This morning began with a taxi-boat-taxi ride from our hotel in La Fortuna, across man-made Lake Arenal and then a 1.5 hour shuttle ride bumping along between 20-30 km/h to Monteverde. Have I mentioned the roads in Costa Rica? The majority between tourist destinations are narrow dirt roads with a maximum speed limit of 40 km/h (25 mph). It doesn't matter how fancy a hotel one stays in, tourist transportation is the great equalizer. Both the hostel guest and the 5 star hotel guest are subjugated to bumpy, dirt-road rides, squished to capacity within a shuttle van, with intermittent AC.
We arrived at
Hotel de Montana at noon. From our balconies, we had a beautiful view of distant Nicoya Bay. After a quick pizza lunch, we caught the
Selvatura shuttle to ziplining. While in Hawaii, one employee died and another was critically injured on a zipline. Since then, I have been adamant against trying them. However, last minute, I decided that I should zipline at least once, since we were in Costa Rica. It was terrifying! After the instructor rode tandem with me on one of the 13 cables, I felt a little more comfortable. The longest cable was 1 km (0.62 miles) long! Cost of ziplining was $45/person. For those less inclined toward extreme activities, there is a hanging bridges walking tour for $30/person.
After dinner that evening, we went on a Night Hike with Ficus Trails. During our hike, we saw an
agouti (the second largest rodent in Costa Rica), an
Emerald Toucanet, a
Yiguirro (Costa Rica's national bird because it's song predicts the rainy season.), an
olingo and a
two-toed sloth. Cost of $23/person.
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