Day 6 started out horseback riding! We took a boat ride across the lake to meet our horses under some trees at the trail head. They were definitely “rent a horse” type of horses… but we ended up having a great time. The guide figured out that we knew how to ride horses, and he let us move on ahead of the rest of the group, all of which had no experience. We trotted ahead on the trail riding through the rain forest, spotting lots of different birds (more Tucans) and tons of beautiful vegetation. We never got too far ahead, and the guide would gallop up to check on us, but the extra freedom really made the difference. It was about a 2.5 hour horseback ride, and was getting very hot by the end.
We switched to a van and received out complementary Costa Rican massage (seriously, how do the vehicles hold up on these roads?) and continued the last 2 hour drive to Monteverde, stopping for lunch along the way.
Monteverde is a cute little town in the top of the rain forest, really up in the clouds, and everything is on a hill. Luckily, our hotel is very close to the center, and so it is only a few minute walk down and up another hill to get to all of the shops. Some of our travel companions were not so lucky, and were either going to have quite a hike or a taxi ride to get anywhere.
Our hotel is really interesting and cute. It is all separate little houses with beautiful wooden interiors. Bad thing is, there are adorable little paths to all of the homes that are dotting the mini hillside owned by the hotel, and all of the little paths are up STEEP hills, and they wind everywhere. I think we need a map to find our little house again.
So far I haven’t had the greatest welcome to Monteverde. We went out in search of some coffee and found a cute little Coffee bar. It was only 100 colones (.20 cents) more to have a flavored latte, so I decided to give their caramel flavor a try. Big mistake! The guy put like 2 inches of pure caramel in the bottom of a fairly small glass, foamed some milk (I’m not entirely sure if there was even any coffee in there…) and served it to me. When we first arrived, he asked if I wanted here or to go, motioning that here would be nice. I decided to sit and enjoy my coffee (of which was disgustingly sweet, almost unbearable, I’m kind of sick at the thought of how much caramel I probably consumed in that one cup of something). Next, I got the bill to find that it was considerably more expensive than I thought, realizing that he had charged me a service fee for sitting at the table rather than taking it to go! I made my surprise and disgust clear (I hate getting tricked into paying for something!), and a few minutes later he offered to give back the tip and service charge. I ended up leaving it for him, as it was the thought that counted more than anything for me, but next time I hope he will warn someone before charging them 30% the price of their coffee for wanting to sit and enjoy their cup of coffee for 5 minutes.
Then, to make matters worse, there were so many bugs! It was like a locus swarm of moths! We couldn’t walk without them trying to fly in our mouths or down our shirts. There were thousands of them swarming everywhere! Next, walking back to our hotel my mom stopped to take a picture of a flower, and me, unaware of the ants swarming the ground around my flipflops, got the unpleasant discovery that not only had they switched their path to be over my feet, but that they also BITE and it STINGS like a mo’fo! It felt like my toes got stung by bees…. Ouch! Now that I think about it, I hope those flying moths aren’t really flying ants…… ahhhhhhhhhh. Next, walking back to our hotel our neighbors warned us about the jumping flea like green bugs that bite, and that they will try to get under our room door.
Bienvenidos a Monteverde! Ahhhhhh!
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