Ok, so we have crossed the border from sneaky rip-off central into blatant rip-off central- COSTA RICA! Not only do they think that it is acceptable to charge $9 for a box of cereal here, but they also have tipping jars at all of the supermarket counters... what the? Despite this though, Costa Rica has been so beautiful- all very lush and green, and we just spent 3 days at one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, Monteverde, so I thought that I would dedicate a whole blog to it :)
Our first stop was in Tamarindo, a beach town also referred to as "Tamagringo" for very obvious reasons- it's centro-america. Not the most amazing place, but we did meet some cool people at our hostel there, but other than that, there was nothing that would make me go back there. But following on from this, we headed up into the mountains to a place called Monteverde. (Look out below- the green dots are our footsteps).
Map: http://www.costarica-discover-it.com/costa-rica-map.html
It took us a whole day of bus travel, but we finally arrived up a very long and winding road into the town of Monteverde. This town is famous for its zip-lining tours, having established the first zip-line in Costa Rica. Originally we were going to by-pass it because we figured that we would be zip-lining in South East Asia and it might be cheaper. However, an Aussie couple that we met in Nicaragua raved about it, so we decided to give it a go.
The first thing that I noticed was the temperature change- gone was the hot and humid climate, and in its place was a cool breeze. Amazing! On our first full day we took the advice of the owner of our hostel and went and climbed a giant tree. It was just insane, the roots had grown around the outside of the tree and gradually the trunk had hollowed out. So what is left? One of the most awesome natural playgrounds in the world- OH&S in Australia would have a heart attack! We climbed so high that we could see the monkeys in the trees BELOW us! Pretty cool.
We also visited a serpentarium and a frog house too which house rare and common species found in Costa Rica.
The next day we woke up super early (5:30am-aarrrggh!) to head to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. This is a protected area of forest which houses hundreds of animal and plant species and is protected from poaching and deforestation. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in my life- so green, with hundreds of thousands of year old trees and plants everywhere. We walked around the reserve for about 4 hours- my legs were feeling sore for the next few days, that's for sure! Good news is that the ankle is holding up well, and we got to see some beautiful birds including hummingbirds, and also a crazy black snake right near the pathway! No sloths though... hopefully we will be seeing them somewhere else along the way.
So as if hiking for four hours wasn't enough for us, we had also booked ourselves in for Extremo Zip-lining! This is where you are attached to a cable that runs along the valleys and through the trees in the area. We got fixed up with our harnesses, helmets, and trusty gardening gloves (as we needed them in case we needed to brake on the lines) and headed up into the trees.
Our first stop was in Tamarindo, a beach town also referred to as "Tamagringo" for very obvious reasons- it's centro-america. Not the most amazing place, but we did meet some cool people at our hostel there, but other than that, there was nothing that would make me go back there. But following on from this, we headed up into the mountains to a place called Monteverde. (Look out below- the green dots are our footsteps).
It took us a whole day of bus travel, but we finally arrived up a very long and winding road into the town of Monteverde. This town is famous for its zip-lining tours, having established the first zip-line in Costa Rica. Originally we were going to by-pass it because we figured that we would be zip-lining in South East Asia and it might be cheaper. However, an Aussie couple that we met in Nicaragua raved about it, so we decided to give it a go.
The first thing that I noticed was the temperature change- gone was the hot and humid climate, and in its place was a cool breeze. Amazing! On our first full day we took the advice of the owner of our hostel and went and climbed a giant tree. It was just insane, the roots had grown around the outside of the tree and gradually the trunk had hollowed out. So what is left? One of the most awesome natural playgrounds in the world- OH&S in Australia would have a heart attack! We climbed so high that we could see the monkeys in the trees BELOW us! Pretty cool.
We also visited a serpentarium and a frog house too which house rare and common species found in Costa Rica.
The next day we woke up super early (5:30am-aarrrggh!) to head to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. This is a protected area of forest which houses hundreds of animal and plant species and is protected from poaching and deforestation. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in my life- so green, with hundreds of thousands of year old trees and plants everywhere. We walked around the reserve for about 4 hours- my legs were feeling sore for the next few days, that's for sure! Good news is that the ankle is holding up well, and we got to see some beautiful birds including hummingbirds, and also a crazy black snake right near the pathway! No sloths though... hopefully we will be seeing them somewhere else along the way.
So as if hiking for four hours wasn't enough for us, we had also booked ourselves in for Extremo Zip-lining! This is where you are attached to a cable that runs along the valleys and through the trees in the area. We got fixed up with our harnesses, helmets, and trusty gardening gloves (as we needed them in case we needed to brake on the lines) and headed up into the trees.
The whole experience was amazing... you got a first class view of the scenery, felt like your were a monkey travelling through the trees, and then they had two special lines, which was the "Tarzan Swing" (so scary, you just jump off a platform and swing around... my jump was followed by a screaming "f%&^^&**%$ck!" whereas Jono, as always, was cool calm and collected like he had jumped off platforms every day of his life) and the "Superman" (where you cable in a superman flying position-amazing!). It was right up there with bungee-jumping in India, and the guys who ran it were very cool as well, despite joking on every line that the harness was broken as they pushed you out onto the wire. Hilarious.
So that was our Monteverde experience! It was such a great place, and the zip-lining was the best! Right now we have travelled down south to a beach called Santa Teresa, but I'll write about our adventures here next time....
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