Horrible Roads

The Monteverde Cloud Forest was next on our list, so, we packed up the SUV and headed for Santa Elena.  Here is what Frommer's says about driving to Monteverde.  "Whichever route you take, the final going is slow because the roads into Santa Elena are rough, unpaved dirt and gravel affairs." Make no mistake, driving these roads is daunting, and there were times when it seemed impossible that we would make it to our destination.  The Monteverde Biological Cloud Forest Reserve is one of the most developed and maintained attractions in Costa Rica, so you would think there would be a decent way to get there.  The back seat of the Kia SUV was not especially comfortable and the potholes in the road meant we were bouncing up and down, swaying side to side, and hanging on to the straps to keep from hitting our heads on the roof.

Thanks to my husband's driving skills, we made it to our lodgings in Santa Elena.  Exhausted, we had dinner in the restaurant and crashed.  Our zip-line tour was scheduled for the next morning, but the weather report was unsettling.  It was the tail end of hurricane season, and the news channel reported that a hurricane was blowing across Nicaragua, the country to the north of us.  During the night, the rain swept in.  When we went to breakfast early the next morning, there was a group of German tourists talking with their guide who was telling them that he advised postponing their zip-line tour.  We immediately found the hotel manager and asked her to contact the tour guide who was supposed to meet us there and ask him to please cancel our tour and issue us a refund.  We would not be able to reschedule because we were due in Quepas the next evening.

Another lesson learned: the tour guide couldn't issue a refund because we had paid the travel agent.  When we called the travel agent, he said he couldn't issue a refund because we had cancelled, not the tour guide.  Arguing was futile.  Now I am aware of TripAdvisor and I would, at the very least, have threatened to write a scathing review of the travel agency.

Even in the rain we were able to ride the gondola up into the Forest and learn a great deal about the 2500 species of plants, including 400 types of orchids, 400 species of birds, and 100 different species of mammals.  Our tour guide was an extremely pleasant and informed young man, who confessed that he had never been outside of Costa Rica.

Things I Learned: Do not assume that the standards for highways and roads are the same in other countries as the ones in the U.S.  We have never encountered roads and bridges as horrible as those in Costa Rica.  On one occasion, we saw something in the middle of the road ahead, but we could not identify it.  It didn't move, so it wasn't an animal.  But it was bigger than a cardboard box.  As we approached, we all peered through the windshield to try to figure it out.  Finally, aha, it was a 50-gallon drum stuck in a huge pothole so that cars did not fall in it!

Searching for a Sloth

You can be bitten by the travel bug in ways you never expected.  In my case, it was a conversation I had with my friend in Virginia.  She told me that her grand-daughter had spent three weeks in Costa Rica doing some environmental work with her university.  Dani told her grandmother about the beauty of Costa Rica, how marvelous the people are, how natural and healthy and inexpensive the food is, not to mention the coffee, and how little money it takes to visit there.  My friend sort of casually said, "We should go."

That's all it took.  Before you could snap your fingers, we had set a date, and were looking for flights.  Because both our husbands had birthdays in October, we decided we could more easily convince them to go if we said it was a birthday trip.  I don't remember now what sites I checked, but I am sure we bought the cheapest tickets we could find.  Although the best travel site on the web, Kayak, started doing business in 2004, I doubt that I knew about them when we were planning our Costa Rica trip.

I can't recall the details of planning the trip, but I do remember that both pairs of travelers bought travel books and began reading about where we wanted to go and what were our "must see" destinations.  I have read many different guide books, mainly from the library, but my favorite is Frommer's.  From our separate research we agreed that we wanted to visit the Monteverde Cloud Forest, the Arenal National Park, and Manuel Antonio national Park.  The Virginians wanted to see as many species of birds and reptiles as possible and, top of the list was seeing a three-toed sloth in the wild.  I was both excited and afraid to sleep in the shadow of an active volcano.

So, on October 29, 2005 we set off on our first trip to Central America.