From the Mountains back to the Beach

After the adrenaline filled day spent zipping over and through the treetops, I just chilled with a girl from Massachusetts, Rebecca, for the evening, and for the following day. We decided we would like to spend the day hiking through the Montverde Cloud Forest. We had missed the bus to the park entrance by an hour, and the next one wasn’t for another hour and fifteen, so we decided to start our hike right from Pension Santa Elena. Finally after 5km of walking up the road to the park, we reached the entrance. It was a long tiring walk, but on the way we passed a tour guide who ended up giving us some passes into the park. Hurrah for saving seven dollars! The wind was blowing so hard, but the trees buffered it a wee bit. We must’ve walked at least another 5km in the park admiring the pretty flowers and the elaborate trees. We didn’t see much wildlife during our walk except a few redstarts (birds), but when we returned to the entrance for some hot chocolate, we heard the roar of a howler monkey and saw a couple of mischievous racoons.We then proceeded to the humming bird gallery that was incredible—humming birds of all sorts everywhere just buzzing around and chasing one another. It was pretty magical, as was the entire day of hiking, apart from the cold wind.

I went to bed nice and early for I had to get up nice and early to catch my 6am bus to Puntarenas. From Puntarenas, I caught the ferry across the Gulf of Nicoya to Paquera, and from there took a bus to Montezuma. The sun was hot and the beaches were beautiful…still are actually. After setting up my tent at a campground ON the beach (prime time I must say), I walked back into town and ran into the Yukon girls again! They’ve been here for a week, and I’m sure I’ll be able to spend a good chunk of time here as well. The five of us ventured into town and we ran into the Vancouver boys as well!! Small country or what? There are Canadians everywhere here: ran into some Saltspring Island boys that I had ran into in Monteverde and a few others from BC, Quebec and Ontario.The seven of us went out for some drinks before checking out Reggae night to see crazy Carlos (53 yr old man in charge of the local reserve) dancing like a madman. After that burst of entertainment and another long travel day, bed was looking mighty fine. Today I said farewell to Mila and Igor from New York and I’m going to go for a hike up to the waterfalls with Jeremy, Dane, Dave and Simon from Saltspring Island here shortly. Other than that, I’m looking forward to a super chilled week on the beach and little spending. Have to manage on 20 dollars a day until I get my credit card in San Jaunillo from wonderful Annie! Shouldn’t be too difficult considering I’m paying 2 bucks a night to camp. With that said, peace out!

-Mitchell-

Photo: The beach in Montezuma that I´m camping on (PS, not sunsets like Jaco, but the sunrise this morning was amazing)