Costa Rica and the Monteverde Reserve
By now I was a master of bussing around. I could doze in just about the most uncomfortable seat you could imagine and endure all sorts of horrific Spanish and English movies that featured on the overhanging TVs.
The border crossing from Panama to Costa Rica was long and arduous. It seemed to take ages for anybody to get stamped out and in. We finally got through and carried onto San Jose, the capital. This place looked pretty ugly. Staring out the window into the rainy haze, I saw no buildings of note and the city just seemed uninteresting in general. I caught cab first to buy my ticket to Monteverde (leaving at 6:30am the next morning) and then straight on to Costa Rica Backpackers where I sort of chilled the rest of the day. The hostel staff were very nice though and I am sure that San Jose has some good points... I just couldn´t be bothered to go see them.
I slept early and woke up horribly early to get my cab to the bus station. The trip was only 5 hours and the countryside seemed lush and decidedly "jungly" as we wound our way up to the cloud forest reserve of Monteverde. Gradually the steaming heat gave way to a more moderate and less humid climate.
The closest town is called Santa Elena and this is where most Gringos with a small budget have to stay whilst the people with deeper pockets lounge in the spas closer to the Cloud Forest Reserve. It is actually quite a nice place despite the fact that just about every building is built with tourism in mind and billboards advertising excursions are everywhere you look. As I was here alone and wanted to wait for the others before doing the Canopy tours and hikes, I decided to visit the Frog Pond nearby which is just a frog zoo. Javier my guide had a good knowledge of all the local amphibians in the enclosure and was quite entertaining. There was a nice range of colourful frogs and toads to look at, including several species of the infamous poison-dart frogs. Up until this time I had been plagued with issues of getting good close-up pictures of things. With some investigation though, I had figured out the nifty functions on my camera to get better pictures. As a result, I managed to get a great shot of a Red-eyed Tree Frog which made it all worthwhile.
National Geographic here I come
As I hadn´t yet been on a coffee tour, I booked onto the El Trapiche Sugar Cane and Coffee Plantation tour. Our guide was very informative in describing all stages of the traditional sugar cane and coffee process (before the invention of machines). I cringed when I heard that a coffee bean picker working flat out for 8-10 hours was expected to earn only $12-$18 a day. At the end of the tour he showed us also how to make the sugar cane liquor Guaro and finally took us into the sugar processing vat where we each got allocated a hot sticky blob of sugar which we worked into candy. I put peanuts and coconut in mine and it was pretty nice but super sweet. We were then all given some fresh homemade coffee and lemonade to round off a very good tour.
Sugar Cane
Un-ripe coffee beans
The finished product
This is a bubbling cauldron of cane sugar (cooking at around 170 deg C)
Making our candy with sugar, peanuts and coconut
Marie and Irina (my travel buddy all the way from the beginning of the trip!) arrived the next morning. Marie had been in Norway at her grandfathers funeral whilst Irina had come from the UK for several more weeks in the sun. We visited the Bat Jungle, a 20 minute hike down the road. I got some more great shots of a butterfly and a hummingbird (I was starting to have aspirations of a future career in National Geographic... or FHM). The tour guide was a Belgian guy who was clearly passionate about bats. The tour was very interactive and fun and I learnt a huge amount about the ugly little mammals that I hadn´t known before. We were taken into the Bat Cave where we saw fruit and humming-bats (like hummingbirds but uglier and they only come out at night). One feature they had installed was a device to pickup and amplify the sonic communications of the bat so we could hear them. Each species made a different noise and when our guide stepped into the enclosure to change the feeding bowls it was as if a starship battle in Star Wars had initiated! The bats went ballistic flying all over the place, making the most bizarre noises but not disturbing a thing in the enclosure.
Getting in some more wildlife shots
A hummingbird that would pose for shots
Fruit Bat with some pineapple
Riverdance and Helene arrived at 5pm making us a group of 5 and upping the number of my harem to 4. Reunion drinks were organised and we spent a the night out at Guarida bar. Getting to the bar was interesting though. The place was a bit out of town so nobody particularly wanted to walk. I suggested the girls put on their best pose and flag down a lift. The first vehicle Marie flagged was not what we were expecting. A large lorry slowed down next to us with 2 guys occupying the front seats. They insisted that there was space for Marie, Helene and myself to fit in too, so we squashed in. It must have looked pretty amusing to the sophisticated bar crowd when 3 well-dressed people stepped out of the old truck and lined up at the entrance.
As we were all together now, it was time to do the canopy tour which the area is famous for. We booked with Extremo Canopy Tours and got shuttled up to their camp in the mountains at 11am. Helene decided this was not her kind of thing so instead went on the Trapiche tour. After getting kitted out with harness, gloves and helmet, we were given a brief instruction on how to go down the zip-lines.
