| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15 | Day 16 |
| Costa Rica Honeymoon, Fall 2000: Monteverde, Day 13
|
|
Saturday, November 4, 2000: On the road to Monteverde
No 3 a.m. wake-up call, so apparently, there was no clear view of the volcano last night. That's too bad. My one glimpse (through sleep-hooded eyes) now seems like a dream...but we'll count ourselves lucky to have at least seen that much, which is more than many other volcano-watchers got (at least based on overheard conversations at breakfast). After another bounteous breakfast feast, we packed our gear, checked out, and hit the road to Monteverde.
Now, we'd heard umpteen stories about how horrendous the roads to Monteverde were. And while the road to Arenal hadn't been exactly stellar, it wasn't horrendous, either; so we figured the stories had to be greatly exaggerated. Not so. The roads were horrible. On a scale of 1 to 10, they ranked about a 2. They'd have been a 1 if it was raining hard; luckily, it only drizzled for most of our ride. We heard that the Quakers keep them that way on purpose, both because that's just the way they do things and because it helps limit the swarms of tourists. Only the brave make it this far...thank God for our big truck! Our Miata back home would've fallen to pieces after the first mile.
It was a ton of fun! We decided to overlook the discomfort and treat the whole drive as a badly designed Disneyland ride. "See that giant pothole there? That's from the Indiana Jones ride! And that steep muddy hill is like Space Mountain!" I actually drove the entire way, despite my original evil plan of making Dave take the wheel, which worked out OK...more things for me to hold on to (I had a steering wheel to grab, Dave just got to hit his head on the ceiling). We experimented with seeing how long we could keep the 4Runner in two-wheel drive without getting stuck. We tested my theory that the faster you go, the less bumpy the ride (the verdict: it works, although it makes the car rattle rather alarmingly). We marveled at the lush scenery, and the ranches populated with cows, goats, chicken, and horses scattered around us. Occasionally, those same cows would wander into the road and settle in, creating a bovine roadblock oblivious to tooting horns.
That evening we decided to join a night hike in the Monteverde Reserve, but despite assurances from our hotel that it ran every night at 7 p.m., we sat in an empty parking lot at the Reserve until past 7:30 without seeing a sign of life. It was dark, very quiet, and a little creepy (visions of "Friday the 13th" movies were running through my head), so we finally gave up and headed back to the hotel. No TV here (poor Dave), but we played chess in the lobby by a warm fire and had an early night.
|
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15 | Day 16 |
Monteverde is an incredibly ecologically diverse area up in the central-mountain area of San Jose. It was originally populated by random farmers, but early this century a group of Quakers moved up here, settled the town of Santa Elena (current population: about 4,000), and made dairy farming a major industry; the cheese here is famous throughout the country. The scenery was truly breathtaking. Multiple shades of verdant green, rolling hills, thick forests, coffee fields climbing up steep inclines, and here and there a flock of wild parrots flying by. So we were surrounded by loveliness...on the sides. Below us (more specifically, under our tires) was a different matter.
We battled potholes wider than our car, rocks in the middle of the road, muddy inclines that could have been impassible on very wet days, stubborn livestock, and a total and utter lack of signage. At one point, after taking a left fork in the dirt road and wondering--for the next 40 minutes--if we'd chosen correctly, we flagged down a car going in the opposite direction to ask them if they'd just come from Monteverde. (Luckily, they had. Whew! We were going the right way.) Our car jounced, bounced, rattled, and rolled.
It took us about three and a half hours to arrive, although we calculated the distance between Arenal and Monteverde as only about 90 kilometers (maybe even only 40, as the crow flies, but we had to drive around the lake; there's no direct route). We'd actually looked into an option at our Arenal hotel for doing the trip via jeep/boat/horseback, while a hired guide drove our car for us; it would've taken three hours or so, but would've been an interesting trek. However, with the rain, I opted out...I figured better to be boring and dry, than adventurous, completely soggy, and miserable. (Plus, it wasn't exactly cheap, something like $110 per person.)
We stopped at the local cheese factory on the way, where Dave tried a Monteverde milkshake (and loved it), while I settled for some incredibly rich ice cream. It then took us a while to actually find our hotel, once we arrived (again, no signs anywhere, and the hotels here don't have street addresses...heck, they hardly have streets) and once we finally got here we were ill-tempered, tired, and starving. Happily, the hotel is again excellent...the rooms have amazing picture windows that look out over the rainforest, and there are hiking trails galore and beautiful gardens out back. The owners of the hotel are very ecologically minded; water is solar-heated, towels are washed only on request, and the environmental impact of the gardens/buildings/etc. is supposedly minimal.
We had dinner at a place we heard about on a Monteverde Web bulletin board, the Restaurant De Lucia -- the waiter actually brings raw cuts of meat to your table (beef, sea bass, chicken, sausage) and you decide which one you want; they then bring it back, cooked to perfection in whatever style the chef has chosen for the night. David had what he calls, hands down, the best steak in his life...and my chicken was absolutely delicious. We couldn't believe it -- gourmet meals in the middle of the most remote countryside you can imagine. We also enjoyed an amazing Chilean burgundy with it -- to die
for! Plus guacamole, rice, black beans, hot peppers, and tortillas for appetizers...all for $15 per person, including everything. Unreal!!! (OK, enough about the food, but Dave made me promise to record how incredible it was for posterity's sake.)