Our Highest Highs and Lowest Lows

Ahoy matey's!! Le Tawsh and le Grant here, writing now from Mal Pais/Santa Teresa (we're right in the middle of the two). This locale is right at the southern tip of the Nicoya Peninsula(north west Costa Rica). It was another long day of travel for the two of us--woke up at 5:00 for a 6:00 bus, and didn't set our bags in our new spot until 4:00. Although, reporting this to you, I realize that many of you would still be willing to trade a long day of travelling through Costa Rica by bus for whatever it is you're doing. Others of you, maybe not. 8^) Since we last wrote, the two of us spent a couple of great days in Monteverde and are excited to tell you all about it.

In a word, Monteverde is marvellous. If you couldn't guess, we spent most of our time walking and exploring, drinking coffee, playing cards and eating. Oh what a life!! On one of the days we were there, we went to one of the three natural reserves in the area. Looking to save a couple bucks and to check out one of the lesser known rainforest reserves, we went for a long day hike in the Children's Eternal Rainforest. It is Costa Rica's largest private reserve, which is completely financed by the fundraising children from across the globe have done. Though we didn't see much in the way of exotic fauna, we still had great weather and the occassional bird sighting. (Still no Scarlet Macaws yet, though! Actually, Scarlet Macaws aren't likely to be spotted in Monteverde. The famous bird of this region is the Resplendent Quetzal, but unfortuately we didn't see this one either.) The day we went to the reserve, we definitely made up for any sedentary days we've spent. Between walking to the site, and hiking while we were there, we were mighty tired by the time we retired. Of course, we perked up a bit with our routine mid-afternoon cup of coffee. Yes, we admit we're fiends, but we know that many of you are too! And we look forward to chatting over a cup when we return, which is coming up all too soon.

Taking a break during our hike.

Cute little mushrooms.

Grant, the professional bird watcher.









Our legs were pretty tired from the two days of walking and hiking and we decided to do something that would take us off our feet completely. The next day we went on a zip line adventure tour called, EXTREMO. It definately was extreme!!! It had thirteen different zip lines that all connected through this canyon/jungle. One was a kilometer long, others were half a kilometer, but each goes in and out of trees, and over canyons with undistrubed views of a beautiful part of Costa Rica. A great suprise was that we were able to do a few of the zip lines together, but for the most part you we flying solo. On one of them, we even saw a person go off the bungee jump, which was crazy to witness from an aerial perspective. One of the most exciting ones we did was called Superman. They harness you so that you are laying parrallel to the ground with your feet strapped up behind you. It was the closest thing to experiencing what it would be like to be a bird. BUT! If that wasn't crazy enough, there was this other part called the Tarzan Swing. So imagine this, you are standing on a platform, with more harnesses and ropes on you than ever before, and you are 100 feet off the ground. You are then told to stand at the edge of the platform (toes hanging off). At this point your concious AND your subconcious are both telling you that this is a bad idea. Before you can do anything about it, one of the guides pushes you off and you plunge all the way down. AFter a second of free fall, you then feel the bungee/ropes take over and you swing up and over to the other side, and then back and forth a few more times...literally like Tarzan through the opening in the trees. If you're like Grant, when you get really high on a swing, it's tempting to jump off it right at the pinnacle. But on a swing like this, when you're stories above the forest canopy, just hoping you don't crash into one of the trees to your right or left--ya right. No jumping off this one (but it's not like we could have if we wanted to either). All you can do is give it a big yell and enjoy the ride. By the end of all this exhiliterating activity, we were definitely tired. We had an adrenaline pumping 3 hours and really never recovered any energy after that, so we ended up calling it an early night (which was ok because we had to catch that 6 am bus the next morning).

On the landing platform. Look at how high we are!

So HAPPY!









As we mentioned, our travel day was extremely tiring but we did not to go in to the details of it. The night before, we both packed and showered in hopes of having a smooth morning. We set our alarms for 4:45am hoping to grab a cup of coffee before hitting the road while making it to the bus stop a little early to get seats. Well, it didn't turn out quite as planned. Around 5:30, right as we were prepping to go up to the communal kitchen to grab coffee and our bag of snacks and supplies, Grant turns to me and says "Oh shit, where's my passport". I obviously had no idea where he put it. We both begin the room search scramble and he continuously huffed and swore under his breath. 5:45. No luck. Around 5:50 he finally finds it hidden in his bathroom bag and swears he has no idea how that got there. No time to celebrate, be mad, argue..nothing...we have to get to the bus. We run and get our snacks/last night's leftovers (we made extra in prep for the travel day) and then proceed to the bus. We got there at EXACTLY 6 am and thankfully the bus was still there with just a few seats left. Phew! Upon arriving at our next destination (back in Puntarenas) we scurried off the bus and into a taxi to catch the ferry on time. After we arrive at the dock, we realized we left our bags of food on the bus. We had a lot of food too: peanuts, a pound of rice, a loaf of bread, a whole pack of starburst, condiments, tea and other things we collected along the way. But more importantly and more devasting, I also lost my hat. For those of you who know, my hat meant a lot to me. So here I was, coffee-less, hat-less and food-less...so as you can all imagine, I was in a great mood.

Grant, "Well, at least they sell plaintain chips everywhere we go!"

The ferry from Puntarenas to Paquera only took an hour and kept us right on course for making it to Mal Pais. Realizing what a long travel day it was turning out to be, we were quite thankful that we actually managed to make it onto that 6:00 am bus. Though we had casualties along the way, we also knew we would be equally frustrated were we in jeopardy of being stuck in Puntarenas again... After the beautiful boat right, and two more bus rides (during one, we learned how sardines must feel) we finally get dropped off at our chosen destination.

To figure out where we would stay, we had done some research online and in our guidebooks, but for whatever reason, we didn't make reservations anywhere. So off we go, in search of one of these places we read about. Passing several hostels and hotels that offered rooms, we were determined to find a decent place to stay at a decent price. But, still feeling pangs of regret at having stayed at Hotel Puerto Viejo (the last destination we chose to stay without reading any reviews), we wanted to make it to somewhere that others had vouched for. We show up at our first choice, Casa Zen, and it was absolutely beautiful. But, we find out that the last room had just been taken, and we were out of luck. HMPH. We kept searching but we couldn't find a place that was clean, and that felt like a comfortable place to unpack our bags for a few days. Exhausted, we stumbled down the road to this place called Atrapasuenos (Dreamcatcher). It is located between the two little beach towns, right up the road from the ocean and nestled in the trees. The room was a bit over what we have been paying but at this point, we were in. Also, when we told the woman who runs the joint that we are budget travellers, she significantly dropped the price and made us a deal we couldn't refuse. (Thought it also worked in our favor that no one else is staying here at the moment.) We are now in the nicest place we have stayed so far and we cannot be more happy.

After we unpacked, we headed across the street to the supermarket and the surf shop. We now have ourselves locked and loaded for surfing/eating/surfing/eating/surfing/drinking/sleeping/repeat.

Our things! (We love our cute, new hotel)






Miss you all, love you mucho,

Natasha and Grant