Costa Rica: Monteverde, Cabanas Los Pinos

Aug 13^th – my 50^th birthday adventure started out by an interesting transfer to Monteverde. A jeep took us from our hotel to the shores of Lake Arenal. Notice I mention the shores, not a dock. We trekked down some 50 feet to the spot where the boats were, loaded our luggage and cruised across the lake. Arenal Volcano was receding from our vision, presenting yet another unique face to us as we bid it good bye. All along, from San Jose – La Fortuna – Cano Negro, we had excellent roads. I had commented on this to Carlos, who said I should reserve my comments until I reached Monteverde. Our boat pulled onto the shore on Monteverde side and we hopped into another jeep. It was dirt roads that greeted us and I was hoping that somewhere along the way, it would become blacktop roads – not to be. The next 1 ½ hours was on absolutely rough dirt roads where the top speed was no more than 40 kmph. Until we reached the town of Santa Elena, couple of kilometers from our hotel, the roads were rough. This travel was by far the longest stretch of travel in dirt road that I’ve done in all 50 years! 

A family cabin with 3 bedrooms and fully furnished kitchen nestled in the cloud forests awaited us in Los Pinos hotel. The girls just loved the fact that they got their own rooms! We had carried some Haldiram fast food items, especially for this leg of the trip. We made a lunch meal out of chole & tortilla before heading out to Santa Elena town. It was a quaint little town with lots of ups and downs, exercising our calf muscles well. Monteverde region is in the cloud forests – true to its name, the clouds descended upon us and it rained for a while before we headed out into the town. The girls weren’t taking to the location until we reached the town and saw some activity; and they got to pick their favorite dinner that night. Sushi for Kavya and Panini for Jana. And Jaya had a wonderful coffee on the way back. We picked up a small banana cake that I cut later that evening celebrating my 50^th! 

The next day we headed out to the Selvatura park for a canopy tour. This was in two parts – zip line over the canopy and an hour long hike with 8 suspension bridges providing breathtaking views of the cloud forests. The zip line was awesome – it almost felt like having a single seater aircraft with no cover around you – especially in the longer sections. We had a section that was 650 meters long and another 1 km long. For those that were willing to brave it, there was a tarzan swing – jumping off a platform some 20m high and slowly swinging to a stop. Jana, Kavya and I didn’t miss this opportunity. I am now ready to do bungee jump! When she realized that zip lining involves letting your feet go off your ground, Jaya decided to spend the time on the ground – and went on a tour of the butterfly garden by herself while we were monkeying around the canopy of the Monteverde cloud forests. 

Lunch was rice and palak paneer in our cabin. We walked to Monteverde town center where there was a cheese factory. The last tour had left for the day by the time we reached, so we just ended up eating some delicious ice cream from that place before heading back. Around the same time, a little dog had decided that Monteverde was too boring and wanted to go to Santa Elena. It walked all the way with us – my feeble attempts to issue doggie instructions in Spanish didn’t work. When I told the dog ALTO firmly, he just looked at me and continued to walk along, sometimes ahead of us and sometimes behind us. We all were concerned that the little fella made it to his destination without any mishaps!

Costa Rica Pics (77 photos uploaded)