Edited by Rocky Grove, Tuesday, 4 Sept 2012, 04:04
I hired a car for my visit to the Monteverde cloud forests. Costa Rica is VERY hot on speeding with hidden cameras and fines starting at $600!! I have never heard anything like that. The speeds are also low, on motorways, occasionally you can go at 100kph, mostly at 80. Other roads vary from 80 down to 25kph, understandably with the fines, most people stick to the limit! $600 is a third more than the average monthly wage.
I started on the toll road from San Jose to the coast, a weird road, part motorway part two way with four toll plazas - all very cheap, less than a £1 but a strange amount like 490 Colones which involves lots of change.
When I arrived at the Pacific coast, after passing through European type farm land, I followed the Pan American Highway - a crowded two lane road - before heading into the mountains to Monteverde - half of this latter road being untarmaced.
I had been told the trip would take over four hours, but despite sticking strictly to the limit, I arrived at lunch time. The village of Santa Elena is a type back packer resort, pretty relaxed, with everything geared to exploring the region. The climate is also pleasant with a high of about 24 degrees, some rain but it seems mostly light
As I was so early I took a tour of a local plantation where they grow coffee, cocao (chocolate), sugar cane and bananas. It was a really interesting visit. The guide grabbed a pair of binoculars and interrupted his talk to show us a pair of sloths and a couple of toucans - typical of nature loving Tican's.
The reason for the diversification of the crops is due to the price of coffee, the main crop, is so dependent on the weather, in recent years the price of a sack has varied from $50 to $4000!! The best quality coffee is entirely hand picked and processed locally. We saw the plants, how they were gathered, dried, roasted and ground - we also had a chance to try out various operations and had ample opportunity to try out the products we created. This included sugar syrup flavoured with a lemon, chocolate pieces of various types, chocolate coated pieces of banana, pineapple & mandarin, cocao hand cream, drinking chocolate and of course fresh coffee. It was by far the best tour I have ever had of such a processing situation.
Sunday was adrenalin day! I had hoped to do some zip wiring in Monteverde as this is where it all started. The official site states: "Get your heart pounding by taking a zip line ride through the Cloud forest canopy... you'll whizz along 1.7 miles of cables slung between towering trees. To get to the zip line, you'll ride the Sky Tram (a cable car) which offers a panoramic views of Monteverde hills and Nicoya gulf."
I was too busy hanging on to take photos! However if you want to look there is a video on YouTube of someone on the longest wire, it seems no different to my experience.
It was a very strange feeling zipping up to 100 metres above the trees hanging from a cable, surprisingly I only felt slightly concerned when I started to twist - in case I spun. The height didn't bother me despite finding getting over the edge of abseiling terrifying! There were 10 cables in all varying in length from 70 to 750 metres (nearly half a mile) and in height from 38 - 100 metres. None of them took more than a minute to traverse at speeds of up to 45 mph. The only discomfort I felt was when on three of the wires we had to go two at a time, when I was in the rear I had to wrap my legs round the guy in front which strained my bad knee!
I must admit after the first two I nearly chickened out but am really glad I completed the whole ride. I didn't feel any real strain but was amused that I found my arms were really tired when trying to cut up my lunch!!
Before I left the reserve I went looking for hummingbirds where they had put out some attractive nectar, I didn't get a good picture because of the speed of their wings which flap at an incredible 25 beats per second!
I finished an interesting day with a night nature walk as most of the animals are nocturnal. We first went into a banana plantation and found a white-nosed coati searching for its favourite food. When we entered the cloud forest we immediately found a baby two toed sloth hanging from a tree. After this we could just see a blue crowned motmot asleep in a tree, it reminded me of a parrot fish because it seemed completely oblivious to the lights playing on it.
I am glad we didn't get too close to the next discovery, a venomous side striped palm pit viper high up in a tree closely watching us but not moving closer, thankfully. We heard the hooting of an owl long before we found a bare-shanked Screech Owl, it was too high for a photo but you could clearly see it continuing to hoot. Unfortunately we missed an armadillo which another group found but saw an adult sloth quite close to us, many butterflies, moths, spiders and other insects and finally a large tarantula spider peering out of its hole at us.
Monteverde is certainly a fascinating place.
On my last full day in Costa Rica I drove back down to the humid lowlands and the second city of Liberia. The road on which I started out was awful, full of deep pot holes. I was doing well to go at 20kph! If my map and SatNav had not confirmed I was on the correct, main, road out of town, I would have turned back. After about 10km it eased to a normal gravel road on which you could do 30 - 40 kph and eventually after some 25 km, a tarmacked road which led back to the Trans Americano. As busy as every, massive US built trucks thundering along, mostly just on the speed limit but when they hit a hill they slowed to maybe 20 or 30. It was a windy two track road, so overtaking wasn't easy!
I took an interesting diversion to a volcanic area with hot springs and mud baths. The thermal springs are being used for geothermic energy and there were large plants and pipes in evidence. I drove through an area where large boulders were thrown all over the fields just like pebbles, thrown there the last time Volcano Miravalles erupted. There has been no pyroclastic activity for millions of years but it's still active as evidenced by the steam and heat. I'm not sure I'd like to live nearby!
It was strange, when I returned to the Trans Americano at around 4pm, it was fairly quiet with only light traffic. I am staying at a modern hotel surrounded by American food outlets and have booked a ticket on the 9am bus for Managua which conveniently stops right outside!
