After many conversations we decided we would go for the shuttle from La Fortuna to Monteverde rather than the public bus. This meant saving about five hours of travel time but to be honest we were again persuaded by the savvy sales woman. When you add on snacks in Costa Rica we were probably paying an extra $15 each, which isn’t too bad.

The journey was made up of shuttle, boat, and shuttle. The boat was fun but it went about 10 miles per hour. On our boat was this hilarious English woman and I just couldn’t get over how big her backpack was. It probably weighed about 20kg and was triple the size of her. On reflection I could have probably packed much lighter. Slowly, I am getting rid of things I know I won’t use but I don’t think I’ve done badly.

On the final leg of the journey our driver made a stop for lunch. It was time to try Costa Rican empanadas and this time they had rice. I wasn’t completely convinced but still good and greasy. We then arrived at our hostel, Sleepers Sleep Cheap. The owner, completely fluent in English, welcomed us and showed us our room. The room was huge and so kooky. It even had a kitchen but there was no fridge. It had a double and single bed. However, no drawers. Strange but quirky.

As we strolled around our town, Santa Elena, we bumped into the Australians from our tour in La Fortuna. The town itself is what I would call a tropic ski resort town. Small but cute. They took us to a Soda that they had been to the day before and we all sat down and ate quesadillas. For $4 each in Costa Rica you can’t go wrong. We knew from now on we could only afford to eat at these. After a yummy lunch we went off as we needed to prepare for the night walk we booked onto.

In total there were seven of us in our group. I don’t know what I was expecting but I think it was more than we saw. Ollie was convinced the guide was deaf as he couldn’t hear animals breaking twigs. It felt like Ollie was the guide as he spotted so many things, including an opossum . The guide was good at spotting sleeping birds and creepy crawlies. He tried to make me feel better by saying only one spider in Costa Rica kills, the Black Widow. This made me feel worse and I felt like I had spiders crawling all over me. It was quite exhausting as we had to have our flashlights on to make sure nothing jumps at us. Up, down, left, and right. I was on edge the entire time as I knew if anyone was going to step on a snake or come face to face with a jaguar it’d be me. Sadly, nothing we spotted was that cool.

On the second day we were up early to have our free breakfast to give us fuel for the Monteverde Cloud Forest. The breakfast was good but not filling enough. Ollie had been checking out this cafe called Zucharo when we bumped into the Australians again. They told us about how their shuttle never arrived for their night walk. To be honest, they didn’t miss out on too much. We got a couple spinach empanadas to take for lunch and shared a peanut butter cookie. Then we waved down the local bus to the national park which was further than we expected.

We were warned about how touristy Monteverde Cloud Forest was but I thought it’d be much worse. In the queue we met this lovely American couple in their late 60s or early 70s asking us excitingly all about our trip. There is something crazy when a person says “yes I was in Colombia forty years ago”. The price per person was $25, Costa Rica is a big money maker.

Sadly the weather wasn’t on our side as it was cloudy. This meant our picture perfect Instagram wasn’t happening. The walk itself was still great as you could see all the forestry around you. I had never seen trees so high and such an incredible ecosystem. Ollie was determined to do all the treks that were meant to take six hours in total. I agreed hesitantly. Luckily after we saw the waterfall, which was unimpressive but I think because we’ve been spoilt recently, we could see the clouds parting. This meant a race all the way back to the mirador for an epic photo which we got. On our way we were hounded by coatis. We had to sprint the last part as we could see the cloud drawing back in. We made it. The view was amazing and you truly were engulfed in a cloud rainforest with endless trees and greenery around you. The problem was we had 20 minutes to get the 3 o’clock bus or we had to wait for the 4. The two of us again sprinting past people looking absurd. We made it with an impressive few minutes to spare.

On the way back we got a message from the Australians who were meant to be on their way or in Jaco by now. Turns out, they missed the first bus and then the Uber was extortionate so had to wait until tomorrow. We planned to meet them for dinner at a Sabor Tico, another soda. Before then, we went to the Treetop bar which was filled with Americans for a couple glasses of vino. Then dinner was great and I chose great with the chicken fajitas. A few more drinks down we decided to try the local bar called ‘Amigos’ and ended up getting a couple jugs of beer. It ended up being a fun night!

The next day we did absolutely nothing but it was great. We did actually end up going on a short walk to the incredible ‘Ficus La Raiz’. This was a bridge made out of a fiscus root! I’ve never seen anything like it.

After this Ollie was desperate to have some pollo asado and so that was exactly what we did. For $5 each we got a massive portion of chicken and it was delicious.

The evening finished with us getting into bed early with some coffee, biscuits and strawberry’s watching Bear Grylls The Island. I wonder if I would survive?