Monteverde

Since this was my last week-end for a while in Costa Rica and since we just got two new interns from OISE, I decided to visit Monteverde where the rain forest is. Naturally, when we got up this morning to go Zip lining, it was raining. In fact, the managers strongly suggested our three teachers buy raincoats for $8 each so they would not be miserable. They dutifully bought the rain coats as suggested, which guaranteed the sun would be out within minutes!

St Elena and Monteverde are not that far from Guanacaste but admittedly the roads are terrible, although I imagined worth based on what everyone was telling me previously. We made the route rather easily, I thought, after a leisurely three hour ride. When we reached the hotel around 6 pm, I was shocked that the two 25 year olds wanted to take a “power” nap and the other teacher, 50 years old, also went to sleep for a while. We had decided to see what the local dance club was like and I was really looking forward to seeing what Costa Ricans did in the discos since they love to dance so much. I was quite surprised when I went to wake everyone up about 9 that they were still sleeping and were simply too tired to go out. What is wrong with this picture when a 60 something outlasts a 20 something and 50 year old? They also took the zip line today and since I already did this a few months ago I opted to walk the few kilometers through the cloud forest and walked the whole circuit. When we were done, I was ready to go to a different park and walk again but they were “too tired”

Technology, by the way, is wonderful. I asked one of the interns, who is constantly on her phone/web thing who won the baseball game. She texted her boyfriend in Toronto who duly reported that the Blue Jays lost 6 -0 but asked her why her sudden interest in baseball. He said, you were never interested in baseball in Toronto and now that you are in Costa Rica why the sudden interest?

The cloud forest, by the way, was really spectacular. I loved all of the ferns and vegetation growing on the trees and the constant rain and humidity makes this fascinating to walk through. There were 8 suspension bridges that were really neat to look across and down into the forest. Had anyone more energy we could have visited coffee plantations, a frog pond, orchid garden, butterfly gardens and so on but the energy level was simply not there.

We did visit the Quaker school and I was amazed that kids were playing soccer on a Sunday, volunteers were repairing the roof of the building and teachers were preparing lessons. I guess the trick is to have a committed group of volunteers who have similar belief systems. The guy heading up the “buy the rainforest” campaign was also there and he explained that in Costa Rica, when you have a property, if you find uninhabited land you can mark out your homestead. Actually, one or our teacher's from California did that during the 1960’s and has really been self-sufficient for the past number of years.

I head home on Wednesday and don't imagine I will see that many forests around Toronto, but hopefully will get to see anyone who actually reads this blog. See you soon.