Discovering Our Inner Monkey in Monteverde Cloud Forest

Balagan at the vans

Yesterday, we took the jeep-boat-jeep transfer from Arenal to Monteverde. As the name implies, we were picked up in a van and driven to Lake Arenal, where we boarded a boat. It was a beautiful and relaxing journey until we reached the other side of the lake. Then, all craziness broke loose. The process of unloading luggage and passengers was pretty disorganized. When we finally reached the top of the hill with our luggage to load a van, there were people and dogs running in all directions loading 4 different vans. No one seemed to have our reservation and we ran from van to van until someone admitted to having us on his list. From there, the road was unpaved (much to Josh's dismay) and quite bumpy. I finally understood why my parents were devastated when Katie and I refused to look out the window on the scenic drive from San Francisco to LA. The ride was bumpy but beautiful and the girl sitting across from us never looked up from her iPad!

We arrived in Monteverde and had a quick lunch before heading to Selvatura Park for a walk across 8 hanging bridges through the cloud forest. The walk was very nice and we saw monkeys up in the trees.

Humming bird feeding her young

This morning, we went on a private tour of the cloud forest first thing. Our guide, Adrian, taught us tons of interesting things about the flora and fauna. He pointed out so many things we never would have noticed on our own. We saw humming birds feeding their chicks in a next, a sleeping sloth in a tree, a tarantula hiding in a hole. We also saw a toucan, another bird whose name I forgot, a walking sticks insect (which is impossible to see unless it's moving because it looks like thing branches), and a praying mantis. We saw so many different types of orchids and other colorful plants, epiphytes, and flowers, a waterfall, and learned about our new favorite plant: the strangling fig tree. Strangling fig trees suffocate a host tree by cutting off nutrients below and sun above until the host dies and decays and a shell of fig tree air roots is left.

Hot Lips leaves

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We stopped for coffee and empendada at the coffee shop before leaving and met a very talkative Israeli family. After the tour, the driver dropped us off at a strangling fig tree that we could climb. We climbed the inside of the hollow tree, a very cool and surreal experience. Afterwards we wandered toward town and met up with Noa, who is traveling Costa Rica now with Hannah Z. We got fruity milkshakes (the pineapple is really awesome here) and ran all around Monteverde looking for banos and dollares (a bathroom and USD).

Climbing the tree

Climbing inside the tree

Josh and I went on a coffee/chocolate/sugar cane tour on a local farm (Don Juan), which we found informative but not very tasty. Chocolate and coffee are surprisingly disgusting until they're ready for commercial consumption. We also played a little game where we each tried to flavor cocoa to make it taste like chocolate we eat. None were very good.

We ended the day with dinner at a little Israeli restaurant (The Beer House), which was probably the best meal we've had since coming to Costa Rica. Go figure!

Hebrew/Israelis everywhere