World Costa Rica San José San José

Weebs and T - Mexico to Rio

Costa Rica - Monteverde and La Fortuna Aug 6, 2010

We were a bit relieved to leave Nicaragua and arrive in the slightly more organised Costa Rica. After surviving the extremely drawn out border crossing and the little scam to get us to buy extra bus tickets(expert travellers) we headed for San Jose. We had organised that we would be meeting our good friends from South Africa, Cara and Clive in Colombia and therefore we couldn't waste any time. Our night in San Jose was spent eating American fast food(amazing), relaxing by the pool and organising our next few days. In our small time in Costa Rica we decided to go to Monteverde, its an area very well known for its beautiful cloud forest and many activities. We quickly got talked into the extreme canopy tour. We were a bit nervous about this and didn't really know what to expect. When we were getting our harnesses put on the guide kept trying to scare us by saying "who's going to put their life in my hands." This type of humor carried on through the whole tour and we realised the guides were there to have a great time also. Tho tour consisted of 12 cables which were connected across valleys in the jungle. The guide would connect your harness to the cable explain to you when to break and then the next thing you knew you where flying above the jungle at a million miles an hour. It was insane. On the one cable T completely forgot to break and the guide had to use the emergency stop. This was hilarious!! After this incident we definitely weren't the class favorites. Things got a bit hairy when we arrived at the Tarzan swing, this entailed us hanging onto a huge rope and jumping off the side of a massive tree (trust me trees in the Costa Rica jungle are not regular size) and free falling for a bit before the rope caught and then swinging you high into the jungle! Crazy! T´s scream definitely hit the highest decibels of the group. The highlight of the tour was the superman cable. Its a new addition to the tour. This cable was 1km long and at its highest point was 200m about the trees. They connected us by our shoulders and our feet to the zipline with our heads face down and shot us over the valley. It was amazing. It truly felt like we were flying! Wow what a day! Check out this website to see a youtube clip of the exact one we did (http://www.monteverdeextremo.com/canopy_superman.html) The following day we signed up for the full tour of La Fortuna and Arenal Volcano. We started off by taking the jeep/boat/jeep in order to get to La Fortuna. On the lake we had amazing views of the fantastic Arenal volcano. In the afternoon we went on a full tour of a few sanctuaries and then headed off to the volcano. We were lucky enough to get our own private guide. He was extremely knowledgeable but terribly scared of the afternoon lightning storm. However we managed to persuade him to stick it out and we were lucky enough to see an eruption. It was really awesome. From there we were treated to an early evening swim in the hot springs. The volcano heated up these springs so it felt like we were swimming in a massive bath. The busy day ended off with a great 3 course meal at the hotel. It really was a fantastic tour were we both learnt loads. Costa Rica was great for organising cool tours and they really had so much to do. We only scratched the surface of all it had to offer. We needed to hurry back to San Jose to catch an early morning flight to Colombia. On the bus back somebody stole T´s hand luggage with her camera, photos and wallet inside. This was the lowest part of our trip and resulted a many issues with getting everything cancelled. The real loss are the photos. Luckily we had put up loads of photos up until Honduras but we lost Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Hence the minimal photos on the blog. We left Costs Rica we a horrible feeling about the place but hopefully we can remember the amazing days we had on the canopy tour as well as the Arenal volcano. We headed off to Colombia with hopes that our luck would improve.

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