Monteverde - otherwise known as 'when travel plans go awry' or 'dies minutos my ass!'

Here's the sitch folks. We took our first excursion this last weekend and It. Was. A. Blast. We ended up choosing Monteverde - an area known for it's greenery and cloudforest - because my roommate Nick wanted to go there before his life got sucked into his TEOFL course and we heard there was wonderful zip-lining there. However, Nick ended up ducking out at the last minute leaving me, Stanley, and Stanley's friend Jackie from the construction site sitting on a hot bus for 4 and a half hours on our way to the green getaway. The bus trip only cost $5 (I love public transportation here!) and I read The Kite Runner and listened to podcasts (thanks Stanley) the entire way, until we realized we were almost there and should 1) figure out what hostel we were going to stay at and 2) figure out what there was to do in Monteverde. So the travel guides came out (LonelyPlanet and Foder's Costa Rica editions) and we begin looking.

However, all of this proved to be pointless as the minute we stepped off the bus a man named Bryan approached us and said he had one room left at his hostel and we could have it for $6 per person per night. This included computer access, breakfast, a shared bathroom, hammocks, and a private room with 3 beds. He invited us to come and look at it and honestly, for $6 it was wonderful. The rooms were clean, the beds were standing, and the door had a lock. Plus the hammocks were just as wonderful as promised. Bryan was also wonderful as he was able to set us up with things to do in Monteverde, telling us that going to the waterfall would be silly as it got cold there (it did) and getting us a deal on zip-lining and getting into the park, as well as arranging transportation to and from the activities.

He also told us of this wonderful place to have dinner called Rico y Ticos, which served big portions for little dinero. After hitting that up and ordering a fabulous dinner of fajitas (I know, my first time eating out and I choose fajitas...) Then we decided to hit up the grocery store so we could save some dough and pack in our lunches to the park. PB and J all the way. That ended up being $3 a person - for two lunches!! With that, we went to bed, excited to wake up at 7:00 the next morning and go hiking through the cloudforest.

After a quick shower, a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast with pineapple marmalade, and putting together 3 peanut butter and guava marmalade sandwiches, we found ourselves chilling on the porch in the hammocks, reading books, and waiting for our shuttle to come and take us to the cloud forest.

This is a Stanley-Tamale.

So many hammocks! And they were really difficult to get in and out of, but so worth it when you managed to settle in with a good book

Dogs. They're EVERYWHERE. Seriously though, you know it's going to be a good, quality establishment if there's a dog (or two) sitting out front.

The trip up a windy, bumpy, dirt road in a packed van brought us to a little stand where we showed the receipt Bryan had given us, showing we paid to get into the park, we signed the guest book, and went in.

The clouds coming in over the mountains. Monteverde is a cloud forest, meaning that, unlike a rain forest, it doesn't rain horribly often, but rather the humidity and the cloud-like fog that hangs in the forest every afternoon keeps the ground and trees fertile and moist. The area is so fertile, in fact, that if you cut down a tree it will continue to grow.

This is what we were hiking through. I feel like if we had a machete and those awesome safari vests we could pretend we were in an Indiana Jones movie.

Needless to say, there were a lot of creepy-crawlies here. This is what we believe to be a millipede. They were everywhere!

The place was gorgeous, though a little more devoid of wildlife than we had hoped for. However, the foliage and conversation made up for it as we tried to figure out how to work our cameras and properly capture the beauty that surrounded us.

We came to a clearing just in time to catch a huge cloud moving over the mountain

This is what we were walking over the entire time. Even by looking at this it's obvious how fertile the area was.

This tree was huge. I was trying to figure out how to show just how tall this was, but wasn't able to capture it. The shot was take from the base of the tree looking upward.

It was so hot and muggy in the forest! When we first set out I was concerned about getting cold, but that was quickly dispelled as we began climbing. While the air might have been cooler and more damp, we were working up a sweat as we hiked through the high altitude.

Not sure what this is, but it was awesome.

We crossed 3 different rivers, with one of the bridges called "peligroso" or "dangerous!"

Classic hiking through the forest shoe-shot. Notice the various types of footwear. It's because we're awesome.

The entire path really was hiking. Even when we were heading down the stair and steps were huge.

Cloud-forest birds-nest

We found all these leaves that had tiny little holes in them. It turns out there were tons and tons of little bugs just eating their way through.

While the bugs were big the plants were even bigger!

After spending 3 hours in the forest we decided to come back to civilization (well, as civilized as Monteverde was...it was a rather small, but delightful town) and explore the town itself. We had heard about an artisan co-op where a large group of local artists came together to sell their goods, as well as a cheese factory that had delightful cheese and ice cream. We decided to stop at the hostel and see exactly how far away these places were. After the nice man told us not to waste our time or money on a cab as we could easily walk there - it was only 2 kilometers, or roughly a mile and a half - we set out. What the nice man at the hostel didn't tell us was that the entire walk was uphill. Seriously. After hiking for 3 hours our bodies were a little sore. But we persevered! Plus, we saw some beautiful flowers along the way.

Note: I am not sunburnt. I just have awkward tan lines.

This is our spirit guide, whom we decided to name Spot. He followed us from the top of the first hill all the way to the cheese factory and the co-op, eventually disappearing into the mist. Totally serious. :)

On our walk we also saw some awesome little shops. It was like the Costa Rican equivalent of Park City - large resorts and hotels on the top of the hills. We also saw a cute little art store where we stopped to make sure we were walking the right way. The man there assured us we were, telling us we only had dies minutos to go...

