Monteverde - Costa Rica

Exciting, green and facing fears.

We arrived to Monteverde after a slightly bumpy journey at about 12. We decided to book a night walk for that evening as it was recommended as the best way to observe the wildlife in the area, and so we had done something with the day. Before this we just wandered around the very small town of Santa Elena where we were staying which consisted of three roads in a triangle. At 5:30 we were picked up and taken to the forest. Within minutes our guide had pointed out a female tarantula ina little cove to the side of the walkway. Although not poisonous or deadly, if bitten the area bitten would become infected and may have to be amputated, we kept a safe distance away. Next we saw a little, but very deadly scorpion which actually glowed under a blue light, it uses this function to search for food. We saw a male version of the initial tarantula, tree frogs, rainforest frogs, a green viper snake, crickets and many other tiny spiders. Unfortunately no sloths or monkey decided to join us, but it isn’t just luck of what’s around when you’re on the tour. 

On the second day we had decided to visit the Santa Elena cloud forest reserve. Although the Monteverde cloud forest is the more famous one it attracts a lot more people and was more expensive. We were also able to use student discount and get Santa Elena for half price. There are 5 trails you can walk in the reserve, we got there around 11:30 and had until 4:00 when the reserve closed. We decided to take the longest trail first. Very quickly it became very apparent we had made a huge mistake in wearing trainers, it was extremely muddy and wet. The walk was very peaceful and very green, but the extent to the wildlife we saw was some sort of centipede animal. After this trail, we took another which Rachel thought had a few viewpoints. There was actually only one viewpoint and it was a pretty cloudy day so not a lot could be seen. We didn’t want to risk missing the bus back into town so we then went and waited in reception. 

We had a very lazy day next, we were both feeling a bit exhausted and it was nice to slow down for a bit, especially since we had the extreme ziplining tour the next day, which one of us may not have been looking forward to so much.

Annoyingly we had the wrong pickup time so we were not ready and just playing cards when our transport for the ziplining came, meaning we were very rushed. Although we had the GoPro we realised with the set up it wasn’t safer just to leave it at reception. In hindsight we should have kept hold of it because the views he had were so incredible. Ther were 16 zip lines in total, including two superman style ones - one of which was 1km long (Rachel was the first in the group to do this), a 30m rappel and a Tarzan swing. There was a video taken of Rachel doing the Tarzan swing but we had no money on us to buy it at the end having being rushed to get there. Rachel loved every part of it, Josh could’ve had a better time.

We left in the morning for Tamarindo.

La Fortuna - Costa Rica

Green and humid. 

After the 3 flights to get to Costa Rica, we spent just 1 night in San Jose before getting a public bus to La Fortuna at 8:40am. The bus was a little late arriving, but we expect that as from research and people telling us we knew trasport isn’t so great here. The journey was very hot and took about 4 how. We arrived at the bus stop in the little town around 1. We had the afternoon free, but we were both so tired from all the travelling we’d done I; the past two days we just took it slowly and wandered around the town. We went to book a full day tour with a company we’d seen getting off the bus. We were offered a better tour that was beginning in peak season (December) that they needed to trial and get promo shots of for cheaper so we went with that as it included everything we wanted to do in the area.

We started off with a short walk through some forest alongside La Fortuna river, at one point the path opened out and we spent a bit of time at the river which was refreshing on such a hot day. We then hoped on a tractor that took us up to a viewpoint were we would begin walking down to the waterfall through them  canyon which was created by a volcanic eruption. Halfway down the stairs there was a suspension bridge we had to cross before continuing on. We got a spectacular view of the full 70 meter waterfall in the walking route we had taken, then we got up close and took a swim in the pools surrounding. After this we headed back up the trial and went to a small village of the Maluku (Cost Rican natives) and learnt about their culture. 

After lunch we headed to the park at the foot of Arenal volcano. We took a short trial that brought us out to a view of a green lake, the lake actually hides a village that fell victim to the 1968 eruption. We walked manly up a mass of lava rocks until the highest viewpoint available of the volcano. In every direction there was an incredible view. We could see the Arenal Lake, which produces 30-50% of Costa Rica’s electricity, the volcano itself and lava fields. The trial on the way our was through thick forest. After this it was time for the natural hot springs, which we were very much looking forward to with our aching muscles. We enjoyed a mud face mask and a cocktail whilst soaking in the hot water before having to go back to to the hostel.


We left at 8:20 the next morning for Monteverde.