Cold(ish) Costa Rica

First, a little housekeeping - we added some stuff to the right hand margin of the page: links to pictures sorted by location, a list of transports that we've undertaken between destinations, and a list of items we've lost along the way. The pictures have short descriptions, but they didn't follow the images correctly during the upload. If you want to see the title we gave any image, you have to click on the image you want to view, then click on "more info" in the right hand column and check out "Filename." I'm still working on a map to log our locations, but haven't found a format that I like - it may end up being just a custom Google map viewed via a link on the right hand side of the page. If anyone has any input on the execution of a map, or has seen one on another blog or site that they think would work, feel free to post a comment or send me an email at mjstankiewicz@gmail.com. While its true I have some time to figure it out, the international internet browsing makes it harder to get English-language search results, and I'm sick of sorting through gadgets in blogger that are a little cumbersome and not so user-friendly. Help me help you.

Second, a disclaimer - this will be a long post. As one of our editors-at-large mentioned to me via email, I will strive to break up the longer paragraphs into more manageable chunks.

Ok - as you may have guessed from our photos and list of transportation, we've moved on from La Fortuna and settled in Santa Elena (near Monteverde) for a few days. To get here, there are two options - an 9-hour, 2-bus, $8 marathon, or a 2.5-hour $18 "Jeep Boat Jeep." The lay of the land and lack of both suitable roads and roads in general (most smaller towns have one road in and out) dictated that while we are only maybe 20km away from our destination - you can see it from across the lake - the bus ride takes you down the opposite side of the mountain to a larger city to change buses and drive around the lake to the opposite side of another mountain and up again. The Jeep Boat Jeep, while technically in our case a Van Boat Van, consisted of a 30-minute van ride to the shore of Lake Arenal, at which point we got on a boat for a 45-minute ride to the other side, to then get in another van for 75 minutes to our destination. Apparently this mode of transport used to be done with Jeeps on account of the rough terrain, but to pack more people in they started using vans. The roads on both land legs are horrible, all dirt, up and down with extremely steep terrain. Dramamine helps. There was also apparently a company called Jeep Boat Jeep that offers a Van Boat Van transport, which confused me a bit.

In any case, we arrived safe and sound in Santa Elena, spending our first night in a shared room with a guy we met in La Fortuna named Kyle at Cabinas Eddy, a small, clean hostel just outside of town. Also along in our travels is a guy named Mario, whom we also met in LaFortuna, and who recently moved to Chicago - small world. The most striking feature about Santa Elena is definitely the weather. Every stop we've made so far has been extremely hot, whereas this area is fairly mild and extremely windy. We've had to break out the pants and long-sleeve shirts the past couple days, and sleeping is much more comfortable with the temp dropping down to around 50 at night. The wind is insane - those of you currently in Illinois, imagine those sustained winds of downtown Chicago we get in the fall and winter, and you're almost there. The walls of the hostel were shaking.

After our first night at Cabinas Eddy, we decided to switch to another location in the middle of town called Pension Santa Elena - it is an extra dollar per night stay, and not quite as clean, but they have internet access (Cabinas Eddy's has been down for the last month - apparently the technician "didn't want to come fix it") and free coffee in the mornings. They also sport some really helpful people that have made our lives a lot easier in planning some activities, which we'll cover in a bit. The place is run by a brother and sister from Austin, Texas, and set themselves apart in that a) they speak fluent English and b) give you a 20-minute sit-down to go over the activities that this town is known for.

After lugging our bags across town and picking up some breakfast, we decided to visit the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve - the main attraction in the area. It is apparently one of only two virgin cloud forests in the entire country, an ecosystem with which I was not entirely familiar, but plan to look into a little more. Different than a rainforest, it creates its own water by the virtue of being enclosed by clouds, trapping moisture and heat against the mountain. There are not many mammals, but a plethora of flora, reptiles and insects. We happened to catch a white-faced monkey jumping around in the trees, but not any insects or reptiles. The reserve is a series of trails which all told would take the better part of twelve hours to complete, winding through the heart of an extremely dense jungle. We selected a two-to-three hour loop that brought us to a lookout point atop the continental divide, with winds strong enough that you had to lean into them to stand up. On clear days, you can apparently see both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, but that seems a little ambitious to me. We took a bunch of photos of the trees, flowers, plants and views - worth a look.

We had lunch at the reserve, and made a stop at the hummingbird sanctuary - just an open-air, sunny, protected area with a dozen or so hummingbird feeders - I probably took 75-1oo pictures, definitely testing my mettle as a photog, and got a few (5 I think) that turned out fairly well. The hummingbirds were everywhere, zipping around your head, enjoying the free lunch.

We had taken the bus to the reserve, but decided to walk back to town so we could stop by the Monteverde Cheese Factory for a tour. Back in the 1950's, a group of Quakers from Alabama decided to abscond from the US on account of their pacifist ways (conscientious objectors, doubtlessly) and opposition to the draft. After a few stops, they settled in Costa Rica, founded the town of Monteverde, and started making cheese. They make 17 different aged cheeses, as well as various dairy and meat products. We saw their factory, tasted some cheeses (my favorite was the 6-month edam) and got an ice cream on the way out. The tour guide was from outside Milwaukee, but since he was wearing a Green Bay sweatshirt I decided, in deference to our Chicago-land followers, not to strike up a conversation.

We walked back to town, grabbed some nachos supremas and tacos at the Taco Taco next door, and stayed in for the night (as you can see by the plethora of posts last night). We plan on staying here tonight, but leaving early tomorrow morning for Puerto Viejo - a Caribbean-coast beach town - as our last stop in Costa Rica before departing for Panama. We have a tour planned for this afternoon at a coffee plantation co-op, and will likely have a little more to say tonight on that.

Check out the pictures, leave some comments, and most of all, have a great day.