We’d spent three nights in La Fortuna and we were sorry to leave, but looking forward to the next stop. After a quick breakfast, we loaded our bags onto a van and drove to the lake near Arenal, where we transferred our stuff and ourselves onto a motorboat.
Crossing the lake by boat was pleasant and scenic. When we got to the other side, the bags stayed on the boat, and we disembarked and climbed onto horseback.
Now, we were ten days into the trip, and we were all showing signs of wear and tear. Cathy had fought and recovered from a cold but she’d acquired a migraine headache. Meanwhile, I was in the process of coming down with a cold of my own (probably Cathy’s). We were immensely sore from the horseback ride, sunburned, bruised, banged up, and covered in mosquito bites and heat rash.
Despite all that, we were determined not to let any of that affect our enjoyment of our trip. So we geared up for the three-hour horseback ride between Arenal and Monteverde, in the sun at the hottest part of the day. Painful? Yeah. Fun? Definitely.
The ride started somewhat eventfully, as Kirsten was thrown off her horse. She had the right attitude and climbed back on again. We set off along the trail.
Each horse had its own speed. Mine seemed to like to be the fastest, keeping pace with the guide out front and even trying to pass him.
My horse spent most of the ride trotting, which meant I spent most of the ride trying to post or else bouncing around uncomfortably on the saddle. Cathy’s horse, on the other hand, was a bit smaller than the others but very spunky, and kept trying to keep up with the larger horses.
The scenery during the horseback ride was absolutely gorgeous. The path followed the lake, and it was a beautiful day. I kept trying to take photos while holding the reins, and even managed to change rolls of film while riding – quite a feat if I may say so myself.
A few times, the horses really got going into a full gallop, which was exhilarating but also kind of scary since I kept feeling like I was going to fall off. Especially as we neared the end of the ride, the horses knew they were almost home and kept trying to speed up. It was an effort to keep them to a trot.
After the horseback ride, we all loaded into two vans, for our drive up to Monteverde, stopping on the way for lunch. Julie had warned us ahead of time that the roads to Monteverde were very poor. She wasn’t kidding. The drive was disturbingly reminiscent of the tractor ride to Rara Avis. The roads wound up into the hills. They were mostly unpaved and rocky and full of potholes and washouts, and they curved dangerously without any guardrails. One false turn or slip and I feared we’d be flying off the side of a cliff. But amazingly, we made it to Santa Elena without incident.
After settling into our hotel, a few people opted to go on a night hike in the cloud forest. The rest of us headed into town to explore. We walked past the bank where the terrible hostage crisis had taken place only a couple of days earlier. There were still news cameras set up, doing follow-up reports presumably. And armed guards patrolled the outside of the bank. It seemed so incongruous; the town was so tiny and seemed so peaceful. Most of the hostages were tourists just like us. It was difficult to fathom the horror of what had just taken place.
We decided to go to the Serpentarium. Unfortunately, our guide was one of the most boring speakers we had ever met, and his lifeless descriptions were enough to lull anyone into a coma. But there were too many cool species of snakes to see, including many poisonous ones, for the guide to be able to ruin it. We saw boa constrictors, harmless vine snakes and lethal vipers, and everything in between. We also saw beautiful poisonous frogs, including the dart frog and the “blue jeans” frog.
Since we’d eaten a late lunch, I wasn’t particularly hungry for dinner. I made it an early night in hopes that a good night’s sleep would stave off the cold I was catching. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out that way. The hotel owners had several dogs that seemed to want to set barking records. Then, distaste of cockroaches kept Robert and Mandy awake, and their pacing in the room directly above us kept Cathy and I awake. I was starting to feel like I was back home, dealing with noisy neighbours in my building. I eventually gave up on sleep and just closed my eyes and waited it out till morning.
Next: Zipline canopy tour in Monteverde.