taco's & toucan's travels ~ 2019

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DAY 61

Week 9

MONTEVERDE (Puntarenas, CRI)

Tuesday May 14^th, 2019

TODAYS MILEAGE – 18 miles / 29 kilometres

TRIP MILEAGE – 21,568 miles / 34,710 kilometres

An interesting day to say the least. I awoke to a chilly 20 degrees C (68°F) in Monteverde and headed the door on my morning walkabout. Breakfast was a savoury pastry and a coffee at a local bakery.

We got picked up at 8:30 AM for a ½ day meander through the La Reserva Bosque Nuboso Santa Elena (Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve) which was a 30 minute drive away.

The reserve is 1,600 metres (5,250 feet) in elevation at and has 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) of well-maintained trails. The unique part of the reserve, aside from the native flora and fauna, is that it’s privately run by the Santa Elena Technical Professional High School and protects over 300 hectares (741 acres) of land, specifically leased to them.

We were all done by 12:30 and headed back to the reserve office to catch the 1PM bus back to town. By the time we dropped all the passengers off and got back to our accommodations at the Hotel los Jardines, it was close to two o’clock, which left me no time to go anywhere for lunch as I was being picked up at 2:30 to go ATV riding.

100% Adventura picked me up on time and collected a busload of fellow "thrill seekers" along the 45 minute drive to their mountain operations. After paying my $60 USD and completing the pre-start procedures, it was at this time we ran in to a huge issue, more specifically – my head.

They couldn’t find a skid lid to fit my melon as the largest one they could find was a medium. They even went to the trouble of going back to the employee carpark and grabbing a couple off the employees parked bikes, of which one of them smelt and looked like a mob of jungle creatures dropped more than a few kids off a the pool in it.

In the end we just said shit happens, got me money back and was parked up at my hotel with a cold cerveza, all in under 20 minutes. On the positive note, I hadn’t been back ½ an hour and the heavens opened up in a torrential downpour that lasted a good hour. Those poor buggers on the ATV’s would have been like drowned rats.

As it was still raining at the allotted 7:20 PM departure time, we cabbed it over to Pizzeria Natsha were supposedly they were putting on a BBQ for two G Adventures groups. The place was empty except for two diners uninterestingly picking at their plates that looked to have no appeal at all. I left for the toilet to have a slash and while finishing up, an employee emerged from the thunderbox, went past me and I followed him out, watching him head straight for the kitchen – hopefully washing his hands.

While the kitchen door was open, I noticed pets congregated around the prep and cooking area. Hmmm, not good I’m thinking. Sonia must have noticed me and came up asking what’s wrong. The gist of the discussion was that I’m not real comfortable in dining here, based on my observations, so I legged it back into town and eventually settled on Restaurante Don Luis.

I had pretty good Chicken & Cheese quesadilla followed by a brilliant Blue Cheese and onion salsa burger that fair dinkum was probably in the top 3 burgers I've ever wrapped my laughing gear around.

I was in bed checking my eyelids for holes until about 1 or 1:30 AM when a herd of startled un-domesticated wildebeest decided to head home and make on hell of a racket on the stairs, walkways and upstairs floors. I simply could not get back to sleep, so rather than dwell on the efforts of the inconsiderate "hummingbirds" in the group, I decided to get up and update my e-diary - Fitzy's Blog.