard!!). The sensation of whipping along a zip line 500 ft in the air at 20 mph with beautiful scenery all around was just undescribable.
It´s hard to see, but check out the terror on Katie´s face!!
That night we gate crashed Chris and Jenny's honey moon again (sorry guys! - lovely to meet you, keep in touch!) and went for a few beers. The evening had to end early, however, partly due to tiredness from the excesses at the rodeo the night before and partly due to the fact that we had all run out of cash as none of the cash points had been working all weekend. Next stop Fortuna to look at yet another volcano...
Books we read: The Von Igelfeld Trilogy, Alexander McCall-Smith