I’m getting a sense that if it were put to the vote, the majority may go in favour of saying we did a lot yesterday – some would say, perhaps, too much.
While our first pickup wasn’t until 10:30, no one really had a decent lie in as the latest we could have breakfast was 7:30am. As we were all up we popped into town in the morning to pick up drinks for later.
At 10:30 we were picked up and taken the Extremo Canopy Tour to participate in one of around five different zip line activities in the area. The activity comprised 14 lines, a rappel from a tall tree and a ‘tarzan swing’ which began more as a freefall than a swing.
Of the 14 zip lines, 4 of them cross the valley giving runs up to half a mile in length. 12 of the runs we took solo but a couple we had to take in pairs. The last of the 4 runs, and in fact the last run of all, was called the superman run where we were suspended horizontally and zipped hundreds of feet above the valley at around 50mph. All very exhilarating.
After lunch we were taken in a mini bus for our waterfall rappelling activity.
Helen bowed out of this one but the rest of us geared up to rappel down 6 separate waterfalls. Most of them were quite small but the 4th was well over 100ft high. It turned out to be quite exhausting but a lot of fun. There was a sneaky trick on the last waterfall as the rope was just a little too short causing us all to fall in the cold mountain water. The following video shows us all descending the 4th waterfall and a demonstration by one of the helpers.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2DHfC4Cjag[/youtube]
Having been dropped off back at our cabins we had about 90 mins for our final activity of the day – our night hike. This turned out to be a 
guided tour through some woods. Jess’s disposition was not helped when the second creature we were shown was a tarantula. We did see a variety of creatures though from leaf cutter ants through to a sloth in a tree.
We were all quite exhausted by the day’s activities and all were asleep shortly after wolfing down pizza.
This morning had an earlier start. We had been advised to get to the Monteverde Reservation at 7am to avoid the lines at the ticket office. This meant breakfast at 6am. We arrived in good time and soon met our guide. Unfortunately, the other four people assigned to our guide arrived much later causing us to wait nearly an hour for the start of our tour.
Being in the clouds, we were subject to mist and rain for our entire tour. Few animals were out but we did get to see a number of rare and interesting birds. Our guide, Eric, was excellent as he told us all about the plants and animals in the cloud forest and all the various natural remedies they were used for. He also had a good sense of humour. For example, when Helen asked if one particular fruit was edible he replied “only if you want to howl like a howler monkey.” We thought it was funny.
This evening we were up for our sunset horse riding trip. John, Helen and Jess all bowed out of this one leaving just Ben and myself going in this one.
We had a really good time. The ride was for two hours. For the most part we followed winding trails through woods and fields. Despite being novices we were allowed at times to pick up the 
pace over and above just walking everywhere. Noone else joined us on this trek so with the two helpers we made a party of four. It seemed my horse was used to being behind Ben’s horse as every time I tried to pass Ben’s horse took it on itself to block the way. If I left my horse alone it would follow on behind Ben’s. This kept us entertained for some time.
The highlight for us was ending up in a sort of field where we were allowed to gallop the horses up the field three times. The slight downside was at the end of the third run when I fell off the horse. Not quite sure what happened but the saddle ended up being on sideways and I had to pick the best place to take a dive / roll. I ended up with nothing more than a few scratches and found the episode quite funny although it could have been more serious.
The ride ended up at sunset when we saw the sun set off to the right of the Golfo de Nicoya – a spectacular sight.
My body now aches a little too much so it’s off for a hot bath and cold beer.
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