Nov 11-  37,987 steps….in 3 hours? 

No? Felt like it, I don’t have a counter thingy, but there were a lot of up/downs and all arounds on those trails.  We decided to go for a walk through Monteverde because we are here, and it is amazing to see.  It was raining a bit when we woke up; we hit up breakfast then decided to get out by 9am to see some of the Cloud Forest.  The thought of a “hike” does not appeal to us, but we can’t sit inside the hostel on our last day just because it is raining.  We put our pants on and grabbed our raincoats, I took the waterproof bag as well.  It was a $12 taxi to get to the reserve, and $20 each to get in.  They have several paths, they ask how long you want to hike for and suggest routes. Why does it look like we picked the longest route though…..we said 2 hours, knowing it would take us longer.  It’s not because we are out of shape, (kinda), but because we want to just take our time and maybe see stuff? Whats the point of just walking the path with your head down and not stopping every now and then to see if you can spot something?  We noticed a lot of people just hurrying along the path and not even look around at this insane forest.  It started raining good when we arrived and didn’t really let up, but there was something refreshing about walking through the cloud forest in the rain; it kept us cool after doing all those stairs. EVERYTHING IS SOOOOO GREEN!

We didn’t see much because of the weather, but we did see more howler monkeys in the trees above. We were soaked after our 3 hour walk, but I’m glad we did it. We got a taxi back to the hostel so we could put dry clothes on, then we went across the street to a small soda for some lunch. (Burrito and fried chicken)

We were thinking about maybe doing an evening hike as the night walks are supposed to be really cool with the nocturnal animals/insects. Our legs had had enough and the rain didn’t end up stopping so we decided to just put warm clothes on and do some work. We skipped dinner as we had a big lunch, but I needed to get some cash out for our driver in the morning. The rain let up a bit so we wandered a few blocks to the store with the Scotiabank machine, only it was out of money. They had a BCR atm across the st but it was broken. The only other bank was the one that hates my cards, Banco Nationale. We tried it again anyways and NO, didn’t work. The shuttle company wants cash but that ain’t happening, so we called and they said we could go to their office in the morning to pay, or find a bank machine along our route. PERFECT!

We came back to chill in the common area, and ended up chatting with a Father/Son who were also going to do the night walk but were skipping it due to rain. We talked for a bit then we headed to bed, our driver was picking us up at 8am to continue our journey. Next stop, Playa Samara!

Ooo about that. We did an itinerary change after speaking with a few people. We had heard from more than one person that Santa Teresa was not the safest area, people’s belongings were being stolen during the day on the beach and there had been a few more incidents that were more violent. So we decided to switch that stop to Montezuma, since we are leaving from that beach by taxi boat. We knew Tamarindo was a touristy/party town, but it is also expensive. A few travellers had come from there and said it was way too loud/Americanized and like Miami Beach. So thats not really our scene, we switched it to Playa Samara which is a smaller surf beach town, comparable to Puerto Viejo which we loved for it’s laid back vibe. Soooooo that is where we stand now, headed to Samara for 4 nights and Montezuma for 3. Wait till you see the Airbnb I got us. HOOOOOOOO WEEEEEEEEEE