It’s our last day in Monteverde and this means our Costa Rican adventure is coming to a close. We fly to Canada in 3 days and we cannot wait. Costa Rica has been an experience. We have travelled Coast to Coast, experienced a variety of incredible native wildlife, explored various National parks, punched a raccoon in the face (accidently), travelled on more public busses than I care to share, met some awesome couples to share our journey with and cooked the entire way keeping budget friendly. It’s been a wild ride.

Today was really a day of not doing a whole heap. We got up this morning and were treated to chocolate chip pancakes and fruit – my abso fav breaky here and from there we worked, packed, tidied up and then wanted to get one last dose of wildlife in before heading back to San Jose tomorrow.
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We have read about the frog parks in Monteverde and to be honest the reviews are a maxed bag ranging from it was ‘the best experience of my life’ to ‘I’d rather die than go there again’… we were torn as we do like reading reviews before we go anywhere. However, I wanted to see the frogs so we opted for the ‘Selvatura Reptile & Amphibian Exhibition’ as this one looked slightly newer and a bit more professional as after asking, the creatures are cared for and monitored by the permanent onsite biologist.

I will start off by saying, today was awesome! Waking up early, getting some yoga in, a beautiful breakfast made by our lovely host Johanna, a stunning rainbow overlooking the forest and then with our newest couple friends we decided to go and explore the ‘Santa Elena Cloud forest’.

We have read in many blogs that the Monteverde cloud forest is FULL of tour groups and very busy compared to Santa Elena bur the only real differences are the price (Monteverde being more expensive) and the fact they have a cloud bridge which brings with it an influx of tourists. Not being a fan of tourists we opted for the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve.
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The Santa Elena Cloud Forest is actually higher in elevation than the other at a whopping 1600 meters but also has at least 12kms of hiking trails which, for us is exactly what we love to do. Getting there was easy as we had a car and it takes about 20minutes from town as the roads are awful. From there you park up, pay the entrance fee of $16USD pp or $12USD if you are a student, grab a map and off you go.

​Immediately, we were amazed with how green, lush and vibrant this forest was. It is so dense and filled with mysterious mist and cloud that it was truly stunning from the get-go. We opted to do the 2 main tracks in the reserve – Cano Negro (4.6kms) and Encantado (3.6kms). Both trails are wonderful, in the sense that the forest is overwhelmingly beautiful, and we stopped a lot along the way to experience the serenity and peacefulness…and to take a whole heap of epic pics!

​I can hardly believe it, we are nearly at day 120 and have reached the last location on our Costa Rica Adventure. It’s crazy how fast time has flown but also incredible to look back at all the memories that we have made in this fantastic adventure so far.
We left Manuel Antonio via ‘Expressbus’ which cost $49USD pp and takes about 4 hours – the alternative was 7 hours and 4 public busses, so we chose to spend the extra as I couldn’t deal with 4 publics and the heat! It was great ans as you can see below, Leo had HEAPS of room to spread out in!
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Upon arrival here, we checked in to ‘Casa Linda Vista’ – it’s a small Air B n B pretty close to the heart of town and is lovely. There are three rooms I think but a good-sized kitchen and nice bathroom etc, so we are fairly happy and at $35NZD per night with breakfast – it’s a great deal.