Monkey mayhem in the mountains!

Except WE were the monkeys, for a couple of hours at least. Not so much swinging from tree to tree like Tarzan but instead zip lining from tree to tree!

We moved from the not overly mountainous area but a delightful small town of La Fortuna to more mountainous territory also on the traveller circuit known as Monteverde. To get here we found a service that would offer van-water taxi-van transportation which sounded great and would allow us to cruise along Costa Rica’s largest lake, Lake Arenal, with views of the volcano as a picturesque backdrop, although it proved to be a bit of a grey day.

Viv and I sat towards the rear of the boat, it wasn’t long until we started hearing behind us the tweeting of little birds. Except we were some 100 metres “out to sea”. We soon realised that the birds had previously nested in the roof of the boat so parentally, they accompanied us all the way until we docked for land some 30 minutes later! That was pretty cool to see and hear as they ‘sang’ and ‘danced in the air’ throughout the journey.

We arrived at our accommodation which was a wooden lodge in the forest. Not in the middle of nowhere as civilization was close by but still a ten-minute walk away. Whilst I’m not really a naturist, I get too weirded out by creepy crawlies, I was definitely up for staying at the lodge for the experience – which proved to be enjoyable.

Shortly after the two treehouse images below were taken, the heavens opened so we sat tight until it passed. Which proved to be evening time! Still, plenty of time to cosy up and discuss tomorrow’s adventures.

The next day proved to be a bit brighter and more importantly, drier so off we went for a wander. The best thing about being here is the feeling of seeing wildlife at any random moment which is magical, as many of you know or can believe.

These are apparently known as coatis, also known as coatimundis. They’re said to be social animals and comparatively undeterred by humans which explains how we got so close I suppose. If you were to go on dedicated nature trails and tours, you’d almost certainly catch a lot more wildlife. We are slightly gutted to have not seen any sloths nor did we see anywhere near enough white-faced capuchin (monkeys).

If you make this far and deep into Costa Rica, things get more touristy which for once, is welcomed. This means some English-speaking people and no shortage of activities. You saw the experiences we had in La Fortuna (last post) and so for this time around, it was all about tree-top activities and hanging bridges. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to do the latter as the affordable tour we found didn’t offer high-top bridge walking but we did some high-top swinging and falling – well out of both our comfort zones.

We were in a well-sized group of 6 and quickly became acquainted with a couple from the Czech Republic who were also on our boat. They landed in the country just a couple of days earlier so their body clocks were all over the place. Still, they‘re Eastern so they’re just tough 👊

Now I don’t relish heights but Viv, bless her, really had some fear-conquering to beat and beat it she did having completed all 8 of the different zip lines. Don’t get me wrong, she squealed like a pig for most of them much to the amusement of the rest of us but credit where credit is due. I was so impressed she accomplished all of them and she herself was understandably proud and indeed surprised.

For an early supper and still very clearly obsessed with tree life, we found a restaurant that built itself around a rather large one!

And that’s a wrap, folks. See what I did there? A shorter post than normal but still new experiences covered.

Last night we arrived back in San Jose (yippee) after a stomach-churning bus drive through the mountains. Even some locals needed the sick bags although somehow not us, but we felt as rough as sandpaper.

Like in Mexico, we’ve had an absolute blast here and it’s gone so fast but was time to move on and go through the ordeal of going somewhere new in these Covid times. Still, whilst you lot were sleeping last night, we moved on to a new country! Did anyone clock the MAP update on the home page? Do have a check-in after watching my jungle-girlfriend in action and turn sound on for this one (if for some reason you don’t normally).

I’ll hope to write a new post before the end of the week and in that I’ll cover our latest airport experience. But nothing can be as bad as last time, right?

Wrong.

For real.