Costa Rica - up into the Cloud Forests
I hired a car for my visit to the Monteverde cloud forests. Costa Rica is VERY hot on speeding with hidden cameras and fines starting at $600!! I have never heard anything like that. The speeds are also low, on motorways, occasionally you can go at 100kph, mostly at 80. Other roads vary from 80 down to 25kph, understandably with the fines, most people stick to the limit! $600 is a third more than the average monthly wage.
I started on the toll road from San Jose to the coast, a weird road, part motorway part two way with four toll plazas - all very cheap, less than a £1 but a strange amount like 490 Colones which involves lots of change.
When I arrived at the Pacific coast, after passing through European type farm land, I followed the Pan American Highway - a crowded two lane road - before heading into the mountains to Monteverde - half of this latter road being untarmaced.
I had been told the trip would take over four hours, but despite sticking strictly to the limit, I arrived at lunch time. The village of Santa Elena is a type back packer resort, pretty relaxed, with everything geared to exploring the region. The climate is also pleasant with a high of about 24 degrees, some rain but it seems mostly light
As I was so early I took a tour of a local plantation where they grow coffee, cocao (chocolate), sugar cane and bananas. It was a really interesting visit. The guide grabbed a pair of binoculars and interrupted his talk to show us a pair of sloths and a couple of toucans - typical of nature loving Tican's.
The reason for the diversification of the crops is due to the price of coffee, the main crop, is so dependent on the weather, in recent years the price of a sack has varied from $50 to $4000!! The best quality coffee is entirely hand picked and processed locally. We saw the plants, how they were gathered, dried, roasted and ground - we also had a chance to try out various operations and had ample opportunity to try out the products we created. This included sugar syrup flavoured with a lemon, chocolate pieces of various types, chocolate coated pieces of banana, pineapple & mandarin, cocao hand cream, drinking chocolate and of course fresh coffee. It was by far the best tour I have ever had of such a processing situation.
Sunday was adrenalin day! I had hoped to do some zip wiring in Monteverde as this is where it all started. The official site states: "Get your heart pounding by taking a zip line ride through the Cloud forest canopy... you'll whizz along 1.7 miles of cables slung between towering trees. To get to the zip line, you'll ride the Sky Tram (a cable car) which offers a panoramic views of Monteverde hills and Nicoya gulf."
I was too busy hanging on to take photos! However if you want to look there is a video on YouTube of someone on the longest wire, it seems no different to my experience.
It was a very strange feeling zipping up to 100 metres above the trees hanging from a cable, surprisingly I only felt slightly concerned when I started to twist - in case I spun. The height didn't bother me despite finding getting over the edge of abseiling terrifying! There were 10 cables in all varying in length from 70 to 750 metres (nearly half a mile) and in height from 38 - 100 metres. None of them took more than a minute to traverse at speeds of up to 45 mph. The only discomfort I felt was when on three of the wires we had to go two at a time, when I was in the rear I had to wrap my legs round the guy in front which strained my bad knee!
I must admit after the first two I nearly chickened out but am really glad I completed the whole ride. I didn't feel any real strain but was amused that I found my arms were really tired when trying to cut up my lunch!!
Before I left the reserve I went looking for hummingbirds where they had put out some attractive nectar, I didn't get a good picture because of the speed of their wings which flap at an incredible 25 beats per second!
I finished an interesting day with a night nature walk as most of the animals are nocturnal. We first went into a banana plantation and found a white-nosed coati searching for its favourite food. When we entered the cloud forest we immediately found a baby two toed sloth hanging from a tree. After this we could just see a blue crowned motmot asleep in a tree, it reminded me of a parrot fish because it seemed completely oblivious to the lights playing on it.
I am glad we didn't get too close to the next discovery, a venomous side striped palm pit viper high up in a tree closely watching us but not moving closer, thankfully. We heard the hooting of an owl long before we found a bare-shanked Screech Owl, it was too high for a photo but you could clearly see it continuing to hoot. Unfortunately we missed an armadillo which another group found but saw an adult sloth quite close to us, many butterflies, moths, spiders and other insects and finally a large tarantula spider peering out of its hole at us.
Monteverde is certainly a fascinating place.
On my last full day in Costa Rica I drove back down to the humid lowlands and the second city of Liberia. The road on which I started out was awful, full of deep pot holes. I was doing well to go at 20kph! If my map and SatNav had not confirmed I was on the correct, main, road out of town, I would have turned back. After about 10km it eased to a normal gravel road on which you could do 30 - 40 kph and eventually after some 25 km, a tarmacked road which led back to the Trans Americano. As busy as every, massive US built trucks thundering along, mostly just on the speed limit but when they hit a hill they slowed to maybe 20 or 30. It was a windy two track road, so overtaking wasn't easy!
I took an interesting diversion to a volcanic area with hot springs and mud baths. The thermal springs are being used for geothermic energy and there were large plants and pipes in evidence. I drove through an area where large boulders were thrown all over the fields just like pebbles, thrown there the last time Volcano Miravalles erupted. There has been no pyroclastic activity for millions of years but it's still active as evidenced by the steam and heat. I'm not sure I'd like to live nearby!
It was strange, when I returned to the Trans Americano at around 4pm, it was fairly quiet with only light traffic. I am staying at a modern hotel surrounded by American food outlets and have booked a ticket on the 9am bus for Managua which conveniently stops right outside!
Photos can be seen here