We decided today to sleep in a bit and not start our day until 9 AM, its vacation right? But when we woke up at 6:15 remebering that is actually 7:15 our time and when we get up for work each day- harsh reminder on vacation. Last night there was gusts of wind outside that knocked all kinds of stuff around including the porch swing into the side of the house.. as well as blowing through all the knooks and crannies in our Airbnb… glad we were inside and also glad not to be a home owner here.
Day started off with breakfast and coffee at Cafe Monteverde (they also do coffee tours if you are ever interested). Delicious cinnamon bun and some sort of a potatoe and peppers pastry accompanied by a latte for him and a dirty chai for me.. sated we are off to the cloud forest. (unfortunately they had too many people when we got there so we had to go occupy ourselves for an hour at the local coop and artisian shops)
When you get to the Monteverde cloud forest reserve you. have the option to park in the parking lot (which is secure and monitored but will cost you $5) or you can drive up to the park and park on the side I of the road with the buses and crazy drivers coming through. We saw someone with their back window smashed out there so I would not suggest going that route. Parked in the lot and took the less than 5 minute shuttle to the entrance of the park. There is a cafe (Cafe Calibri) on your left and the main entrance in front of you. They will recommend which of the many trails you can take, and you can follow that advice or go off on whatever one you would like. In the parking area when we walked in we saw our first Coati!! This is the cutest version of a cross between a raccoon and a lemur and they scavenge around the parking lot for trash in broad daylight!
We head down the advised trail and it takes us forever, but not because it is long, because it’s insanely gorgeous! This ecosystem is made up of millions of tiny ecosystems and contributes to the air we breathe all over the world! Just stand there, in this deep green majestic forest, and breathe all the clean crip dense forest air… wow… and the textures! There are a million tiny ferns and itty bitty plants climbing on trees; swinging vines; air plants; bromileads; I could go on forever but I will let the pictures speak for themselves.
Its a hike for sure, up and down trails that are so well maintained and although its wet in the forest, the trails are not slippery. There are parts that are quite steep but totally worth it to get to the Mirador La Ventana (the view from the window). This is the highest point of the park and above the clouds. We could look out and see them blowing by and imaging its what being an airplane felt like. The continental divide can be seen from there as well so you are standing above it all.
What goes up…must come back down.. and up and then down and so on 😉 It was a long hike but again, worth it! We stopped at the Calibri Cafe on our way out, which was referred to us by some bloggers, also the cinnamon rolls (also referred).. yummmmmmy! Then you can hit up the hummingbird area which there are many feeders, MANY hummingbirds, and double that the amount of tourists standing DIRECTLY in front of them.. Sometimes I feel that people’s experience of the world is only with them in it…
Thus ended our journey at the park and now time to venture out to the little town of Santa Elena (although everyone refers to it as Monteverde, which is what all the signs say). We grab a SIM card for Matt at Gaos (in case you travel here you know this is where you can get one) and head over to Raulitos Pollo Asado for some rotisserie chicken. I order Arroz con Pollo (shout out to Ashley on this one, although it is NOTHING like it is at home) and Matt gets a large platter with some chicken, rice &beans, and tortilla. It was delicious and nice to spend a minute sitting outside in the sunshine although the mist is coming across at 90kph!
After our late lunch we decide to do a little touristy type shopping and hit up Happy Hour in the Treehouse restaurant… yes friends, we had happy hour in a Tree! with a freaking Rainbow outside the door- just like a bird 🙂
Good buzz acheived and cute place with the tree swaying in the breeze and the Grackle sitting on the branch calling LOUDLY (like they do).. we wander to do a little more browsing (bought an awesome woven basket) and take fun pictures. Almost saw a tour bus take out a couple of cars and definitely saw a dude on a motorcycle with his dog riding in front of him with doggles on (shout out again to Ashley on that one;) ).
We head over to the Soda la Amistad for some take out food. Sodas are little local joints in Costa Rica- should be relatively cheap and have pretty decent local food. However, we ordered 3 empanadas and it costs us like $26! To me, that is not so cheap… compared to what we have spent so far, it kind of is? They smell amazing and we do our first Travel Vlog video eating them- we will post that somewhere after we edit out all the nonsense 😉 First timers ya know 😛 The scraps went to our dog friend here at the Air Bnb who is now sleeping with a full belly on our porch and we are wondering why there are so many ants in here?! They like how sweet we are??? 😉
Time to decide what to do for our journey tomorrow before we head out to the next destination of La Fortuna. Pura Vida mis amigos! Gracias por leer nuestro blog!
Leave a Reply