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| My Travel Diaries - Monteverde to Chirripo
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So while in Monteverde ( the famous eco resort ) I heard about a huge strangler fig tree on the edges of town. So with a hand drawn map from the hostel owner in hand I walk out to find it. After getting lost and confused in the rainforest I eventually find it, and its amazing. 3 figs in one all around one original tree which has now been strngled to death, leaving a hollow centre which you can climb. I dutifully do and get some amazing views but decide that going the whole way up would be silly, on my own in the middle of the rain forest in flip flopd without a phone! So i climb back down, happy and go to the Butterfly Gardens on the other side of town. And i mean the other side of town. Two steep hills and lots of panting later I get there. Its wonderful with a whole section on different insects and bugs before even getting to the butterfly pupae. We watch these hatch and then take a tub of hatched butterflies to the gardesn to release. It turns out im the only visitor there that day so I get a tour by a very knowledgeable guy who answers all my wierd geeky bug questions happily. I spend hours there watching the mist role in over the cloudforest and then realising it brings rain and getting wet on the way home. They rely on volunteers and I vow that i will go back to learn about bugs and help them. Its an amazing place.
As with the rainy season it rains all afternoon so i spend it socialising and that evening learn how to make bracelets from a travelling artisan. He´s lovely and is happy to teach meall the knots i could ever want to know, and by the next morning I am making them for other people and teaching too.
I also decide that I need a lazy day to catch up on sleep, washing etc. So today thats what I do in preperation for climbing Chirripo in a few days time. I also learn to my dismay that they are building a mall here, of all places. The most green and beautiful area in Costa Rica. The guy in the Butterfly farm put it well, ¨"Thats what people come to MOnteverde for , obviously, a huge American mall!"
The next day after many sad goodbyes I get the 6 am bus to San jose to meet Livvie. Strangely the guy next to me in the queue is from Basingstoke, 40mins up the road! he is also plaaning on climbing Chirripo this weekend, but has heard that the orad is impassible due to the storm. This worries me greatly as we all really want to go. The bus takes me all the way to San Jose but terminates ina really dodgy terminal where I would have to get a taxi to the hostel, costing a bomb. So when it stops practically outside Galileo Hostel I jump and run to get my bag. Only realising once I´ve opened the baggage area that its right at the bottom. Luckily a nice taxi driver comes and helps me find it while others just honk and shout taix which is just infuriating. I get my bag and go to the hostel luckily using my fautly sense of direction just well enough to get me there and checked in. Diego the artisan had given me the name of the place to get threads etc for bracelets and so i go there that afternoon, spending a little too much on seeds that can be sued a beads! The walking back all the way trhough downtown San Jose Ibump into Livvie, literally nearly bump! Which is great as it means we both got here and can now goo off climbing. We eat in the exercise park on the edge of town and swap tales of learning to dive and Monteverde. After some food shopping and lots of eating we have a good nights sleep before getting up early yht hext morning for a bus to Quepos.
hannah is already in the Talamanca mountain range and Livvie and I will go meet her there. So we get the bus to Quepos which takes forever as it has to wait to use all the single lane bridges. We arrive tothe news that we have just missed the bus to San Isidro and that the next on isnt for 4 hours. So we skulk around Quepos, going to an amzing cafe to have an expresso milkshake and then to a mxican bar to sit and wait while we read write and make jewellery. When the bus finally arrives it soon becomes apparent that everyone at the entire bus station has been waiting for this one bus. So in good latin american style livvie stands in the queue while I go to push in at the front! it works and we get seats which is great. this bus journey takes along time but tkaes us all the way down the pcaific coast and through the surf towns to San Isidro, where we knock on the hotel room door to find Hannah!
There is so much more to tell, all about our adventures at 3000m above sea level and milk carts and collapsed bridges but it will have to wait, I´m sorry.(the counter on the internet time is ticking) I cant believe that I leave Costa Rica in 3 days, Ive been here 7 weeks already. No where near prepared for Africa in under a week.
Lots of love to you all as always and I´ll be seeing and talking (no doubt boring death with stories)to some of you soon,
Sarah |
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Posted by sarahwaterfield on 2008-06-11 13:24:07 | Rating: | Views: 34
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