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Wow, it has been a long time since I wrote in the blog, and Monteverde seems like an age ago… in fact I guess it was nearly a month ago. What happened to August? Well, it has been the best month of the year without a doubt.
Monteverde (to be precise Santa Elena) was our first stop in Costa Rica. Nestled in the highlands surrounded by protected cloud forests and primary rainforest, the climate was refreshingly cool and rainy (of course) and the area is just teeming with wildlife. Its also teeming with tourists, and the whole tourism industry infrastructure there is very well established, with minivans whisking tourists off to various attractions and tours from their hotels - a total contrast to anywhere in Nicaragua. The food, and food prices, was also a total contrast, and on our first night we gorged on delicious thai food and amazing red wine; it was a real splurge but well deserved.
We stayed for three days and did a variety of tours, such as a night walk into the jungle, a morning walk in the cloud forest, and a ziplining canopy tour. The night walk was amazing, and within just a couple of hours we had seen an abundance of different types of stick insects, lizards, spiders, tarantulas, butterflies and birds, plus a family of agoutis, a snake, a raccoon, and a couple of sloth bears. The cloud forest walk was less impressive, as we were without a guide and essentially saw nothing except for a crab, who seemed strangely out of place at altitude in the cloud forest. It rained heavily and in the end it was more a test of endurance than a walk, and the wildlife was firmly under cover and out of sight. At the end, however, a ranger had put out some nectar feeders and there were dozens of humming birds about, all conveniently easy to photograph.
On our last day we went ziplining, again, having been once in Nicaragua. However, this was totally different and amazing. The cables and platforms were mostly very high and long, zipping through incredible arenas of primary forest. There was a tarzan-style swing jump, rappel drop and an amazing ´superman´ cable, which was out of this world. Imagine the feeling of actually flying through the cloud high above a forest with the cable just disappearing into nothingness before you. Incredible!
R&M
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