The cloud forest

Horse-riding from La Fortuna to Monteverde
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Our journey from La Fortuna to Monteverde began on horseback - definitely the best thing I've done so far on this trip. It was a 3-hour journey around Lake Arenal to the other side where we were picked up by a minibus ready to drive us the rest of the way. The reason for the horses is the lack of (driveable) road between the two places. My horse was called Capitan (meaning captain) which was a bit of a p*sstake really, since he was incredibly lazy & wanted to stay at the back of the pack rather than lead it. At least I had no worries about him galloping off uncontrolably!

Miyuki with friendly coati
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It was another couple of hours in the bus before we arrived in Santa Elena/ Monteverde. I wasn't prepared for quite how dusty the area would be. Not only are all the roads unpaved & very dusty, but so is everything within 10 metres of every road. Not a good place for asthma sufferers I would imagine! I did very well in terms of our lodging... some of the others on my trip were put into rooms that were dirty, with hideous murals on their walls & stained sheets on their beds (hence Carol re-named the hotel "Casa De La Sh*thole")! I, on the other hand, had a lovely clean room with a nice big TV - hee hee hee :o)

Hummingbird
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So, anyway, the first day we didn't do too much. The following day we went for a guided walk through the Monteverde Cloud Forest. We had a very enthusiastic guide with a keen eye & so were lucky enough to see lots of different birds, including elusive pretty quetzals, a troop of howler monkeys playing in the trees as well as a family of cheeky coatis.

In the afternoon some of us went to another part of the cloud forest where you can do walks through the forest canopy on bridges, as well as zip through the air way above the forest floor on ziplines. This was the activity I'd been looking forward to most on this trip & I was not disappointed :o)  Ziplining basically involves being attached to a cable via a harness before being pushed off the edge of a platform & then 'zipping' to the end of the cable as fast as possible - up to 40mph. Because you are lying back (kind of sitting in the harness) you don't get to see much of the forest below you - which is probably just as well when you realise you are flying through the air some 100m above the forest floor! We got to go on 11 ziplines in all & it was fantastic fun :o)

Lake Arenal
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The next day we were to leave Monteverde, headed for Quepos on the Pacific Coast.