End of the Road

One and a half weeks later, after roughly 3749 miles of travel, I'm now back in Medicine Hat. My big (interesting, adventurous, fantastic) trip to Central America has come to an end.

At this point, I really don't know what to say about my trip. I guess my blogs say it all, I had a fantastic time. Central America is incredibly beautiful, diverse, mysterious, and just all around breathtaking. Now that I'm home, I'm looking back at the pictures, and I still can't even believe how beautiful it was, or some of the crazy adventures I took part in. And I was there!!!! Crazy, amazing, and a truly awesome trip.

However, before I being my mushy reflections, I should fill you in on my last days in Costa Rica. And I'll also make a quick note that pictures are finally up! I updated my last three blogs and added pics to this one, yay! Enjoy :)

Monteverde Cloud Forest was a really cool place to visit. It was pretty neat, looking off our hotel balcony we could see the clouds all over, and sometimes we couldn't see clouds because we were IN a cloud. Understandably, it's wet in a cloud. Actually, if I could describe this forest in one word, WET is the word. It rained 75% of the time we were there (and that's probably an understatement), so all our activities were done in a very wet state! Aside from the chill of being in high altitude and drenched all the time, the rain didn't really matter. And of course, being a cloud forest, you'd have to expect it to be so wet. Apparantly it rains there 364 days a year (I guess you'd have to have at least ONE rain free day!).

First thing's first, I finally got to do my Costa Rica Ziplining!! Ziplining through the Monteverde Cloud Forest was amazing, I loved it. Sometimes we were under the canopy, sometimes we were over top of the canopy (those lines were the best), sometimes we were dry and could see for miles (amazing views!), and towards the end we were back in a cloud and completely soaked! It was awesome to be above the canopy and see so far and feel so free. It was also preety cool to zip straight into a cloud without being able to see where you were headed. Quite the experience! I also did a Tarzan swing, a 10 meter drop through the rainforest. I did this last year in Laos, and I was just as scared this time as last time (although I was hooked up this time so it was less dangerous). Still, I feel I've done a good job at conquering my fear of heights this trip! (Of course, I'm still afraid, I just ignore it and jump anyway!) So ziplining was great, and totally lived up to my expectations.

In the afternoon we did a hike through the cloud forest to try and spot some wildlife. Of course, it was raining cats and dogs and we didn't see many animals for the first part of our hike. But boy was it neat to see the rainforest in its natural element...We had a guide who managed to spot a lot of hidden insects, birds, and even a tarantula! The rain stopped about an hour into the hike, but I couldn't tell. The forest is so dense that the water falling off the trees sounded like rain for the entire remaining hour and a half of the hike! After the rain stopped we started seeing animals again, we found an agouti (rodent of unusual size) haha, and some large birds, and some Cappucino Monkeys! They were playing and it was awesome. Monkeys rock my socks off. I was slightly disappointed to not see any sloths though. I guess this gives me a reason to come back to Costa Rica one day...!

After the hike, our very enthusiastic and talented guide took us to a hummingbird garden, and then we returned to our hotel anxious for hot showers and dry clothing. After a nice dinner, we had a quiet night, and the following morning I said goodbye to the tour group and headed off on my own again to San Jose. I had a bit more time in San Jose before my flight, which I took full advantage of! Sometime in the rainforest I suddenly realized I had only seen one museum in my 7 weeks in Central America, and felt an urgent need to fill that void a bit before I left...

I managed to fit in the National Museum of Costa Rica (very interesting, I learned a lot about their history, Ticos are very proud!), a visit to the National Theater as well as the old Cathedral. San Jose has some really rough neighborhoods but it is also a really nice city, with so many beautiful parks and old buildings...I took a stroll around town and saw a few more of the parks, had an amazing dinner, and packed for leaving the next day. In the morning before my flight I saw the Gold Museum - Gold is an important part of the history of Costa Rica, it was used to adorn warriors and shamen, as sacred parts of ceremonies, and also as decoration. They became master gold workers back in the day (it's amazing what they could do!!), but the Spanish took a lot of the gold and after the conquest, most of the gold working techniques were lost. Anyway, it was a really interesting museum and a neat way to end my time in Costa Rica. I really enjoy traveling on my own as well, and although the tour was nice, it was great to get back on my own for a while and figure things out myself again. Hopefully my next destination is safe enough that I can do more solo travel!

The flight home was fine, and I arrived just in time for my cousins wedding in Winnipeg, which was beautiful! (Congrats guys!!) And now I'm in Medicine Hat for just a couple of days, getting in a few short visits before I get home to Edmonton.

Thinking back over my trip, as I said earlier, I really had a great time. A lot of people ask me for highlights, what was my favorite part? That question is SO hard to answer. Because the impression you get of a country, or even of a region, is cummulative - it forms from All the experiences. It's so hard to say that one part of the trip is better than another, because even the challenging parts, or the questionable parts, end up making the experience more diverse, more memorable and in the end, more exciting and enjoyable. You're probably still curious anyway, hey? Well, now that you know how I feel about the trip as a whole, and that I really did enjoy and I do value all of it, here's my rough top five:
1. Canyoning in Costa Rica, 2. Climbing Volcan Pacaya and seeing all that lava!, 3. Sailing/camping/snorkeling trip in Belize, 4. Antigua Guatemala as a general place, and 5. Caving in ATM (Belize). I also really really liked Ometepe Island as a local, rustic, interesting place, and Copan in Honduras. The local transport was pretty fun and interesting, if sketchy at times... And the ziplining was also cool, and so was the Mayan history at places like Tikal. Okay, you see what I mean about the whole experience!!

I'll stop babbling. Of course now that I'm home, it's time to start planning my next trip...

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