August 24, 2009: Monteverde

Owen: This morning we left La Fortuna around 8:30 and set out toward Monteverde. The journey consisted of a bus ride to a big lake, a boat ride across the lake where we then split the group and got in two vans and headed for Rancho Makena. The boat ride across the lake was very dull, for there was no wildlife and I was sitting behind a bunch of people from boston college who were very amused by patty-cake, so much so, that they played the whole way there. This wouldn’t have been horrible, but they were playing it wrong… oh bostonians… *sigh* anyways, that took a lot of will power to hold back comment on their obnoxious activity. If you couldn’t tell, I was in somewhat of a cranky mood, I hadn’t eaten in hours, and little did I know, I wouldn’t eat for quite some time. It alright though, I calmed myself down by listening to some Bob Marley, which was good.

Upon arriving at the ranch, we were fitting with a plethora of assorted helmets. There were so many goofy styles! Some were bike helmets, others were skateboarding helmets, hard hats (which Sean and I both had), those helmets for children with the Sesame street characters on them, and several others. Carl made a funny comment when he saw my helmet, something along the lines of “When are we going to start singing YMCA?”. Anyhow, we mounted our valiant steeds and set off on a 2 hour horseback ride. My horse resembled Shadowfax from Lord of the Rings, except not really, but I liked to pretend that it did, so I could be Gandolf. My horse’s real name was “Guapo”, which means “handsome” in Spanish. Sean’s horse was Cometa, you can take a stab at what that means, and Liam’s horse was named Brillante, another hard translation (not). The entire trip I was in a race with Cometa and Volcan (which was Dan’s ((from England, not the tour guide)) horse), which was very fun. The trail weaved up a sloping hill, overlooking a valley and you could see the pacific coast. It was beautiful.

I had a ton of fun riding the horses, but I was ready to get out of there, I needed food. I was famished. We headed to the hotel, checked in, and walked into town with the group. Danny (the tour guide) took the liberty of explaining where everything was in the town. After what seemed like a Googolplex of Eons, I finally got a Hamburger, which was the cheapest thing on the menu at a pretty expensive restaurant, which we chose to eat at after faulty information from the hotel manager. I wolfed that down, and we went to the Super Market to get sandwich supplies so we wouldn’t have to blow all our money on more expensive food. We got back to the hotel, took a nap, went to the group meeting, and now we are planning on going to the sitting room to play cards with some other GAPers. See ya!

Liam: After waking at another early hour, we got on our buses and departed. After a boat ride across a large lake, we stopped at small market to pick up snacks for the rest of the day. When everyone was filled with food, we started driving on many dirt and rocky roads that were very bumpy. We got to the ranch and got on some horses, mine was a large brown one who did whatever he wanted. The guides wanted us to make a single file line but my horse just started walking off by himself. One of the guides sorted out my problem then the ride was quite fun. At the end of the ride the horses started galloping and I won the race between Sean, Owen, and I.

We went into town and got our hotel room, it is massive but not very well lit, then off to a late lunch. After getting supplies for the next three days, we went back to our room and took a nap until 6 o’clock when we had a group meeting. We then went to our room and are about to go make some nuttela sandwiches and play cards.

Sean: Well, the boys summarized the day pretty well. All in all, it was mostly a travel day. The only thing I think they missed was the strange bug we saw while leaving La Fortuna and the cool snake we stumbled upon during our first 5 minutes in Monteverde. Speaking of which, It is fun being back in Monteverde. I spent approximately 2 months here (out of the 3 I spent in costa rica) five year ago. I can’t believe how quickly time has gone by.

The town is largely unchanged but it still took a while to get a handle on where everything is/was. It is also weird to be here with a different group. Walking into the supermarket I half expected some the other CIEE biology students to be waiting there for me. It brings back some great memories of long ago… J. I am excited to revisit some of my favorite old restaurants and tourist destinations. I may even try to find the host family that I stayed with for 3 weeks.

Sorry to keep it so short but I must be off to bed. Tomorrow we are getting up at 5:30 for a hike in the cloud forest.

PS – The hills we were riding the horses on were VERY steep!