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Published: April 1st 2007
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Jeep Boat Jeep (Van Boat Van)
Jacqueline(left)and Andrea (right) on the boat to Monteverde. It is supposed to be a three hour tour!?! We´re coming to you live from Monteverde/Santa Elena Costa Rica. Where it´s become a bit touristy, but the zip lines and Nature Reserves are well worth a visit.
We decided on a jeep boat jeep tour to get us here from La Fortuna to save us from one of the most famed roads in Costa Rica-mentioned in our guide book as an instant qualification for the merit badge of courage. It also saved us 7 hours in a bus where, in this country, motion sickness is more common than in a boat.
So, jeep boat jeep really was a bus, to a boat, to a van. It was slightly less rugged than we anticipated, but it was still quite a ride!! We stopped after a short while on our van ride. We thought it was for us to eat, and use the restrooms. It turns out that our driver had an ongoing pool tournament, and we were the spectators.
What will $5 a night buy you? Well, we had a gorgeous hotel room about a 10 minute walk from town for $5 each!! It had a private bath, with gorgeous wood work, picture windows, and a scorpion
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Arenal Volcano from our boat. thrown in as an added bonus (we´ll get to that).
No sooner had we settled in our hotel were we off to Selvatura to take a ride on the zip lines aka canopy tour. Racing through the massive forest canopies at warp speed couldn´t have been more fun!! We are not trained professionals, but you definitely should try this at home. It was definitely more of an adrenaline junky afternoon than one meant for getting in touch with nature, but it´s a necessary balance.
There was a bonus of a tarzan swing-- somewhat like bungie jumping but you swing out instead of being jerked just before you crash into the ground. We included a picture of Jacqueline being pushed off by the guys who worked there. We don´t have picture editing here, but if you can zoom in on her face you can see the look of shear terror as her fear of heights kicked in and she felt she was falling to her death. The scream was horror movie quality.
Emboldened by our afternoon activities, we were discussing adventures for the coming days. Jacqueline and I (Jill) thought it would be a great idea to sleep
out in the middle of the jungle for a night. Andrea has previously had this experience and wanted no part of it. Adam was napping so had no immediate input. Jacqueline and I insisted it was a necessity. To which Andrea interjected "you guys should at least go on a guided night walk to see if it´s really something you want to do." Jacqueline replied "I don´t want to know what´s out there if I´m going to sleep out there!" Andrea laughed heartily at our screeches as a giant scorpion came sauntering through the middle of our room. I promptly awoke Adam, as Jacqueline and I shouted "kill it, kill it!!" According to Andrea, we also squealed like little girls. We then agreed that jungle camping was probably not ideal.
The infamous search for the fabled sloth and monkey (during the day) led us to the lush forests of the Santa Elena Reserve. It´s part of the jungle in the cloud forests, and the trails are beautifully maintained by the board at the local high school. We saw many birds in our 7 km (we´ve already mastered the metric system in 4 days, it really is superior) of hiking
Hard Heads
Why do we need all of this safety equiptment? that day. I got to wear my jungle hat (it was a kodak moment). The search for the sloth and monkey continues......
For our last night in Santa Elena we decided to stay at the local hostel where we met Spencer, who had been in Santa Elena for three weeks already. He guided us on an evening hike to a tree that was about 20m tall (about 60ft, see we´re using metric again. An important skill when negotiating prices with taxis!!). The interior of the tree had been rotted out by fig vines which then became their own tree. Climbing up through the center of this hollowed out tree was a moment of childhood fantasy that´s difficult to imagine, and of course we forgot our camera. Dooohh!! (Adam´s -Homer Simpson impersonation).
Then we were off on the 6am bus to Playa del Coco where our adventure continues....
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