Day 6: Boating and Horseback Riding to Santa Elana

After getting up early and packing, we piled into a taxi with about 6 other people for our journey to Santa Elana/Monteverde. We started with a boat trip across Lake Arenal where we had some great views of the volcano and experienced both calm, clear conditions and dark clouds and choppy water.

From there, we took a short walk up to the horse stables where we met our mounts for the rest of the trip. I was given a small, white horse who would turn out to be very aggressive during the 3.5 hour trek. I found myself almost always at the the head of the pack as my horse worked to be the pack leader.

The ride itself was amazing. We climbed quite high and had some great views of the volcano as well as countryside. Along the way, we crossed a stream several times and saw cows grazing near the path. At one point, we encountered cowboys driving a herd of cattle along the trail we were following.

And, unlike any US horse ride, the horses were allowed to trot and canter when they felt up to it. Overall, it was a great way to get from Arenal to Santa Elana.

We ended our horse riding at a lodge with great views of the volcano. The clouds obliged and cleared up to give us unobstructed views of the volcano. We ate lunch at the lodge and then took a taxi into the town of Santa Elana.

Santa Elana is a small and unimpressive town, and unfortunately, there was a fair in a nearby town and most of the rooms were full. So, we ended up at El Banco--a cheap hotel which i heartily do NOT endorse!

We spent the remainder of the day walking around Santa Elana, learning how to use the Costa Rican phone system. We ended the day with a nighttime walk--it was amazingly clear and the stars very bright.

Day 7: Santa Elana Reserve

The Santa Elana reserve is less visited than nearby Monteverde, but for us, that was a bonus. We saw only one or two other people during our hike. At the entrance to the reserve, we found a couple of humming bird feeders which were attracting quite a number of the beautiful birds.

From there, we hiked first to the lookout tower which we climbed and from which we could see over the tree tops. We had a clear view of the volcano.

One of the first things we noticed was the difference in temperature between this cloud forest and the rainforest we had visited earlier. It was cooler, even a bit windy, and even greener! Every exposed inch or dirt or bark was covered by what looked like moss. Also, there were a lot more flying bugs (rainforest seemed to contain mostly crawling bugs) and we definately wished we had used bug repellant.

We saw quite a bit of wildlife from a transparent wing butterfly to some kind of black, furry mammal. One butterfly we saw landed, and then contracted some muscles to modify his wings to look like shriveled, dead leaves! It was amazing. We heard quite a lot of birds but only saw one green pigeon-sized one. We did see quite a number of centipedes, a millipede, and several lizards.

We encountered large, colorful wasps and a group of large dragonflies--some red and others blue. Hummingbirds could be seen eating at flowers and we were surprised at the number of flowers and berries that seemed to be everywhere.

Since we had to catch the 2:30 bus back to San Jose, we left after only about 4 hours. As it turned out, the bus left at 3:15pm and we were only able to buy tickets to stand on the bus. So, we were standing for 2 hours to Puntaranas where we were finally able to find seats. The bus took a short break at a rest stop where i purchased a banana for about 4 cents! We didn't arrive back in San Jose until 8pm, and by then, we were exhausted and happy to see the familiar sight of Hotel Bienvenidos.

Day 8: Adios

We spent a little more money in La Cason before heading back to the hotel to check out and hop on a bus to Alejuela. We hiked from the airport main terminal to delta's new terminal. We made it through security, exit tax, etc. and made our last purchase in Costa Rica--some coffee liqour which turned out to be cheaper than in the shops in San Jose.

Our flight was called, we boarded, and we said Adios to a Costa Rica. We'll be back!!