My First Rainforest - Monteverde, Guanacaste, C.R.

Wednesday morning I had no plans except to meet my new friend for lunch. I knew the bus to Monteverde left at 2:30, and so when there was enough time after lunch to make the bus I decided to head off to the north-west, to Monteverde.

Monteverde is a nice picturesque little town in the green mountains of Guanacaste. Because the town is sandwiched between two national parks, and next to the Children's Eternal Rainforest private reserve, the whole area is very environmentally conscious. Any paved roads are strongly opposed. This picture here was a snapshot of the road leading to my super nice hotel, for which I paid $7 per night for my own private room.

Though the rooms are cheep in Monteverde, it is still a bit of a tourist trap, and the tour operators know that they can charge 40 bucks for a tour of the rainforest... so money ends up going fast because, even though relatively pricy, the tours are worth every penny.

My first tour was a series of 16 zip-lines strung across the canopy of the Santa Elena cloud-forest. It was like a Disneyland for adults! The views were absolutly beautiful as I felw over the trees.

Following the zip-line course was a series of bridges through the trees. Walking along the bridges at my own pace I was able to snap some really nice shots of the forest. I'll try and get a few posted here.



After the zip-line tour I was able to go on a "twilight walk" of the Childrens Eternal Rainforest, a super cool non-profit organization. Children all around the world came together and raised funds to start buying parts of the rainforest and turning it into a private reserve.

The night tour was awesome! I was amazed at how the forest reaqlly comes alive at night. All kinds of crickets, frogs, and birds made awesome background music! If you knew where to look you could find trantulas. I was able to take some pretty nifty pictures of them! We were also lucky to find a Tucan! I was just amazed at how beautiful the bird was!

I am right now in a town called La Fortuna and am going to go on a tour of the rainforest at the foot of a picture-perfect conic volcano, el volcán Arenal. The trip here was amazing! No public busses run here, even though Fortuna is realtively close tom Monteverde... they are separated by the huge volcano and Costa Rica's biggest lake. Next blog will sport the story of how I was able to make it here!