Some gnarly zip-liners ready for action
Going down the first line was slow and simple enough. The next line however took us straight over a valley from one hilltop to the next! We reached speeds up to 50 km/hr which was a huge thrill when you are suspended over 100 metres above the ground. Going down the line made a high pitched and shrill noise of straining metal (getting worse the faster you went) which wasn´t all that comforting to hear. The tour had 14 cables of varying lengths and speeds, most of which went through the jungle canopy from tree to tree. There was a rappel point where we descended 30 metres and finally the vaunted Tarzan Swing. This swing was basically a long rope that connected you to a tree well in front and above you. Once attached, the guides would gently push you off the platform, leaving you to hurtle to seeming death only to be caught by the rope and swept up through the jungle. As I was the second person to do this, I had the pleasure of watching the terrified faces and hearing the hysterical screams of the rest of the group... most entertaining! There was just one more zip line after this, the longest one of 770m.
Tandem zip-lining across the valley
Tarzan swing
The border crossing from Panama to Costa Rica was long and arduous. It seemed to take ages for anybody to get stamped out and in. We finally got through and carried onto San Jose, the capital. This place looked pretty ugly. Staring out the window into the rainy haze, I saw no buildings of note and the city just seemed uninteresting in general. I caught cab first to buy my ticket to Monteverde (leaving at 6:30am the next morning) and then straight on to Costa Rica Backpackers where I sort of chilled the rest of the day. The hostel staff were very nice though and I am sure that San Jose has some good points... I just couldn´t be bothered to go see them.
I slept early and woke up horribly early to get my cab to the bus station. The trip was only 5 hours and the countryside seemed lush and decidedly "jungly" as we wound our way up to the cloud forest reserve of Monteverde. Gradually the steaming heat gave way to a more moderate and less humid climate.
The closest town is called Santa Elena and this is where most Gringos with a small budget have to stay whilst the people with deeper pockets lounge in the spas closer to the Cloud Forest Reserve. It is actually quite a nice place despite the fact that just about every building is built with tourism in mind and billboards advertising excursions are everywhere you look. As I was here alone and wanted to wait for the others before doing the Canopy tours and hikes, I decided to visit the Frog Pond nearby which is just a frog zoo. Javier my guide had a good knowledge of all the local amphibians in the enclosure and was quite entertaining. There was a nice range of colourful frogs and toads to look at, including several species of the infamous poison-dart frogs. Up until this time I had been plagued with issues of getting good close-up pictures of things. With some investigation though, I had figured out the nifty functions on my camera to get better pictures. As a result, I managed to get a great shot of a Red-eyed Tree Frog which made it all worthwhile.
National Geographic here I comeAs I hadn´t yet been on a coffee tour, I booked onto the El Trapiche Sugar Cane and Coffee Plantation tour. Our guide was very informative in describing all stages of the traditional sugar cane and coffee process (before the invention of machines). I cringed when I heard that a coffee bean picker working flat out for 8-10 hours was expected to earn only $12-$18 a day. At the end of the tour he showed us also how to make the sugar cane liquor Guaro and finally took us into the sugar processing vat where we each got allocated a hot sticky blob of sugar which we worked into candy. I put peanuts and coconut in mine and it was pretty nice but super sweet. We were then all given some fresh homemade coffee and lemonade to round off a very good tour.
Sugar Cane
Un-ripe coffee beans
The finished product
This is a bubbling cauldron of cane sugar (cooking at around 170 deg C)
Making our candy with sugar, peanuts and coconutMarie and Irina (my travel buddy all the way from the beginning of the trip!) arrived the next morning. Marie had been in Norway at her grandfathers funeral whilst Irina had come from the UK for several more weeks in the sun. We visited the Bat Jungle, a 20 minute hike down the road. I got some more great shots of a butterfly and a hummingbird (I was starting to have aspirations of a future career in National Geographic... or FHM). The tour guide was a Belgian guy who was clearly passionate about bats. The tour was very interactive and fun and I learnt a huge amount about the ugly little mammals that I hadn´t known before. We were taken into the Bat Cave where we saw fruit and humming-bats (like hummingbirds but uglier and they only come out at night). One feature they had installed was a device to pickup and amplify the sonic communications of the bat so we could hear them. Each species made a different noise and when our guide stepped into the enclosure to change the feeding bowls it was as if a starship battle in Star Wars had initiated! The bats went ballistic flying all over the place, making the most bizarre noises but not disturbing a thing in the enclosure.
Getting in some more wildlife shots
A hummingbird that would pose for shots
Fruit Bat with some pineappleRiverdance and Helene arrived at 5pm making us a group of 5 and upping the number of my harem to 4. Reunion drinks were organised and we spent a the night out at Guarida bar. Getting to the bar was interesting though. The place was a bit out of town so nobody particularly wanted to walk. I suggested the girls put on their best pose and flag down a lift. The first vehicle Marie flagged was not what we were expecting. A large lorry slowed down next to us with 2 guys occupying the front seats. They insisted that there was space for Marie, Helene and myself to fit in too, so we squashed in. It must have looked pretty amusing to the sophisticated bar crowd when 3 well-dressed people stepped out of the old truck and lined up at the entrance.
As we were all together now, it was time to do the canopy tour which the area is famous for. We booked with Extremo Canopy Tours and got shuttled up to their camp in the mountains at 11am. Helene decided this was not her kind of thing so instead went on the Trapiche tour. After getting kitted out with harness, gloves and helmet, we were given a brief instruction on how to go down the zip-lines.
