¡Kelly goes Costarazy!

Sarah, Lily, Christina and I stayed at ‘Sleeper’s Sleep Cheaper’ which is not in Lonely Planet’s guide ‘cuz it’s new but it was awesome. We got free internet, breakfast and a kitchen where we ended up making all but one of our meals. We had an awesome and very original sphaghetti night. We had bought two (different packets of tomato sauce for our lovely dinner, but upon emptying the second one we discovered it had a very different texture. We thought it was odd, but were up for trying something new, but when we tasted it we found that we had actually just dumped almost a whole pack of ketchup in our spaghetti sauce!

Culture lesson: Salsa de tomate = ketchup, not marinera. So we added a whole bunch of pepper and cabbage and the spaghetti ended up still tasting really good. Different, but good.

Okay here commences my list of 5 pinnacle moments in Monteverde. The first of which was our amazing spaghetti.

Number 2: Upon arriving Ronny the owner of the hostel showed us these crazy videos of EXTREMO, a canopy tour via zipline. Sarah and I were really nervous (especially when I thought about the rollercoaster accident that I had witnessed) but decided to do it. I’m still not sure if that was very smart, but I did it and I’m alive and now I don’t need to do it again! I also had a lot of fun doing it. There were 14 cables that were really long and really tall, a repel which made Sarah nervous but she did it and the tarzan swing. This consisted of simply jumping off of a platform 90 ft in the air and falling until you get almost to the bottom and then you start swinging on the rope that you’ve been attached to all along. Sarah told the guide “You’ll HAVE to push me off.” So he did and she had a blast after all of that anticipation. Lily, however, insisted on going first and wanted them to move her harness to around her ankles. They did not of course, ‘cuz it wasn’t built for that, but we got a taste of her dare devil side. Anyway, that was an awesome experience and I’m glad I did it!

Number 3: Jori goes pineapple. Our dear friend Jori returned home and was not able to come with us to Monteverde but before she left she had bought a beautiful pineapple. So we brought this pineapple on our journey with us to “eat” when we got to our destination. However, we got too attached to it. We had carried it too far. All of a sudden all of our longing for our dear, absent friend manifested itself into this pineapple and gave it (her) life. We started feeling this urge to carry this sweet, sweet fruit around with us. She gave us comfort and when we brought her along, it was as if we had a piece of Jori with us. So one night, we brough Jori out on the town and Monteverde just loved her.  We went around asking if people would take their picture with her. We even explained to them that this pineapple was really our friend in disguise and for some reason they looked at us funny and declined UNTIL we entered ‘Amigos,’ the bar and all I was doing was holding my friend, the pineapple and this table of people started screaming in unison “PIÑA! PIÑA!” They asked US if they could take a picture with Kajori. One fellow got a little too attached.

Number 4:  We were lucky enough to be in Monteverde on the Independence Day of Costa Rica, Sept 15th. On Sept 14th the night before, they had a parade of lanterns that the kids had decorated and at the end they had prizes for the best decorated lanterns with different categories and everything. But before they announced that, this lady got on her own little soap box and basically told off the whole town for not being patriotic enough. (Apparently no one from the town went to support these kids who had prepared a concert in honor of this holiday.) So that was a little awkward. But then they announced the winners and the next day we got to see the parade. It was great. A bunch of kids were in the traditional costume and they looked adorable. You could also tell as the parade went by the different age groups of the kids ‘cuz they all had different costumes. It was really neat to see.

Number 5: Colibris. So we considered going into one of those butterfly or frog gardens, but decided not to, to the relief of Sarah Coleman who is opposed to butterflies. Apparently they remind her of moths, which are gross and/or scary? Anyway, we found a great alternative for our favorite price : Free-ninetynine! We took a bus to this hummingbird garden. I kid you not, this place was infested with these birds! There were so many of them and they flew so close to you that you really thought one was going to hit you! I’ve got a great video of one almost attacking Sarah, but unfortunately I don’t know how to put it up on this site. Anyway, that was fun as well. I’d never seen so many hummingbirds in the same place!

Puert Viejo was gorgeous and awesome fun with awesome people. We stayed at Rockin’ J’s which was really awesome. There you have the choice to sleep in a cabin, a tent or a hammock. The first night Lily, Sarah and I chose a tent but woke up way too hot so we decided to join Kajori and Christina in the hammocks the next night.  This would have been really great had I not been placed next to some guy with dreadlocks who didn’t believe in personal hygene. He coughed hoarsely and smoked in his hammock. Not a fun experience. However I still loved Rockin’ J’s. Reason for this is because it was gorgeous! I took about a million pictures of this place because everything is covered in art. There’s mosaic everywhere and where there isn’t, there’s a painting. Travelers will come and participate in the artwork so you can see that it was all a big collaberation.

Lily learned how to swim in the caribean right in front of Rockin’ J’s. Now she is truly our Water Lily. We met this gal named Leann from Australia and had a lot of fun getting to know her.  There was this guy there called the human juke box and he could play ANY song in the style of ANY artist. It was insane! We fell in love with Chili Rojos because they had the best happy hour at the best time. I got an awesome sarong with a toucan on it. The beach was beautiful. We had a blast.