Monteverde...part 2!

This weekend, I had my last excursion -and the best part about it was that everything on the trip was FREE!  My ecological photography class takes two trips during the semester, and this was the first, to Monteverde. But it was more like a vacation than a school trip...our professor is really young and laid back. If he was from the US, I think he would be from California during the 70s, ha, at least that's what I picture.

my class--only 6 students; the other 5ish people in the class had a different field trip this weekend. 

We left from school Saturday morning at 7am, and arrived after a 4 hour bus ride. The ride to Monteverde is BUMPY. Really, really bumpy.  The roads go up some big hills, are not paved, have some huge potholes, and some sharp curves with some steep drops. But the mountainous views from the road are gorgeous. The first day in Monteverde, we all just relaxed and looked at some shops and walked around and of course ate.  One of my favorites was a little place where we got smoothies and finally, some chocolate chip cookies! (I've been missing those..) Costa Rica doesn't really have desserts the same as the States...a 'dessert' here might be some sweet-ish bread with sugar on top...doesn't quite cut it lol. But at this place, we got to eat while hanging out in a hammock and looking out over a pretty cool view. And there just happened to be a rainbow at the same time, pretty cool :)

one of the artisan stores

best cookies EVER (atleast in costa rica that is)

a river-forest trail we discovered

hammocks at the cafe place...with a rainbow in the background...ahhh :)

Later that night, when we were out we saw a sloth climbing on a power line near our hotel! They are so cute. He was not slow at all though..we named him Speedy Gonzales, haha.

The next day, we got up early for a guided bridge tour through the jungle.  This was the part of the trip where we actually did something for our class, aka take pictures lol. It was fun, but a little long..two and a half hours I think.  I am not exactly a biology person and I can only look at so many types of plants and trees and grass before they all start to look about the same. I think I fulfilled my plant appreciation quota for the year.  But it was a fun trip, my favorite part of the bridge tour was at the end when we got to climb up inside a tree woo!

the tree we got to climb up through!

jurassic park?

tour guide

my artistic attempt for the day, haha

the tree on the right is the one we got to climb up

And, on the trip home, we saw a beautiful wild white horse (well, somebody might own it, but they just roam free) near the station. Definitely beats those lovely US rest stops, ha. :)

One little problem though..after my first weekend at Monteverde, I got really sick for a few days, probably from drinking the water (we can only safely drink the water in San Jose). But I made the great decision of drinking the water again this past weekend (I know, I know, not smart, but somehow my though process was that I had become more immune to the bad bacteria in the water) and I am a little sick. Not as bad as last time though, so maybe I did get a little immunity after all :)