Cloud Forests in Monteverde, Costa Rica

When you look at a map of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, Isla de Ometepe and Monteverde appear to be pretty close together - maybe a couple of hundred kilometers, but no big deal at all. So we supposed that it should be no trouble getting from A to B in one day.
Why of course not. Despite being assured by the lady at the ticket office that the bus would drop us off on the InterAmericana freeway and we'd be able to get a 20 or 30 minute taxi ride to Monteverde, of course this turned out to be untrue! In the end we had to take the bus all the way to San Jose - stay overnight, and then take a 5.5 hour journey back, covering most of the same journey as we had the prior day - ahhhhh - so frustrating!!!

Despite all this - Monteverde was absolutely worth the journey - we spent two luxurious days hiking around the trails of both Monteverde reserve and Santa Elena reserve (where we only saw 2 other people the whole day). It was particularly cathartic to be all alone in the peace and quiet of the cloud forest after the stresses of the previous travel days. It was also a lovely change to be on our own hiking, since we found that in most of Central America, there are few clearly marked trails, so we usually found ourselves taking a guide for hiking who would either be too fast or too slow.

Since wildlife is the big thing here - we also visited the Serpentarium (we both have a peculiar fascination with snakes) where we saw some superb large colorful and very poisonous and dangerous snakes, and the Frog Pond (which actually isn't a pond but has lots of wonderful multi-colored frogs and large, ugly toads)

Since Costa Rica is quite a bit more expensive than the rest of C.A. we were pleased to find a great little hospedaje with a private room for only $10 and a really well equipped kitchen and supermarket so we were able to cook up a feast each night drowned down by a cask of cheap (but pretty decent) Chilean red wine.