Herredia/Monte Verde

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Class this AM. It went well. I think I am finally getting my Spanish back. Left for Monte Verde at about 1PM. We are in a minivan and have a guide. There are nine of us including Carlos. As we pulled away from IPED, it was starting to sprinkle.

The traffic was awful until we got past the San Jose airport. Stop and go, bumper to bumper, single lane each direction. Once we got out of town we could move at a blazing 80KMPH. That was pretty satisfying. Carlos was handling the traffic pretty well as we went along. However, I was getting a bit concerned about some of the more adventurous Ticos who passed us on the right; taking the shoulder and blowing past us at a much faster clip.

We went along CR1 until we got to San Ramon, when we stopped for lunch. Stoker and I had El Plato del Dia and were satisfied. This was almost three in the afternoon when we finally stopped there.

Onward to the cutoff to the park. The beginning of the climb up into Monte Verde was deceptive, some of it was newly paved and pretty nice. Then we got to what I would at best call the end of the road. For the next twenty or so kilometers was pretty rough. Adding to the charm was the fact that it was raining and the volcanic mud was slippery at times.

We arrived at Santa Elena about 6PM. We got checked in and went to dinner at a nearby Italian bistro by the name of Tramonte. Stoker and I had the lasagnia. Everyone else had a variety of italian, and it all looked pretty good. Just to cap it off, we each had two Imperials which relaxed us.

We returned to our room after dinner and went to bed after I crushed a scorpion I found in the shower stall.

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Photos

From a fueling stop
This was taken from the parking lot of a gas station we stopped at along the way

Dinner
This was our crue at dinner after about 5 hours in the van.