Thursday 21 July 2016

July 19 - Monteverde

It had rained most of the night in LaFortuna, but it stopped long enough to allow us to pack up our car after breakfast. We dropped off the key at our hosts place. 3 nights in a two bedroom apartment $203 cn. We are on our way to Monteverde, high in the mountains and known for the cloud forests.

Costa Rica is known for its ecological friendly use of resources. In 2010 Costa Rica won a world biodiversity award. In 1958 C.R. abolished its army. It is a country known for peace. The government pays farmers to preserve old forest and to replant new forest. This type of thinking  even showed up in their fence design, lol. Many fence posts begin to regrow.

Our goal today is to travel to Monteverde.  Only 111 kms. Google maps says it should take 3.5 hrs. It really took us 5 hours. We had thought the road to La Fortuna was narrow.  We really experienced narrow on our way to Monteverde. Very quickly the pavement disappeared and for most of the distance we were on gravel. However, it didn't rain and the views compensated for the poor roads (although I may not have felt the same way if we had a vehicle breakdown). 


Road surface on the way to Monteverde


We also got to see some wildlife along the way.
Vultures 

Okay - maybe cattle don't count as wildlife

We also saw a white nosed Coati but we were not able to get a picture. This small country has more varieties of butterflies than Africa, and more bird species than all of North America, as well as many flora and fauna that have yet to be identified. 

Mid morning we had stopped at a german bakery for coffee and strudel. About 2pm we stopped for lunch at a local Soda and then continued on to our destination of Monteverde Inn. When we booked it we did not know it was at the Valle Escondido Preserve. Many self guided trails are marked around the 40 acre grounds. However no one can be on the trails after 4:30pm. It gets dark very quickly in Costa Rica. Just as we arrived it began to rain and by the time we were escorted to our room it was a downpour. I did manage to get a few pictures first.





The location of the Inn is fantastic. Our room is less than we desired. It reminded me of a jail cell. One bunk bed, and a small end table. It's clean and we have our own bathroom. Two plastic chairs were sitting on a deck outside our room so we pulled them into our room.
Our supper tonight was a cinnamon bun from the bakery we had stopped at earlier. We wanted to avoid leaving our room in the rain. Val got the top bunk and made it a book reading early night, hoping to hear howler monkeys. 


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