Monteverde

We arranged for a driver to take our car from Arenal to Monteverde; to get ourselves there, we arranged a three-part tour: Boat, Horse, and Taxi. Why oh why I agreed to ride a horse for three hours seems somewhat beyond me now, though to be fair, a horse for three hours versus four hours of very rough 4WD’ing is a pretty close call.

Truth be told, the horse-riding was actually kind-of fun, though a better horse would have been nice. Since Kristy and I started from the “no experience” group, we were given dud horses that basically just did what the horse in front of them did. After about 10 minutes, I figured I had the hang of it and wanted to cut sick; but old horsey just didn’t want to play along. This wasn’t such a problem for the Cookes, who all landed in the “experienced” category, and took much delight in showing us all how it was supposed to be done.

Monteverde, like Arenal, had no shortage of things to do. One night, we took a tour of one of the cloud forests in the area. Part way through the tour, our guide got us to turn off our flashlights, so suddenly it was pitch black. The only lights we could see was the occasional flash of a firefly (or similar). It was really freaky to be standing in the middle of a forest, in complete darkness!

The other activity we enjoyed, which was quite probably the highlight of our time in Monteverde, was a zip line tour of the cloud forest. We had done zip lining before in Jamaica, and at the time I had thought it was a one-off type of affair. Well, this one was made different for two reason: first, the zip-lines were longer – especially the last two which were probably over 500m each! And secondly, the Tarzan swing – where you basically climb up a tower (say, 20m in the air), get harnessed in to a really long chunk of rope, and then jump! It was huge fun, but also a little bit painful – to stop you and pull you down, they use this huge rope hook thingy, which your stomach falls into, causing you to kind-of double over it. It wasn’t exactly the smoothest way of landing.

Despite all the high adventures, we found Monteverde a very relaxing spot of our destination, and it was by far the high point in terms of sleeping (the beds and the temperature were so comfortable!). I just wish that Stella’s Bakery knew how to make a good latte – I mean, what’s with the cinnamon?!