Back to Costa Rica And New York, March 2009
27th February to 1st March - San José And Puerto Viejo
2-7th March - Rara Avis And La Fortuna
7-11th March - Monteverde And Quepos/
14th March - New York
Next it was off to Monteverde and the Cloud Forest, which would have been better named Rain Forest - though as you can't get rain without clouds I suppose it's accurate. After a few hours horse riding through the woods, we went to our ranch, where our room was so damp there was moss growing inside the light fitting! Over the next few days we toured the Cloud Forest, butterfly garden and coffee plantation, where I made myself a bit jittery by taking full advantage of their offer of unlimited coffee. We finished off with a night walk in the forest, where we saw, amongst other things, a boa constrictor lurking high in the trees. We also stumbled across an Orange Kneed Tarantula in our path, and found that in real life they're actually quite cute and cuddly - well I think so anyway.
We then travelled over the Rio Tarcoles river, teeming with crocodiles that seemed to be waiting for tourists to stumble over the disturbingly short bridge wall, and on to Quepos. In Quepos we finally saw the sun, and like all good British, were burnt to a crisp within 24 hours. We spent two days playing in Pacific waves, had a barbecue on the beach, and took a sightseeing / dolphin watching / drinking / snorkelling / grill eating trip on a catamaran, where we even saw a humpback whale. Then with more apprehension than sadness, we headed back to San José to go home.