The next day it was time to travel to our next stop in the itinerary, monteverde (green mountain). the way to monteverde will be a diverse transport experience as we ride on a boat across Lake Arenal to ride horses and then back in a van to bump ourselves up the unpaved roads to Monteverde.

The roads to Monteverde are unpaved due to the Quaker settlement’s attempts to keep tourists out of the forest preserves. The Quetzal, a famous parriot, is found in these reserves and everyone and their brother wants a photo of one. We are part of that group since we got a few the next day. To this day, they are still fighting to keep the roads unpaved so that huge buses won’t transport tons of people up there.

Anyways, we packed our stuff, took a van to the lake and boarded a small transport boat

to take us to the other side of the lake where horses were waiting to take us through the forest. the lake is quite large and was created by a huge dam that powers some of nicarauga and most of costa rica. the volcano was huge next to the lake and we could see most of it except for the little shy top part that has constant cloud cover.

i thought i saw a misty part on the side of the volcano that would suggest a lava flow.

the lake was very low by about ten feet despite the large amount of rain that we had experienced so far in this area. you could see the exposed layers of land that would usually be underwater.

Our backpacks stayed in the boat as we walked toward the horses. the guides paired us with a horse based on size, weight, and experience. John got a young, wild stallion (the way he likes em) named tequila. both john and the horse were ready for the rodeo as he did a yeehaw when he got on it

. dee got a tame horse named sun and mine was a late starter named regalo.

the trail was a rocky road through the forest where we climbed hills, avoided branches and each other since the horses had poor steering, and crossed streams * WPG2 CANNOT LOCATE GALLERY2 ITEM ID 5443 *where the horseys would drink some water. at one point, we deviated from the path to go next to the lake where an old cemetery was uncovered due to the low lake level. you can see a cross on one of the graves.

there wasn’t a year on any of the tombstones only a month (april) so we didn’t know how old the graves are. the guides and blaine did another plug of eco-awareness cause of the lake level.

i was super annoyed at the beginning of the ride since my horse was so slow. according to the guides, you make a kissing sound to get the horse to go faster. however, i think the horse was stubborn and didn’t want to move. i was kissing until my mouth hurt. i was slapping it and moving the reigns, but i got nothing. sometimes the horse would start running and then stop immediately. at one point, the guide at the end of the line was in front of me. dee and john were at the front of the line so it was boring for me and i was ready to start walking.

we stopped for pineapple where dee said she was hooting and hollering and slapping and kissing up a storm to get that horse to move. she said you had to get the surrounding horses to move to get your horse to move. gotcha! well, dee wanted something wilder and had noticed another woman’s horse to fit her needs. the other woman didn’t want the wild horse and wasn’t having a great time trying to control it. so, after dee did much explaining and begging, the guides gave her that horse.

so, after pineapple, my horse must have woken up cause it was running and staying at the front of the pack. i was so happy. i was finally with john and dee. one look at dee and you could see the horse was difficult to control. she was smiling and laughing but she had the reigns so tight that you could see her muscles twitching. at one point the guide let her and blaine take off sprinting as fast as they want. i didn’t see dee leave but she told me later that it was moving so fast that she couldn’t take it anymore and stopped. she said you only had to whisper and the horse would start run. i had to jump and shout to get mine to move. john’s horse had a funny walk. it was like its rear wasn’t insync with its front. it was a very strange sight.

after the pineapple, the horses ran most of the time, which is so much more fun than the slow walk. however, a running horse is great if you want to make chocolate milk and jar the crap out of your body. oh we were so freaking sore all around our legs and ass. my back wasn’t hurting which was a surprise and a relief.

at the end of the trail, we stopped at a picturesque view of a mountain stream in a valley with several bulls and cows hanging out.

we took a few pics and headed for the soda shop (aka convenience store across the river). the shop had a green parriot that blaine put on her shoulder.

she then wanted it off and ask dee to get it. the bird had an attitude and didn’t want dee to touch it, which was funny since dee didn’t know how to get it and she would start waving her arms and trying to scoop it up with a water bottle. i got a funny video of the whole thing with john in the end having it on his backpack. i will post it later.

we got in the vans and started up the mountainous, unpaved road to monteverde. on the way out, we saw little gray pigs that we hadn’t seen before.

the road provided great views of the valleys and the volcano in the distance. one interesting fact that we learned on our volcano hike was information about a certain type of fence they use here called the growing fence. they plant a tree along the path of the fence. as the tree grows, they cut off the top and plant it at the next fence post. a new tree grows in the spot and they cut off its top when it is tall enough and repeat the cycle until you have a fence made of trees. the cut down trees continue to grow but you can tell where it was cut as the place it was cut becomes a platform for the new trunk. the road we were traveling on was lined with this type of fence and what was interesting is that you could definitely see what trees started the fence and which parts were new.

the road to monteverde was really bouncy and rocky. i was shocked at how dee and john could fall asleep. i tried falling sleep but i couldn’t cause i was constantly being knocked around. dee was worn out from handling the horse so she formed into a ball and fell asleep. the benefit of being small.

you never really understand why unpaved roads

create a moat around the settlement until you travel on roads like the ones we were on. the town has paved roads so when we transitioned from unpaved to paved, it was like laying on a really soft bed after sleeping on the floor, so relaxing and great. the town is configured in a triangle shape except that all the stores we were interested in where on one side of the triangle. in other words, there wasn’t much going on in this tiny little town.

we arrived at a quaint bed and breakfast that looked like an IHOP. the place had beautiful gardens of tropical plants and everything screamed tranquility (is that an oxymoron?). we had a little patio attached to our room and a little sign in the room said to be quiet after 9PM so people can relax and be peaceful. there was a lot of other establishments that had tranquility in the name or said it was tranquil. another sign of a sleepy town.

it was raining when we arrived and it continued until we went to bed, which will become a theme later on as we progress in our journey. the way to town was down a dirt road for about five minutes. when we started walking down the road, the rain became so heavy that we had to stop and wait for it to lighten up. * WPG2 CANNOT LOCATE GALLERY2 ITEM ID 5509 *

the road was a brown river by the time we resumed our walk. i also discovered that my umbrella leaked. it was already falling apart from just a few days of wear.
when we arrived into town, i went to every internet place and discovered that the computers and the connection sucked except for this one place underneath the tree top inn and restaurant. it was decent but not fast enough to upload anything to the website. but the setting was cool. the building had been built around this enormous tree. stairs wrapped around the trunk that went to the upstairs bar and restaurant.

i wrote a blog entry while dee and john shopped around and we eventually regrouped to have a drink in the tree top bar. we decided that we would go to the market and buy some wine and go back to IHOP and play cards for the rest of the night.

it was a nice relaxing night and we had to wake up early for the cloud forest tour the next day. so, i won most of the hands of Tonk,

which i’m sure dee and john would disagree with. Tonk is a variation on gin. so, after a few hours we headed off to bed.