After a night of high winds, which sounded like they were doing their hardest to blow our cabin down, we awoke to a lovely view down to the Gulf of Nicoya and beyond.

After breakfast we got a taxi up to the cheese factory in Monteverde, where we had a tour of the factory, sampled some of their cheeses and bought ice cream/milkshake for the long walk back to Santa Elena, which wasn’t too bad as it was mainly downhill. When we got to Santa Elena we spend a lovely few hours chilling out on the terrace of the cafe at the Orchid Gardens (using their wifi to upload my last few blog posts).

As Monteverde is most famous for cloud forests, we spent our afternoon at Salventura in the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve, we opted to go for the hanging bridges tour, rather than the zip lines, so that we would be able to take everything in, rather than whizzing past, scaring the wildlife. As it happens, we didn’t get to see much wildlife, either we’re just not as good at spotting it as the guides we’ve had, or the creatures have got fed up of all the noisy visitors and moved to a quieter area of the cloud forest. Even though we didn’t see many animals, it was good to see the cloud forest from the canopy, looking up from the ground, you don’t realise quite how many plants grow off the bigger trees, without touching the ground.

We finished off the day with a drink in the Tree House bar and a great meal at Johnny’s Pizzeria, then another long walk back to our cabin, luckily for us the relaxing at the beach part of our trip starts tomorrow!

The fastest way to get from La Fortuna to Monteverde is a so called Jeep-Boat-Jeep transfer, which should really be called a Minibus-Boat-Minibus transfer, as there were no Jeeps, or 4x4s of any make were used.

The first part took us down to Lake Arenal, where we boarded the boat for the hour long crossing. Luckily the lake wasn’t too choppy and the light was pretty good, so I was able to capture some photos of the stunning scenery. The last part of the journey was all on gravel roads, so whilst the distance wasn’t that far, it took about 90 minutes, with a stop for photos along the way. The landscape in this part of Costa Rica is up there with the most beautiful parts of Scotland, so it was a good journey, if a little bumpy.

We’re staying in Santa Elena, slightly down the hill from Monteverde, as all the tours we want to do are quite spread out and Santa Elena is a good base and feels more off the beaten track than La Fortuna. Our cabin has great views down to the Gulf of Nicoya, with the trade off that it is a steep walk back up the hill from town.

The area is known for its cloud forest and ecotourism, so for the first evening we went on a night walk, hoping to see a sloth, although we saw a lot of birds, insects and mammals, a sloth wasn’t one of them. Our guide poking a red kneed tarantula with a stick to get it to come out its hole was a particular highlight! I decided against taking my camera as it was going to be dark and some times it is great to enjoy things without a camera.

The evening ended with dinner in a treehouse overlooking Santa Elena high street, which seemed really busy until about 9pm, when everyone vanished.

The trip to La Fortuna started off with a drive down the Panamerican Highway, the main road in Costa Rica, although it is only a single carriageway. The most common sight on the road is the large American style trucks thundering along, but you never know when you will find an ancient tractor chugging along around the next corner, which made for an interesting drive.

For the last 100km or so we turned off the highway onto small and sometimes unsurfaced roads which took us right around Lake Arenal, giving us great views of the turquoise lake, named after the local volcano.

When we got to La Fortuna we decided to have a quiet evening, almost 2 full days of travelling and jet lag had taken its toll, so we spent the rest of the day enjoying some great food in town and chilling at the hostel as the next day was going to be a busy one!

Day 3 started off with fresh fruit and pancakes, well it would have been rude not to on Shrove Tuesday! As we didn’t have anything planned for the morning, we got a taxi up to the waterfall (catarata in Spanish), about 5km from town. The waterfall falls 70m to the valley floor, which looks impressive from the viewing platform at the top, but even more so after you have descended the 480 steps to the valley floor 600m below! At the bottom I took a few pictures and we paddled in the river for a bit, before climbing back up the 480 steps and walking the 5km back to town, and all before lunch too!

Our efforts must have been recognised, as while we were walking into town for lunch the clouds which normally enshrouded the Arenal volcano which dominates the local skyline parted for 5 minutes, giving us a rare sight of the summit.

After lunch we went on a nature walk, starting of at the viewing area for the volcano (now in the clouds again), then descending through the jungle, with our guide Julio pointing out various flora and fauna. We didn’t manage to see a toucan, although we did hear one, this is the animal I’m really hoping to see, as part of my inspiration for coming to Costa Rica is from when I worked at Travelsphere Holidays, who always had a toucan as the main picture in their brochure for their Costa Rica tour. So fingers crossed we mange to see one in Monteverde, which is our next destination.

To end the day we went to the Baldi hot springs, to relax in their 25 hot pools ranging from 32 degrees to 67 degrees, although I found 40 to be about right for me. I also went on another type of catarata – a waterside!

This post and the next few are coming a bit late, as I’ve been without an Internet connection for a few days. I’ll also be swapping out the iPhone photos when I get back to the UK.