Costa Rica - Monteverde and Santa Elena - La Pura Vida

Where to even begin?

Costa Rica is beautiful. Granted, Im coming off of prolonged quarantine in a hotel room, so I have lowered standards, but I heart this country. The people here are incredibly friendly and helpful, its relatively easy, though slow, to get around and theres tons to do.

Not cheap though. Especially in Monteverde where weve been for four days, as its a heavy tourist area. Worth it though. Its been one of those times where Ive been too busy having adventures to take the time out to write about them!

We miraculously made the connecting bus in San Jose to Monteverde the same day our flight arrived and delightfully did not have to spend that night in San Jose. The bus ride wasnt long so much as slow... the roads here are full of craters (too big to be called potholes), minimally paved and dont encompass oncoming traffic very well.

We made up for the hours of enforced boredom in the hotel with a flurry of activities (cha-ching), but I cant mind too much as theyve all been really fun!

Day One - Sore Legs and Killer Trees

Overly ambitiously, we set out for a 3 km hike up a smaller mountain near our hostel. On a usual day, I could walk 3km in my sleep. However, it turns out that on day two after 10 days bedrest with residual chicken pox at 1000+ elevation on some of the steeper inclines Ive ever walked on, I cannot accomplish this task. I literally had to stop every 10-15m to catch my breath (light headedness loomed in the shadows). I told Mick that next time, hed have an easier time with a literal ball and chain tied to his foot. True story. We did NOT complete that hike, although probably made it 2/3 of the way. Let me be clear - I could not have finished it. Mick annoyingly would sprint up sections that took me almost 10 minutes to shuffle up.

After a much needed lie-down and some late lunch, we went on a night tour of the Eternal Childrens Rainforest Reserve. Some Swedish kids bought the land years ago to protect the cloud forest from development (fun fact - cloud forests produce 30% of the worlds drinkable water). Saw tons of animals, cant remember most names of course.

Big tarantulas were the highlights, although I was also really interested in the ficus constrictor, a cannibal species of tree that eats other trees. The raccoons here are also super tiny because they eat forest food instead of McDonalds dumpster food. It was refreshing to see some that were nervous of humans. Ive had more than a few aggressive encounters with raccoons in Canada!

Day Two - Man Up! To the Extreme and the Golden Seeds
After a minimal amount of psychological nudging from Mick, we went to Al Extremo, a canopy tour of almost 20 very high off the ground over massive canopy valleys ziplines. Now, surprisingly, as weak as I am with heights, I was relatively cool with this activity. Apparently having a safety harness strapped all around me makes all the difference. It was AMAZING.

There was even a double rainbow over the valley with the longest cable. Stunning. Eventually you will have some illustrations to go along with this anecdote. The only one I skipped was the Tarzan Swing, not due to height so much as the continual swinging causing nausea. No one wants to be that girl who threw up, so I happily watched everyone else do it from the lower platform. No regrets from skipping it. We also met some other hilarious travellers and met up with them in the evening again for a few drinks to celebrate our bravery. One of them particularly deserved a beer, having overcome his fear of heights and done every cable as well as the swing, all through the power of the expression Man Up! He and Mick had to buddy up for one double line and we spent the rest of the day teasing them about their developing bro-mance.

The afternoon we took it easy and went on a coffee plantation tour. I knew nothing about coffee. Now I know lots, so I guess that speaks to how good the tour was. Mehron, youll be delighted to know that I impressed everyone by knowing the coffee originated in Ethiopia, not Saudi Arabia. Coffee is a slow process - 3 years to grow a proper tree. Crazy. Coffee beans are called golden seeds because historically they were responsible for turning Costa Rica from the poorest province in the colony of Central America to the wealthiest country in the region over about a century.


Day Three - The Day A Turtle Peed on Mick


The title is almost enough, but allow me to elabourate. We went to Finca Las Brisas, a family run farm that does horsebackriding tours on their mountain farm. The horseback riding was very relaxing - slow paced, since its crazy hilly, with lots of awesome vistas of lakes and mountains in the distance. Probably my best experience with horses thus far, since nothing went wrong. When we got back to the farm, we also got to try guaro, a liquor derived from sugar cane, sugar cane juice, etc. Then the kids insisted on taking us to see their pet turtles (which they play with by grabbing them and throwing them into the pond... much like throwing rocks in the lake at the cottage. But with turtles). Anyhow, they wanted us to have photos of the turtles so they passed us one each. I opted for the smaller one, since they looked awfully similar to snapping turtles of the Canadian variety. About two seconds into the photo, the dinner plate sized turtle Mick is holding expressed his unhappiness with the situation and voided his bladder all over Micks arm. Priceless.

Okay, there's more fun to be had before we head out tomorrow for neighbouring La Fortuna and the Arenal Volcano, so until later!