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I caught the Tica bus from Nicaragua to Costa Rica. Heard the border crossing was a bit of a nightmare, so decided to do it the easy way...on an international bus where they handle most the drama for you. It was a long wait at the border, but pretty uneventful. The bus ride was about 10 hours all up I think. I really should not have gone all the way to San Jose but I was not 100% sure about where I should get off and what local buses to catch to get to Monteverde, so I ended up in San Jose for the night. I have been trying to avoid all capital cities as I have not heard anything good about them. I however got to catch a cab with an Israeli guy and we went to a pretty nice backpackers.
I caught a shuttle 1st thing in the morning back up to Monteverde. Monteverde has one of only 2 cloud forests left in the world...and this one is the only one you can go into...the other in South America (I think) is a virgin forest and no tourists allowed. Well, I know it is a rain forest and all but god it was bloody freezing and rainy and windy! Just before heading to Costa Rica I nearly sent all my (few) warm clothing home...thank god I did not as it definitely needed every bit of it. I think I practically wore the same clothes for 3 days...gross! But I hardly have any warm clothing as it is. I had to even go out and buy some wet weather gear! Well...the cheapest was a rain jacket and LOVELY matching pants from the supermarket....OMG....I clearly did not dare wear the pants...and the jacket was awful...but I know this is not a fashion show....but the hat hardly even fitted my head!
Stayed in a cool backpackers in St Elena. The 1st full day there I met a Dutch girl and her and I went on a massive trek through the village and to one of the secondary rain forests! The wind was blowing so much I could hardly stand straight at times. But it was a beautiful walk and we even saw a sloth! But that was about it. The sloth was so high up in the tree really it was just a mass of long hair we saw!
We also went to the frog park...in fact we went 2ce...once during the day for a guided tour and once at night to see them awake!
The next day, Ellen (the Dutch girl), Tim (an English guy I met on the trip up) and I went to St Elena Cloud Forest. We did about a 2 hour walk which was amazing...but we did not really see much as the animals all seem to sleep when the weather is this bad...not that I blame them. After that we did a zip line tour.....WELL.....I was terrified of course but it was amazing! The Zip line went over the forest and the highest one was about 19 metres high and the longest one about 506 metres long. All up there were 15 cables. The scariest thing was near the end they had a Tarzan swing...basically you stand on the VERY high Platform and swing from a rope (like Tarzan of course). The guide would not tell us much ...just said bend your knees and then he would push you.....The minute I bent my knees I jumped as well...I don't think I was meant to...well you can imagine the screams....!! Ellen took a video of me which is very funny so hopefully she will email it and I can attach it to the blog! It was so scary but exhilarating as well....I think that is the closest to bungee jumping I will come! I was shaking afterwards!
After the zip lines we did the bridge walks through and over the forest which again was beautiful! What a day of activity!!!!!
I had a great time in Monteverde, but it was way too clod for me...I am on holiday....I needed the beach ...so after about 3 days I left and headed to Montezuma on the Pacific Coast!
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