Rainforest guided tour

After a good night's sleep at the Monteverde Lodge, we wake up at the crack of dawn for our guided tour of the Monteverde Cloud Forest.

It's the Cloud Forest because the air condensates halfway up the mountain, so when the clouds roll in, you're inside a cloud in the middle of the rainforest.

Carlos is our guide, and he's pretty good. You can tell he's done this before, as he has great English, repeats the names of plants and animals twice, and has lots of random tidbits to share. We start out towards the end of the parking lot, and proceed to see the most rare bird in all of Costa Rica, the Quetzal.

It was actually pretty cool, it's a medium sized bird with amazing green feathers and a few blue ones too. We see a male, and see his long long tail feathers. Apparently, the quetzal feathers were used only with the most important people; Montezuma had quetzal feathers in his headdress. We didn't get a picture of it because it was still so early and the cameras weren't out and set to photograph wildlife yet. Oops. But we got a lot of other stuff.

Too many pictures to post, so check those out on facebook later.

After a few hours of hill climbing, lots of hiking, and a surprising lack of insects, we came out unscathed with pictures of a small waterfall, howler and spider monkeys, huge stick bugs, and a giant wasp carcass that a fungus was consuming from the inside out. Also, there are these strangler ficus trees that grow from the top of the canopy to the bottom, attaching to existing trees and tunneling down to the ground floor, then wrap and kill the tree they used for support. As a result, once they're big enough and the previous tree dies, they're hollow on the inside. We took a picture of us in front of one, and of the inside of the tree. All over the place.


This is a howler monkey. He has white balls, its quite silly. He and a friend kept pooping on the tourists to mark their territory. We didn't get pooped on, but the people in front of us did.

Amazing.

Treacherous car ride up a mountain

The car picks us up from the canopy tour, and informs us that the last 10 km are going to be "a little bumpy." We prepare ourselves for a scene from Ace Ventura 2.
When they said "bumpy," it was really "Oh God, I'm scared for my life on this gravel road barely big enough for two cars to pass and the side of a mountain to our right." And it took about an hour. We're tired from our previous outdoor adventure, so we're trying to get some sleep, and the after the second time Meghan hits her head on the window while trying to sleep, we give up and take a look around the car.

Look out the car - It really is beautiful. Giant green trees everywhere, and you can see the mountains all around you.
Come back to the car - look about 5 feet away from outside of car, and pee yourself a little. Also, the driver kept heading to the outside while making turns, so it felt like he'd lost control of the van and we're about to be barreling over the side of a mountain about ten times.

But we got to the Monteverde Garden Lodge safely. Get to room, again, no AC. But there's windows everywhere and the breezes are so cool so it's not that bad.
No television. No plug to charge the lappy.

We never realized how much we depend on the TV and internet for entertainment until two days ago. We've had to revert to hiking around the hotel and seeing the beautiful greenery and wildlife, hiking to the small town outside the hotel, and the worst - talking to each other. Meghan has finished two books, and Marco finished his first one. We're ten pages or so into the next one.

No bug bites to date.

Canopy Tour

So. far, we have taken a private car from the airport to the hotel and when we get up in the morning we find another private van that takes us to the Parque Aventura canopy tour where we find that we are also the only people on the tour. They fit us for our equipment. and we were on our way.

It was the first time you have to pick up your legs that was a little nerve racking. After that it was awesome.

Our guides were Fifo (the dude) and Lifo (Denise). They did not understand why I kept laughing at his name. Marco didn't think it was that funny either. But it made the pharmacy geek in me smile a little, or cringe that I know the acronym for "first in, first out" so well.

Hotel Grano De Oro

So we roll up to this Victorian mansion in the middle of San Jose. Cool. Turns out it's our hotel. Baller. We get taken to our rooms, and it's so pretty! Private terrace with a fountain, tropical garden and some tiny goldfish or koi in the fountain. It also had this beautiful bathroom with skylights, amazing arched window and door, and all glass shower. Very swanky. But no air conditioning. It was so nice outside, we just left the windows open and the breeze is very cool here.

We hang out for a while, then decide to get some dinner. The cafe at the hotel was recommended by Marco, our travel agent. It was very pretty, but also expensive. Oops, guess we had our nice dinner on the first night. It's in an open atrium, so you could see the night sky above (but it was cloudy, so it was just dark). We had this tasty tasty dinner, sea bass with a cardamom sauce, foie gras creme brulee, salmon three ways, and it was good. We're quite fancy, I don't know if you were aware.

After dinner we decide to check out the jacuzzi at the hotel, and it's also on a roof/garden terrace. We hop in and start planning out what our future pool and attached jacuzzi will look like.

We've got to be up at 7am the next morning for breakfast and leaving the hotel, so we pack up and hit the road.

Flying to San Jose

Like always we left for the airport with a sense of being rushed. We got to the airport with plenty of time (since Marco is afraid to show up late ever since the airplane left him). Even though Courtney suggested we pass up the correct gate once, Nancy was able to get us there safely. We took pictures, hugged it out and Meghan and Marco wandered aimlessly till they found people headed in the right direction. They stopped Meghan in security since there was a funny metal detected in her bosom area. After some further inspection and touching we were allowed on our way