Monteverde!

Last Thursday afternoon, a few of us rushed out of our last classes of the day to head to the Monteverde bus station to spend our second to last weekend enjoying the cloud forests of Costa Rica. The bus ride was about 5 hours, and fairly uneventful. We didn't actually know which stop we were supposed to get off at, and eventually the road turned into a winding dirt road heading up a mountain in the dark. Eventually we made it to our stop, Santa Elena, and after asking a handful of people for directions we made it to our hostel. One of the highlights of the hostel is the owner's puppy, Comanche (which is the name of a Native American tribe in Texas?). Comanche is a 4 month old French poodle, and absolutely adorable. He's young enough that he's still extremely playful and clumsy, so we had a blast playing with him the whole weekend.

In the morning, we explored the town a little bit and bought groceries for the next couple of days (tortillas, pepper jack cheese that is neither spicy nor cheese-like, and refried beans). After lunch we were picked up from the hostel by our tour company (Selvatura) and made our way farther up the mountain and into the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve. We were fitted with harnesses and helmets and led to a sort of training zip-line where a guide showed us the correct position and explained how to brake (this tutorial took all of about 4 minutes). We were on the lines before we knew it, although it took a few lines before we really got comfortable with the whole process. The tour was incredible, with lines running both through the cloud forest and above it.

Towards the end of the tour, we all tried the famous Tarzan swing. Basically you stand at the top of a platform, the guides push you, and off you go! They all told us that we weren't allowed to scream, or else we would have to stay in the reserve forever. I think every single one of us broke that rule. As some of the other people in our group were finishing the Tarzan swing, someone spotted a nearby tarantula. It's torso was about the size of my palm with legs about the size of my fingers. A guide told us it wasn't dangerous, but that we probably shouldn't touch it either. Our last line of the tour was over 3000 feet long, with almost all of it above the cloud forest canopy. It was so long that we had to go in pairs to give ourselves enough weight to get all the way across. We had great weather for the whole tour, with clouds starting to come in towards the end. By the time we got to this last line, it was starting to lightly drizzle (called "pelo de gato" here, meaning "cat hair" - a slightly heavier drizzle is called "frijol" which means "bean," and then I guess it just becomes rain) and we were going directly through the clouds. It was an incredible way to end the tour. We headed back to our hostel and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening playing cards, pick up sticks, and jenga with endless entertainment from Comanche. And then saw a sloth!! The hostel owner told us to come look at a sloth, but we all thought he was talking about a cartoon sloth painted on a mural in the lobby. He eventually got us to all go outside to see a giant sloth wandering around on the power lines right in front of the hostel! It was dark so we weren't able to get a great view, but it was still pretty impressive to see one so close to the center of town.

The next day we wandered the town in search of a few last souvenirs and got some delicious ice cream. Supposedly Monteverde and Santa Elena have the best ice cream in all of Costa Rica because the milk they use is so fresh. Eventually we loaded onto a bus headed for San Jose, and we drove down from the mountain at the perfect time of day to see one of the most beautiful sunsets. I didn't have a great view from my seat on the bus, but we also glimpsed a few rainbows on the way down. I think the official rainbow count was 7 or 8.

All in all the trip was a success, but I think we were all a little distracted by the thought of how soon the program is ending. Yesterday we turned in our final projects for Literature (and made paper hand turkeys to put up in ACM!), tomorrow will be our last Literature class, Thursday is our last class for Biodiversity (and the famous ACM Thanksgiving lunch!), we'll spend our last weekend at Manuel Antonio, and then we'll really start counting down the days. Next week will be filled with final presentations, exams, and evaluations and a goodbye lunch with all of the students, staff, and families. It's getting harder and harder to think about saying goodbye to everyone, but at the same time I'm getting more and more ready to be back in my own house in just 11 days!