Getting to Monteverde made for a very long day of travel. Beginning at 8am in Corcovado, we hiked down the beach back to the airstrip, flew 50 minutes in a charter plane to San Jose where we were met by our guide Sophia who accompanied us on the 4.5 hour drive to Monteverde. The first two hours were on the Pan American highway and we stopped along the way for a good Costa Rican lunch of arroz con pollo.

Then we turned off the highway, onto a decent dirt road, and then onto a very bumpy, steep, and curvy dirt road. Along the way there were some spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean and the adjacent gulf and islands. We arrived at the Monteverde Lodge around 2pm.

The Monteverde Lodge was 4,600 feet higher than where we started in Corcovado in the am. It was also a complete 180 from the Corcovado Lodge. The rooms had walls with windows overlooking the adjacent forest, the bathroom had hot water and a hair dryer, and the restaurant even had a menu! (still, we liked Corcovado better :)

We had two main goals when we arrived in Monteverde: get all of our clothing laundered and find an internet connection. The lodge graciously washed all of our clothes and returned them to us within 2 hours for the bargain price of $20! The lodge did have internet access, but it wasn't working when we arrived so we took a short walk into town and wound up at the Tranquilo Internet Cafe.

We took a half day hike in the cloud forest with Carlos. The cloud forest was beautiful, but there weren't as many animals as in Corcovado and Tortuguero. We actually saw more animals at the lodge because there were troops of white faced monkeys right outside our room and dozens of hummingbirds at feeders in the garden. Neither of them seemed to mind being photographed, and it was really neat to hear the surprisingly loud flutter of the hummingbird's wings.

We also went horseback riding with Arturo. He didn't speak much English so we quickly learned the Spanish words for right (derecha) and left (izquierdo). About 10 minutes into the ride, he stopped us, tied up the horses, and pointed toward the trees saying "los monos" (which we knew meant "monkeys"). Then we saw two white faced monkeys that came right out of the trees and climbed all over us. I swear one of them ate something that he/she found on Andy's head!

	Click the image to see them fight!
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Next stop, Manuel Antonio

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