It's been a great day in Costa Rica. We left San Jose by Uber at 9am and after the ridiculousness of getting a rental car and waiting for ages while the car warmed up in the sun and the representative cooled down at his desk, we made our way here - To the world renowned Monteverde and its Cloud forest reserve. We are staying in a beautiful farmhouse on the outskirts of town, with the sounds crickets and more wildlife playing loudly through the windows into our little haven of calm.
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| last morning in San Jose |
The drive today was spectacular - firstly a highway to escape the city followed by an hour to travel just 17 kilometers on a gravel, rutted road with hairpin bends and the steepest hills I have ever driven, to reach our destination. Here in Monteverde.
At no time did Bez (Our car has the registration BJZ, so has been nicknamed after the legendary maraca shaking side man of the Happy Mondays) ever let us down. Up and down the steep inclines and through deep holes and Rocky passes, he grunted his way here whilst Hannah slept in her blue inclined, comfortable baby seat in the back.
On arrival, we ventured out to get tickets for an early morning tour of the Cloud forest tomorrow and to buy a 1.5 litre bottle of wine (The biggest bottle we could find, to remind us of the trip across NZ and Australia) as well as a few snacks.
Hannah is now comfortable in her Peapod upstairs being looked over by a poster of Bowie as Aladdin Sane, and a pile of really old VHS video tapes. Myself and Senorita Buffty are downstairs, within stumbling distance of the fridge that contains the wine and get out of jail free beer, just in case the wine runs low. The shower is hot, the internet is slow but the bed is warm and soft. It's been a long, but a great day. Time for a well earned snooze. Tomorrow, the adventure continues.
And an adventure it was. It is now 4 days later and I sit in a small but well appointed modern suite style cabin, wit the view out of the patio doors across a valley towards a huge volcano that dominates the entire vista.
Back in Monteverde we took an early morning tour of the cloud forest - Getting up before 7 and heading uphill into the clouds we spent almost 5 hours in the end bird spotting, finding deadly snakes, handling huge centipedes and on time almost getting trampled by local wildlife as a couple of coati decided to cross the path behind us as Hannah shook a leaf. The tour was a bit ridiculous at first as we kept heading back to the entrance with our guide and tour friends (From Stockport, near Manchester of course) because other guides had seen Monkeys (or not) and when we arrived at each prime wildlife spotting area there was a scramble for the guides to get set up before the wildlife oofed off. We had a great morning though and really enjoyed our stroll/hike.
Also while in Monteverde we visited the butterfly gardens which also has a great exhibit of live spiders, scorpions and other creepy crawlies - Hannah especially liked the huge cockroach, which she tried to rip the head off and the bark beetle which she tried to eat. We were then shown around the butterfly gardens by Paul - a guide from Toronto who made a great effort to keep Hannah involved - even letting her release a newly born butterfly into the gardens.
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| Grabbing the cockroach |
Later that evening we took a night tour to see the nocturnal wildlife in its full glory - A huge nest of leaf cutting ants was quickly followed by not 1, or 2 but 3 scorpions crossing the path an climbing a tree. The annoying American family that accompanied our group then nearly shat themselves when the guide poked s stick in a small hole and a huge orange knee'd tarantula jumped out to greet us. We were told that unfortunately, there were no sloths left as the pumas in the area would wait for the sloth to come to the ground and take a shit. This is when the puma would trike and kill the sloth. I felt really sorry for old slothy - holding in a dump for 4 or 5 days and when he really needed to go he gets bloody eaten! Poor bugar. Perhaps they should learn to take a shit from a branch.
Our last surprises came back at the farmhouse we had rented for our short stay. Whilst doing the laundry I found a huge spider hiding in the kitchen and on our last night we had a really big storm which swirled wind all through the house. We moved Hannah down from the Bowie bedroom into the lounge next to our room as it was quieter than upstairs and warmer too. She was safely zipped up in her peapod and that was good as the next morning as we ate breakfast, a scorpion appeared on the wall just behind our little half pint 9 month old adventurer. She didn't mind though and so continued to eat her breakfast as our new room mate just hung about.
There was also an old style washing machine with washer, wringer and spinner, just like my mum used to use when we were kids Unbelievably, I remembered how to use it and got the laundry done in half the time a modern machine would take.. And it was fun too!
Heres a photo and vid of the scorpion at breakfast
We left shortly afterwards for our next destination, which is where I sit now. As I said earlier I can see the huge Arenal Volcano right across the valley and we woke up to a wonderful view of it this morning. We have 4 days here in this lovely little villa style modern cabin and have already taken a walk around the Mistico Hanging bridges park. We have a few other things to see and do but will be relaxing here too as we have a huge hot tub and lots of wine and sangria to drink - as well as Game of Thrones to catch up on whilst we relax in the evening.
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