The Jungle at Night

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Yesterday we left the Arenal Observatory Lodge after a leisurly breakfast, looking at the volcano for the last time. The road from El Costillo to Santa Elena was even more windy than the ones we have already experienced. The roads were also in much worse shape, making for a very bumpy ride, but the view more than made up for it. Most of the drive was on roads on the edge of plunging cliffs with fantastic lush vallies. The distance from our hotel to Santa Elena is about 17 km as the crow flies but took us about three hours, covering 105 km because of the windy route we had to take around Lake Arenal.

Santa Elena is a great little back-packing town. It is essentially a triange made of three main roads with tour operators, restraunts and souvenier shops. We are staying at this great hostel called La Pension Santa Elena where we have our own room and bathroom. The staff here are amazing. We asked for some tips on booking tours and the man at the front desk sat down at a table with us and gave us the lay of the land complete with history and a description of all the things we can do here.

We had lunch, dropped off our laundry (much needed!) and then went on a night tour of the forest. Just as we began walking along the path, our guide spotted a two toed sloth. A bit deeper in we came across a well camoflaged snake which is apparently one of the most poisonous in the country, not to mention agressive. The coolest thing we saw was a huge tarantula sitting on a big pile of eggs! After that I kept feeling things crawling on me! Adam got a great picture with his camera. Although we had already seen leaf cutter ants in Corcovado, we were amazed to see a giant colony of them. Our guide told us that it was the biggest he had ever seen.

This morning we went on a tour of a local coffee farm. There is a popular tour that takes you to a very large operation but we decided to go with a local coffee farmer's co-op. We were so happy that we did! We were greated by a very nice man whose family has farmed coffee for generations. He showed us the different coffee plants, let us plant new seedlings and showed us a bit about the production. We also saw all of the other many fruits that he grows. We got to taste his oranges and bananas which were amazing. We were then taken back to the local coffee shop that sells his beans. There we saw how that beans are roasted and we were convinced to start buying whole beans!

This afternoon we are going to wander outside of town to find a place for lunch and maybe look in some local art shops.

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