this is the ferry...

.... and then second "bus" ride which was in an oversized mini van that traversed over dirt roads, through beautiful hillsides and farm land. Our van was packed with 10 tourists, all of which were from the U.S. west coast. That's the cool thing about being in a foreign country - if you find an American or someone who speaks English, you quickly become very close friends. And you often hear of U.S. West Coasters vacationing in Central America.

St. Elena - Monteverde

St. Elena/Monteverde, home to the country's only cloud reserve, as well as home to biological reserves and jungle canopy tours. St. Elena is very small - dirt roads where there aren't brick roads, more of a place for a day trip while en route to the Nicoya Peninsula on the western coast of the country.

yikes, dust storm!

We spent the night at a bed and breakfast - a local woman owned this big U-shaped building in the hills, out of town, complete with an information center, dining room and decent bedrooms. She made us dinner for $5 - which included fried plantains and cheese, a vegetarian dinner of rice, beans and a plantain-based sauce, then an awesome bread pudding-type dessert. Afterwards, she hooked us up with her friend, Johnny, who gives night hikes on a private reserve nearby. We saw a female spider snatch her dinner from her web, plus sleeping toucans, turkey vultures, butterflies, lizards and tarantulas. We were amazed at all the stars we saw and the lightning storm was taking place at the same time.

The Jungle Tour

The big highlight of Monteverde was the "Selventura" (combination of the Latin American words "Jungle" and "Adventure") Canopy Tour - basically, zip line through the jungle.

Beth and I feared taking any sort of camera on our adventura (I really shouldn't have even worn my glasses), so this is our only picture that shows evidence that we swung through the canopy tops of Costa Rica. Really, I swear. We did do this.

While no pictures from our birds-eye view, Rebekah, who opted to do the suspension bridge walk instead, got these great pictures of the tree tops of the jungle, so you can get an idea of what we saw on our tour. Just replace the suspension bridge with a zip line, stretching across the canopy, just like the bridge, to the other side. That is what we zipped through. Try about, oh, I don't know, 500 feet off the ground? Something insane like that. It was probably more like 1,000 feet. I'm terrible at numbers. Anyway, we did some rope repelling and jumped off a 100-foot tall platform with "Tarzan" rope, too. Besides my adrenaline rushes and trying to keep my heart in my chest, I thought about how certain mountain biking and rock climbing boys I know would have enjoyed this just as immensely. Total adrenaline rush.

Hummingbirds like to hang out and socialize.

We had plans to spend two days in the area but we discovered that in order stay on schedule for the week (we had a plane to catch a few days later) we had to take a 6 a.m. bus to Puntereanas the next morning, from where we would take a bus back to San Jose to catch our plane.

So early Tuesday morning, a 5:45 a.m. bus picks us up - not just any bus - an old school bus painted in white, gold, red and green with live salsa music blaring from small speakers. We were the first passengers, thinking this would be an easy ride, but an hour later, at the above bus stop, our bus was packed with basically all the tourists we had hung out with the day before on the canopy tour. The bus driver took the back roads (the only road) though cloud reserve and farm hills, stopping along the way to chat with residents, drop locals off, pick up locals - turns out our bus was not only for tourists to get from one place to another, but a way for locals to get from the country to the "city" that was Puntarenas. One of the guys who was a guide on the canopy tour was on the bus with his pregnant girlfriend, who sat next to Rebekah. While the ride was only three hours, it was far worse than any four or five hour bus ride we had taken previously during the trip. Culture assimilation - one of the goals of the trip. Definitely achieved.

Bright eyed at 5:45 a.m.

Next... Puntarenas/Paqurea