You can all consider yourselves warned after this. Never, ever, under any circumstances, not even if your life depended on it, not even if there were a pot of gold, irresistible kitten or lifetime supply of snickers bars on the other side, never attempt to cross the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border by foot. Well OK, perhaps that is an overreaction. You can do it, just set aside about half a day or so. The problem lies with the Costa Rica immigration/emigration procedure. Here is the procedure: A large queue is formed for people wishing to enter the country. A second large queue is formed for people aspiring to leave the country. The first queue is funnelled into a very small office. The same small office also receives the second queue. And in the middle, where these two marches meet and exchange pleasantries regarding their forthcoming/recently terminated stay in Costa Rica, is a bank.
This must surely be the most inconveniently located bank in the world, unless there happens to be an HSBC teetering atop Mount Everest. And what this means, for those that haven`t realised it already, is that there is in fact a third queue for people intent on visiting the bank. And for the really cunning, what would be a nifty way of skipping the immigration queue which takes a good couple of hours? Well of course, you make like you`re simply going to the bank, secretly - or not, as it turned out - concealing your passport beneath your jacket. It`s utter madness.
With that ordeal out of the way however, we continued our journey to Monteverde, a town high up in the mountains and accessible only via dirt roads because the town is too afraid of the increased numbers of already numerous tourists that paving the roads might bring. However I`m about to piss them off immensely, as I recommend that you all go. If nothing else, the drive up to the top is worth the effort alone. And there`s plenty to do once you're there, such as exploring the cloud forest. Via a zip-line.
This will surely go down as one of the highlights of my trip. We first spent a couple of hours being led through part of the forest by a guide, who explained the myriad flora and fauna and took us over suspension bridges spanning vast expanses of forest below. Following that was the canopy tour, which essentially involved zip-lining through the trees over increasingly large distances, to the point where we actually crossed from one mountain to the other, sailing through the clouds. It was such an incredible experience I was worried I was becoming so distracted by the view that I wouldn't`t see the end-of-line tree hurtling towards me. Of course by the end, the rain meant that I literally could not see the tree coming towards me. Well, not until I was almost a part of it. Do you have any idea how much harder it is to brake in the rain? Fear not however, I managed. Others were not so fortunate.
Yesterday we left Monteverde for La Fortuna. And to be honest, not much else happened for myself that day, who elected to do very little rather than go to the hot springs - and I maintain that the three hour afternoon nap was entirely worth the sacrifice. Today was really the last day for doing something big, as tomorrow we travel to San Jose and then the following day it`s trip over. And so I am delighted to report that today was spent very wisely indeed: white-water rafting is terrific fun. It`s especially fun when half of your fellow rafters fall out, and you are not one of them. Even more so when the only reason that two particular people were removed was because of a third person hurtling towards them.
And essentially, that`s pretty much it. There shall be at least be one more post about this holiday, but the end is very much in sight. Personally, I`m starting to formulate a plan to be executed upon my return. The question you should be asking yourselves is what on Earth will you read when this blog is over? Don`t panic just yet though, there`s still a couple of days to go.
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