...25 minutes and 2 hills later Jackie turns to Stanley and I and says "dies minutos my ass!!" While Costa Ricans are incredibly helpful and kind, they sometimes give misinformation without meaning to. They would rather do that than be unhelpful.

We finally made it to the cheese factory and had some delicious ice cream!

By the time we started back, the fog had settled in for the evening, making everything from our clothes to our beds damp...

Another thing we noticed while traipsing through town were the large amounts of pizzarias. As true, pizza loving Americans we took this as a sign as needing to have pizza for dinner. So we went to a place we thought served pizza - it didn't. So after buying our food there (which ended up being about $6 per person) we decided we needed a pizza chaser and ordered a 12 inch cheese pizza from a place called El Dorado.

Jackie and the pizza. And Stanley's foot.

Jackie and I had gone to get the pizza (it was just down the hill from our hostel) and while we were there we saw something strange. The man left the main room, walked down the stairs, and came back with a little baggy filled with some white powder and put it in our box. We took the box back to the hostel and promptly decided that while it was obviously parmesean cheese, we were going to pretend there was cocaine in there as well. So laughing and discussing about how the evening would go now that we'd all ingested cocaine, we demolished the pizza in 20 minutes.

Don't judge. We had done a lot of walking that day.

So after the pizza had gone the way of the world, we settled in for the night. I finished The Kite Runner (amazing book, by the way) and fell asleep, excited for zip-lining the next day.

We awoke and started getting the room together as we would have about a half hour from the time we got back from zip-lining to when we needed to head into town to catch the bus.

Our room, small and incredibly functional.

But, before we went zip-lining we decided we should probably go and buy our tickets for the return ride back to San Jose. As we walk down into town there are a bunch of people in running attire and numbers getting ready to run some race. Also, as we approach the main block in town, we see this:

Little "murals" made from natural objects like flower and wood bark, made to depict religious things like crosses, angels, doves, etc.

We're still not sure what was so special about that Sunday, but it was beautiful!

Unfortunately, the runners and the special church things that were happening all ended before 2:30, meaning all those people were wanting to catching the San Jose bus and had bought their tickets before us. So the man at the bus-stop told us we could take a 3 o'clock bus to Puntarenas which was only an hour out of the way, but they had buses leaving to San Jose every 20 minutes or so. We decided to do that, bought our tickets, and headed back to the hostel to get ready for the one thing I had been looking forward to the most in my trip to Costa Rica - zip-lining!

For those who know me, you know I'm afraid of heights. I can usually conquer this fear by convincing myself that everything will be safe and I will not die. This experience tested that resolve for me.

Everything was great, but on the first line I stopped before I got all the way there. The people told me I must have been braking, pulling down on the line and killing my momentum. I hadn't thought I was doing that, but after the guy pulled me to the next platform, the next line went well. However, the real problem came in the next line. It was a huge line, usually taking 45 seconds to get all the way across, and they doubled me up with Stanley as we needed extra weight to get to the next platform.

But, once again, something happened with my pulley - it jumped the line, meaning the friction was stopping us from making it all the way to the end. The zip-line guy came to pull Stanley and I the significant distance to the platform and realizes he can't do it because I'm pretty much stuck. So - I'm not sure what he was trying to do - he kept having me try to pull up on the wire, all the while trying to unhook my caribeaner from the pulley, essentially unattaching me from the zip-line.

You have to understand, at this point I'm dangling probably 100 yards above the canopy top, over a canopy, with a guy trying to unattach me from the wire. It was all I could do to not completely freak out. Eventually another employee came and helped us, attaching me to another pulley and we somehow managed to make it back to the platform.

I was pretty shaken after this and my arms were exhausted. You can only pull up on the line so many times without realizing how futile it seemed and killing your arms. But we still had most of the zip-lines, the Tarzan swing, and the Superman to go, so they fixed my pulley and on we trudged.

While we thought we had hiked a lot the day before, it was nothing compared to this! We essentially hiked up an entire mountain, wearing harnesses over our hips and our chests and carrying around various metal accouterments. It was completely worth it though! The Tarzan swing was wonderful. I was the first one to go, so no one knew what to expect. The employee attaches 2 hooks to my harness and tells me to sit. They had been telling us to do that before we go on the zip-lines, so I do so without thinking, only to have him completely push me off the platform! I free-fell a few feet before the hooks and pulleys did their work, eventually swinging me out over the canopy top.

The last great thing we did on the 1 and a half hour zip-line excursion was the Superman. It was the longest line going over the canyon and they attached us like we were lying face down so it felt like we were flying.

Stanley getting prepped for last and final line - Superman style!

Zip-lining was so much fun, and more than worth the $40 we paid for it!

After the bus ride home - where we became good friends with two Panamanians from Miami - we packed up our stuff and headed to the bus stop, stopping at the grocery store for some munchies and water for the trip.

We loaded the bus and another spirit guide - this time in the form of an older American gentlemen who was also heading to San Pedro - started talking to us, telling us we could cut about an hour or half hour off our trip by getting off a stop early and catching a San Jose bus there, at Barrancas. We decided to do this and endured one of the most uncomfortable but beautiful bus rides of my life. It honestly looked like a mix between Guilin, China and the Pacific northwest. As we were coming out of the mountains we were even able to see the Pacific Ocean.

After a 3 hour bus ride and a 15 minute wait, we boarded another bus for a 2 hour ride to San Jose. I listened to music and sorta fell asleep for this journey, but we eventually ended up in San Jose, though in an apparently sketch district. We ended up grabbing a taxi to Maximo where we said good-bye to Jackie, and Stanley and I walked the rest of the way home.

It was a fabulous, and I absolutely cannot wait for this next weekend for another trip!

Toodles!

-Jillian