Oh! what a drive... mid October back in 2011...

Today was the drive we (most specifically Jen) has been dreading the whole trip... from La Fortuna to Monteverde.  The first 30kms or so weren't so bad as it was on very winding 2 lane paved roads but the balance was pretty rough.  We skirted landslides, fallen trees and potholes that could sink a tank but we got here after about 4.5 hours.  (It was only about 90kms).  Turns out that the inhabitants of Monteverde and the surrounding area have been lobbying their government to leave the roads in this state to purposely keep the tourists manageable.

Interesting history here.  There were two groups of initial inhabitants which both arrived in the 1930's and 40's...  the first were local Tico farmers who came up here to grow coffee.  They settled in Santa Elana, a town of about 1000 people.  The roads in Santa Elana are all paved but you have to drive 50km's of tough boulder and dirt tracks to get here.

The best bit of the road to Monteverde...  

The second group were American Quaker's who came here after being jailed by the US for dodging the Korean War draft.  Upon their release, 11 families up and moved here... specifically because Costa Rica outlawed their military in 48 (to prevent the Central American curse of the ever present coups).  They setup a sanctuary that later became a top 100 world wildlife centre and now encompasses 110K Hectares.  The coffee farmers in Santa Elena also setup a sanctuary and it turns out that there are really two different ecosystems... one on either side of the continental divide.

We got here fairly late in the day and found a nice little hotel for us although it turns out that there is a problem with the water supply (they are working on it now) so we ended up with 3 rooms!  We are really enjoying the local Tico's and had dinner at a local pizzeria to give the kids a bit of a break from hamburgers!

We also drove up to the (Quaker) park to check out what we need to do for hiking in it and then spent the better part of an hour at the Hummingbird Gallery - a free location that has 28 different species of Hummingbirds.  We have seen Hummingbirds at every spot we've stayed at so were already fairly used to them (and Shawn has a feeder at home after seeing Granny/Grampy's in PEI) but we were blown away by how many there were... often 4 feeding from one feeder and another 6-8 in line, 2-3 deep behind each nozzle.  If you held your hand up close to the feeder they'd use your finger as a resting spot...  fascinating.

The biggest and most beautiful... but also a bit of a bully as he'd chase off anyone else.

1/2000th of a second caught his wings but you can't see them normally... they move SO fast.

With the wings back...  

"Please Mom... Can I take him with me?" Note the one in the back...  it's nearly impossible to get them all in the shot as they zip in and out so fast.

Tomorrow we plan on doing some ziplining if the weather improves... very heavy fog/rain today - and hiking if it doesn't.  We also need to get Rachel to a clinic as she picked up something like Poison Ivy 4 days ago and it hasn't been responding well to the Cortizone treatment we had brought for such an eventuality.  Her legs are covered in Poison Ivy like sores which are pretty itchy and easily spread.  Nestor told us it was a local plant that acts much like Poison Ivy and that it generally goes on its own accord after a few days but that isn't much help for poor Rachel.  Not a lot of pictures today as the weather was just too miserable.  Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving Weekend.  We heard the weather was beautiful.