We made it to Costa Rica! After a very long, boring morning in the airport and a long, boring flight we landed in San Jose, Costa Rica! We made it through customs and found our way to the old Puntarenas bus station where we bought our tickets to our final destination in Costa Rica, Monteverde- The Cloud Forest.
Not to brag or anything, but I am pretty much fluent in Spanish by now, I had a whole conversation in Spanish and successfully bought bus tickets from San Jose to Monteverde. Allow me to recap this glorious conversation:
Me: “Hola, necessito dos…. Como se dice… boletas para el autobus de Monteverde por favor”
Man: “Si, boletas para Monteverde… para hoy?”
Me: “Si”
Man: “A dos y medio?”
Me: “Si”
Man: “dos?”
Me: “Si”
(Man hands me tickets, I hand him money, he hands me change)
Me: “Gracias”
Man: “Me gusto”
See? A whole conversation, including a question and answer session!!
Proof of successful Spanish conversation
Bus station in San Jose
The bus ride to Monteverde itself was not quite as glorious. It was 4 ½ hours long and very cramped. Allow me to recap this less than glorious but exceptionally beautiful experience. The following takes place between 2:30pm and 7pm: (Jack Bauer Voice)
2:30-3:45: Bus ride through San Jose- an impoverished but industrial looking city in the base of some really beautiful mountains, everything is incredibly green and lush looking. Bus ride is uneventful but the scenery is very worthwhile and enjoyable.
3:45- 4:15: No report to give. I took a nap.
4:15- 5:00: I awake with the unpleasant sensation of unpopped ears on a steep climb (where are the spicy peppers and chocolate ice cream when you need them?!?!). I pop my ears and realize we are indeed climbing, and its pouring rain off and on. There is a small guardrail over what is occasionally a long drop off. Between the rain and the steep drop-offs, the drive is starting to get interesting!
5:00-5:15: We stop for a 15 minute break and use the restrooms. Which cost 300 colones (and they don’t give you toilet paper until you pay!) unless you buy something in the store.
5:15-5:45: We enjoy our overpriced chips, the rain and more steep drop-offs. We are getting into the cloud forest, and it is spectacular- fluffy, white, clouds nesting among the green mountains, and it seems to go on forever!
5:45-7:00 I spot a sign alerting us to the fact that our destination, Monteverde, is 21 kilometers away. After some quick math I think to myself “21km? But we still have more than an hour… how can it take more than an hour to go 21km?” And then, we turn onto a dirt road, barely wide enough for our bus and another, small car to get through. In the rain. With steep drop-offs. And the guardrails have all but disappeared. Just when we thought it couldn’t get more interesting, it starts to get dark and a dense fog rolls in-or maybe we drove into a cloud- either way, we couldn’t see much out the windows, and barely 10 feet in front of the bus. The only thing more terrifying than looking down at the steep drop off was looking down and only seeing clouds, with no idea how steep the drop off is. As we are creeping our way up this tiny dirt road, we come across another bus going down the mountain! Both buses come to a standstill- the drivers start yelling at each other. I was sitting next to the window and looking out, I didn’t see a whole lot of road between our bus and the drop off. I guess our bus driver lost the argument, because then we started rolling backwards to let the other bus pass. They barely squeezed past each other, I held my breath the entire time, hoping we wouldn’t get bumped and go tumbling over the side! We had a few more close calls, but nothing as scary as meeting that other bus. We eventually drove back down and out of the cloud fog and into the tiny town of Monteverde and its neighbor, Santa Elena.
The Monteverde/Santa Elena metropolis is a bustling place of about 7,000 people at an altitude of about 1,200 meters (about 4,000 ft). It gets dark by around 6pm here, but is light by 5am. The place we are staying is about a half hour walk from the town of Santa Elena and is absolutely adorable! Beth and Manolo, the owners, picked us up at the bus station and took us to pick up a pizza and stop by the grocery store for a few supplies. They left us freshly baked banana bread, a bowl of fruit, Costa Rican coffee and fresh squeezed juice in our cabina! They are incredibly sweet and very willing to offer any advice on where to eat, which attractions are locally owned (we were shocked to learn the Mega Super Grocery Store is actually owned by Walmart-super lame) the best local hiking, or even act as translators- not that we need it, please see above. It has been a long and exhausting day, but now that we are “home” it feels completely worth it and we are looking forward to our month here in the cloud forest!
Our cabina in CR
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