On Thursday we headed from the beach to the mountains to check out the Monteverde cloud forest.  We went to this nature park: http://www.selvatura.com/.  Sure, we could have done zip-lining, but we had made a vacation mistake – it was simply too far a drive to do more than a long tour and lunch.  To do this place properly best to spend the night.

Joyce following Miguel into the forest.  We had an usual sunny day.  It’s supposed to be cloudy and raining.

Here we go…

Yikes, a long way down.

A photo of Joyce taking a photo.  Fascinating to see plants that in our world are small decorative things that live in pots.  Here they are giants.

Trees in this section are small because it was clear-cut for dairy farming in the 60’s.

So, we started our day at sea level.  At the start of our hike we were at 5,300+ feet above sea level.  In between is a lot of steep, narrow gravel road switch-backing up the valleys you see below.  Some of it’s scenic, most of it is jouncy.

Ever heard the phrase, “you look like 10 miles of bad road”…?  This road actually isn’t all that bad.  You can do the whole thing in the standard Tico battered compact asian sedan without incident, but it’s so nice when the pavement starts again.