Some gnarly zip-liners ready for action
Going down the first line was slow and simple enough. The next line however took us straight over a valley from one hilltop to the next! We reached speeds up to 50 km/hr which was a huge thrill when you are suspended over 100 metres above the ground. Going down the line made a high pitched and shrill noise of straining metal (getting worse the faster you went) which wasn´t all that comforting to hear. The tour had 14 cables of varying lengths and speeds, most of which went through the jungle canopy from tree to tree. There was a rappel point where we descended 30 metres and finally the vaunted Tarzan Swing. This swing was basically a long rope that connected you to a tree well in front and above you. Once attached, the guides would gently push you off the platform, leaving you to hurtle to seeming death only to be caught by the rope and swept up through the jungle. As I was the second person to do this, I had the pleasure of watching the terrified faces and hearing the hysterical screams of the rest of the group... most entertaining! There was just one more zip line after this, the longest one of 770m.
Tandem zip-lining across the valley
Tarzan swingClick the Play button to view the video of Marie on the Tarzan Swing
Back at the hostel we had 2 hours rest before we were picked up for our forest night walk. This was in a private stretch of forest near to our hostel. We were handed torches but I decided to use my headlamp for much of it as it was far brighter than the plastic junk they handed us. First spottings were of a small rodent thingy that was foraging around as well as numerous crickets and stick insects. As it got very dark we saw several moths, birds and more crickets and cicadas. We had to tread carefully too to avoid the numerous leaf-cutter ant trails. I searched in vain for sloths in the treetops but none seemed to be in our area. After a short while, our guide took us to a large tree and pointed at the base where we saw a large orange banded tarantula. He took a stick out and prodded the ground in front of it. The tarantula pounced very suddenly and gave us all a fright as it is a venomous species (it has hairs on its body which are toxic). After some pictures we left it alone. We visited the home of another tarantula species, the Grey tarantula. This one was not venomous so I was keen to pick it up. however it wasn´t so keen to come see us.
A small rodent-like creature
Fascinating Leaf-Cutter Ants at work
Orange-banded Tarantula... venomous
The night ended with some random green frogs sitting on a leaf. So we didn´t see too much but it was a pretty cool tour anyway.
My last day in Monteverde started off, as usually, really early. We got picked up from the hostel at 8:30am to go for a hike in the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve. The reserve was very lush and damp with the sound of birds calling everywhere. We saw quite a few interesting things along the way such as a fake coral snake, hummingbirds and a coati. The trees were moss covered giants that stretched upwards to reach the light. The hike was listed as being 3 hours long so we were very confused when we arrived back at the tourist centre after and hour and a half. We clearly walk a lot quicker than the average visitor.
It only took about 20 mins for those gumboots to give me bad blisters
A fake Coral Snake that darted acros the path in front of me
A Strangler Fig Tree - its seed is dropped at the top of another tree where it germinates and grows down and around the host tree, effectively strangling it and taking all the nutrients. The host begins to rot and die after 80 or so years and in the end only the Strangler... a hollow tree that animals use for shelter
This day was special for another reason too, it was Norwegian National Day. Marie and Helene had given us small Norwegian Flag pins (that had a tendency to stab you) and they cooked a delicious traditional Norwegian meal of burritos. All was finished off with Aquavit (Norwegian digestive liquor) and Walters Mandler chocolate.
Celebrating Norwegian National Day
A small rodent-like creature
Fascinating Leaf-Cutter Ants at work
Orange-banded Tarantula... venomousThe night ended with some random green frogs sitting on a leaf. So we didn´t see too much but it was a pretty cool tour anyway.
My last day in Monteverde started off, as usually, really early. We got picked up from the hostel at 8:30am to go for a hike in the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve. The reserve was very lush and damp with the sound of birds calling everywhere. We saw quite a few interesting things along the way such as a fake coral snake, hummingbirds and a coati. The trees were moss covered giants that stretched upwards to reach the light. The hike was listed as being 3 hours long so we were very confused when we arrived back at the tourist centre after and hour and a half. We clearly walk a lot quicker than the average visitor.
It only took about 20 mins for those gumboots to give me bad blisters
A fake Coral Snake that darted acros the path in front of me
A Strangler Fig Tree - its seed is dropped at the top of another tree where it germinates and grows down and around the host tree, effectively strangling it and taking all the nutrients. The host begins to rot and die after 80 or so years and in the end only the Strangler... a hollow tree that animals use for shelterThis day was special for another reason too, it was Norwegian National Day. Marie and Helene had given us small Norwegian Flag pins (that had a tendency to stab you) and they cooked a delicious traditional Norwegian meal of burritos. All was finished off with Aquavit (Norwegian digestive liquor) and Walters Mandler chocolate.
Celebrating Norwegian National DayThat afternoon the group was splitting again. Marie and myself were intent on seeing some of the Pacific coastline in Tamarindo whereas Irina, Helena and Riverdance wanted to make it into Nicaragua.
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