Blogs from Monteverde, Puntarenas, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 22

After visiting Green Valley School and having lunch with Genia, we took the bus from Atenas to San Jose to catch the "direct" bus to Monteverde. Buses work in an interesting way in Costa Rica. If you buy tickets ahead of time, you get an assigned seat and are guaranteed that seat for the duration. But the bus stops many, many times, picking up and dropping off people. They take the open seats, or they stand. On this particular route, many vendors also got on the bus. Before working their way through the crowd, they seemed to always give the driver something... food, money... hard to tell what all the transactions were. Anyway, the bus to Monteverde was crowded, hot, and the last stretch is such a rough mountain dirt road that the bus actually choked ... read more

We finally arrived in Monteverde after a treacherous bus ride high up in the mountains in the dark on a dirt road filled with stones and potholes. As the bus ascended higher and higher I peered nervously over the cliff edges muttering a prayer under my breath, too afraid to speak to James Jones who was trying to make light of the situation. My only consolation was the breathtaking view of the Pacific ocean to my right. We finally arrived in the wind and the rain and after checking in to our hotel, run by a grumpy American hippy, I slept like a baby. The next morning we were greated to a giant plate of pancakes and fruit before embarking on our Ziplining expedition. This consisted of attaching ourselves to cables and zipping along them from ... read more

Bizarrely, in the midst of a cloud forest we have found some surprisingly quick internet so here are a few photos from before that we were unable to put up. Enjoy!... read more

Hola Amigos, Hoewel ik, zoals jullie weten, geen "strand-persoon" ben, heb ik toch besloten om voor 1,5 dag naar Montezuma, een strandplaats te gaan. Super toeristisch (niet mijn soort mensen), maar erg mooi strand. Mijn snorkel trip was echt geweldig: veel verschillende soorten vissen, zeesterren e.d. en op een bepaald moment zelfs met een grote schildpad (doorsnede schild meer dan 1 meter) meegezwommen. De lunch was ook super: verse vis, met groenten en veel fruit. En voor de lunch kreeg ik van de gids (die mij had gevraagd of ik van oesters hield (nog nooit geproefd) en koskosnoten (lekker) eerst een schelp met heerlijk klaargemaakte oester en vervolgens een verse kokosnoot... Jammie Op de terugweg zagen we vanuit de boot 2 walvissen (moeder met jong: hunchback wales)... read more

Monteverde blows, and not because we didn't have fun, 'cause we did. It's that it quite literally blows - being from the Windy City we know a thing or two about that and this town is windy as a mofo.... so much so that the past few mornings we awoke expecting to find our little hotel room crash landed atop a wicked witch surrounded by rejoicing munchkins. But we not only stayed put but learned a few things. 1. Monteverde is Spanish for Wake up your neighbors at the crack of dawn, or at least that is what all of our neighbors thought. 2. Actually, Monteverde is spanish for Buns of Steel. Well, no not really but maybe it should be considering how hilly everything is, including the many hikes in the many forests. 3. Monteverde ... read more