We hopped on a bus Saturday morning at 6:30am and made our way to Monteverde (Cloud Forrest)! We got a place to stay for $9 a night and they helped us book two tours for our stay. Before going into detail about that...the bus ride - WOW talk about crazy. We were forewarned beforehand but wow! One lane rode, dirt, on the side of a mountain, no railings, and construction. I never seen a coach bus maneuver the way this one did. I'm impressed - and also glad we got where we needed to be safely.
Saturday:
Coffee/Chocolate/Sugarcane tour
We got to see banana trees up close, eat a banana straight from the vine, learn about coco/café/sugarcane, made sugar, tasted a coffee bean after it's been roasted, tasted moonshine made from sugarcane (guaro), rode in a ox cart, ate a banana straight from a tree, ate chocolate made in front of us, drank coffee freshly brewed, and had an absolute blast with all of it.
Sunday:
Ziplining (Second time in CR)
Nicole and I had heard that Monteverde has some of the best ziplines in all of Latin America. So naturally we decided to go a second time. The tour we chose had a Tarzan swing, 13 cables, superman, and repelling! Totally worth it. Unfortunately for me, I was still quite dehydrated from being terribly sick weeks ago so I struggled with the hiking that was involved, but our tour guides were extremely supportive and got me back on my feet! Definitely check them out if you ever make your way to Monteverde!
http://monteverdeextremo.com/
Other than the tours:
One night Nicole and I found a big ole banner for a beer festival happening that night. Of course, we had to see what the buzz was about. We saw flame throwers, flame twirlers, live music, and the most beer I had seen in all of CR (which still wasn't anything compared to home). I felt like it was a mini (very mini) Woodstock...if you catch my drift. Overall, pretty fun night. When we got back to our hostel we got to witness a very intriguing couples fight, just to find out they were from some small town in GA. Nicole and I found that to be interesting.