Monteverde/Los Pinos Casitas/Antonio

On arrival in Santa Elena we booked into Los Pinos Casitas and our cabin just outside the town. Apparently cash obtained a discount!

We had chosen the cabins because of their proximity to the National Park and we were able to work in a night walk on our first evening. A very different experience to Tortuguero; we were on paved paths, it was dry and there was no concern about snakes or the threat of venomous spiders. We saw tarantulas, luminous fungi, fireflies and glow worms but it was a little underwhelming after our experience in Tortoguero.

The cabins are self catering and we had shopped for fruit ( amazing tropical selection ), cereal etc and our first dinner was take away pizza. We were pretty exhausted! Not eaten on our veranda as it’s pretty nippy up here at night and all the cold weather gear we had was worn.

 

We had planned to do a bird tour here but it was unclear whether it would be on so we did the morning nature walk which was pretty good; lots to see  ranging from two sightings of the elusive and spectacular quetzal to strange bugs and mushrooms.What was bizarre was the insistence of the staff that our group of 10, on a walk in a very breezy morning in the forest that we wear masks for the two and a half hours of the walk.

Lunch followed at the famous Stella’s  Cafe and then a walk on the local trails at the casita.

We noticed groups of people the previous evening on the road near the casita around sunset and we walked down to find an absolute stunning view over the hills towards Lake Arenal with the sun setting behind it.

 

 We had intended going to eat out but felt a bit washed out and ended up staying in the casita making cheese on toast with red wine and the new season of Ozark.

Reinvigorated, the next day after a morning spent doing some washing, blogging, some bridge, Pilates and yoga on the veranda we were off horse riding. The weather was still beautiful, unusually so; there had been dark muttering from the guides about global warming but it was working for us. Hard to believe we were in a cloud forest!

After some dusty tracks we found the stables and our guide Marvin,a tough looking hombre and rather a showman but very reassuring with Carolyn who had not ridden for many years. The riding was in fact quite challenging with steep ups and downs and some sitting trot ( we were riding American style) but the countryside was so amazing you just relaxed into the riding. We had not realised before coming here so how wonderful the scenery would be, steep rolling hills.