After Arenal, we were going to Monteverde. There’s two ways to get there: by car, or by boat. Going around the lake takes waaay longer, we booked the boat trip. We were on the lake for half an hour and it was just so quiet and peaceful. The only thing Chris was thinking about is: where could I put a cabin here?
On the other side of the lake, we still had a good two hours of car. It was the hardest two hours in my life. The roads were in dirt and kept going up and down. We kept jumping on our seats because of all the rocks on the road. Even if we were in a good car, it still made us kind of sick at times. But, after all of that, we were glad to get in the town! It was very cute and our hotel was great. We stayed at the Claro Del Luna and loved it there.
After getting there in the afternoon, we had a “hike” in the cloud forest. It was more of a walk in the forest than a hike, since we stopped every three minutes to look for animals. It was actually really fun and the guide knew everything there was to know about the cloud forest. He explained to us how it works. Because this area is in the middle between the dry Pacific Coast and the wet Atlantic Coast, there are always clouds on top of it. The thing is, it doesn’t rain hard there, it’s always a soft mist, which makes it easier for things to grow on the ground, since they are now washed away. He also told us about all those trees that grow ON trees. Apparently, the ficus tree grows at the top of a host tree and then slowly makes it way to the ground, going around the trunk of the host. Once it touches the ground, it starts killing the tree on which it grew. After centuries, the tree on the inside is going to disappear and leave a hole in the middle. It makes the ficus trees very interesting for animal! It was great to see those and learn about them.
During our visit of the cloud forest, we saw a few animals, mostly birds, one white nosed coati and a spider monkey. Unfortunately, my camera died after the first five minutes in the forest… So I didn’t get any pictures! (Or almost none)
Our guide was nice enough to take a video of the hummingbird garden at the end, which must be what paradise look like 🙂 It was crazy to be around so many birds! We couldn’t move too fast, otherwise they would have hit us since they go so fast!
Here’s the video again.
Enjoy!
