Monkeys, Tarantulas y High Altitudes

We have been busy since the last post! Last night, we participated in a Night Tour through the rain forest. Despite hopes of seeing some of the bigger nocturnal animals in Monteverde, we had to settle for a couple of sloths, a tarantula, cockroaches and ants. ¡Que Lastima! The trip was fun nonetheless and we went home confident in our ability to conquer the rainforest in sunlight as well as in darkness.

This morning we had a bit of time to waste before leaving for Monteverde, so we had a slow enjoyable breakfast and a failed attempt at using pay phones in Costa Rica. The bus to Monteverde picked us up at 11:20 to meet up with our zip line group at 11:30 to head to the top of the rain forest. It was incredible. Danny and I both are terrified of heights, so we are convinced that, after today, the three of us are the bravest people you know. Really, we are. The zip lines were so much fun and so fast and so long and so secure feeling. The hiking and the platforms...well, we can tell you about how "safe" we felt on those at a later date.

Terrell and I went on a Sky Walk after the zip line tour where we walked on about 6 or 7 hanging bridges throughout the rain forest. The views were amazing and our pictures will never do justice to the beauty or the heights of those bridges. We saw about 6 monkeys during our walk. Pretty darn cool. The picture of the tower with the spiral staircase is the beginning of the sky walk and the zip line tour. That tower is pretty low compared to the other stuff we did. At one point, we were 40 plus stories above ground!



Seriously, folks, to get back to the zip line portion of this entry, you really need to do this before you die. It is so cool and the gliding down wires attached only to a carabiner is a lot less scary than you would think. Words in a blog can´t do it justice, so just be sure to talk to one of us about it when we get back...we´ll have plenty to say about it.



I´m jumping around a bit here, but I want to mention our hotel here in Santa Elena before I forget. It has a tree growing in the middle of it. A tree...in the center of the hotel/cafe/internet cafe. Our rooms are small, but very comfortable and there is a tree growing in the middle of the hotel. Did I mention the tree in our hotel?

We are exhausted from our adventurous exploits and very ready to head to the coast for some true vacation relaxation. (I´ve had more cardio in the last 24 hour than in the last year...no joke). We leave around 9am tomorrow to head to the Nicoya Penninsula and everyone says that the sun is out and the rain is staying away on that side of the country, so it looks like we are moving in the right direction!

¡Pura Vida!