Writings By Location| Not Wet Enough: Sightseeing in Monteverde | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
We saw a cute little waterfall, with a charming observation deck where we posed for a photo. And naturally, I dropped my hat over the edge, thinking (incorrectly) that the strap was wrapped around my neck. Considering that this is a rain forest, it took an incredible showing of skill and balance to climb down and around the moss-covered railings in order to retrieve it. We later saw an impressive suspension foot bridge hovering over among the treetops about a hundred feet off the ground, where I'm proud to say I dropped nothing. In between, there was jungle, jungle, jungle. The paths were in good shape, covered with large stone blocks wrapped in chicken wire (pardon me, I mean poultry netting), and we didn't get too wet, but that's not to say it wasn't a really good thing we had our raincoats.
On the way out, we stopped at the Hummingbird Gallery, where dozens of beautifully-colored hummingbirds were darting in and out of water feeders hanging from the trees. The greens and blues of these animals was spectacular, and it was kind of thrilling to hear them whizzing by your ears as you stood there watching them. I don't know what possessed me to try to take a few pictures with Erin's digital camera, but looking at the half-dozen professional photographers there with lenses longer than my arm, I could tell we were not in the right league for this.
Next, we hit the cheese factory — yes, that's right: cheese. They have no butter, but they make plenty of cheese. Fittingly called Monteverde cheese, it tastes rather bland, and feels like tofu. That about sums up most Costa Rican cuisine right there. The factory was really just a small cheese shop, and a viewing room where you could look behind the plexiglass to see them actually making the stuff. Even though the vat in front of us probably held half a ton of cheese, we were a little disturbed to see that for a good 5-10 minutes, they did nothing but add giant bags and buckets of salt. Probably eighty pounds of it just in that time. We bought ourselves some gouda cheese, which actually tasted (and looked) like Cracker Barrel, then went next door to the bakery for some fresh homemade breads and pastries. Finally, because our lunch wouldn't be complete without a fine bottle of wine, we drove all the way back to Santa Elena (two kilometers, 10 minutes of driving) just to buy ourselves a bottle. We took the whole assortment of foods back to our room, and sat on the sunny balcony (yes, sunny!) eating away.
