Weekend to Monteverde

I got back earlier from my wonderful weekend in Monteverde. So the ride was 4 hours and one of those hours was straight up a winding, bumpy road up the mountain. As we kept reaching higher and higher altitudes, we could look down and see green trees and cows and clouds all around us! It was beautiful. Because we were so high up (more than 5000 ft above sea level) we were pretty much in the clouds (I'm pretty sure there is a more scientific reasoning but I am a Spanish  major....) Nothing like I had ever seen. When we got to the town at the top of the hill we started to attempt this climb up an extremely steep non-paved road. Needless to say, we did NOT make it. Hahaha, that was kind of scary at first but our driver was excellent and safely found a short cut. We stayed at a very nice resort that had cabins of sort to stay in. Ours below, had two bunk beds, one double and one single bed all in that one room! It was actually really nice. HOT SHOWERS!!!!!! I could've stayed in there for ever.

Our cabin #17- Nicole, Courtney, Leslie and I

 Walking around there were hills and trees and birds and bugs of all shapes and sizes.

I was ready to go!

 Saturday, we went on a hike in the morning and saw cool animals, mostly bugs and plants though. It was a good use of my heavy duty hiking boots and wool socks I thought I would never wear again! They worked perfectly and I looked hardcore (see above photo again ;)). Haha, but truly it was pretty fun just getting some exercise around the cool cloud rainforest.

A Coati (which is in the opossum family)

Morpho Butterfly

Haha everyone looked so serious trying to take pictures of everything as we walked.

 Afterwards we went to a Cheese Factory where they sold milkshakes. I bought a chocolate chip one which was pretty tasty!

Mr. Olah is attempting to spoil my photo rather maliciously as you can see by his intense focus.

 For lunch we went to the city nearby named Santa Elena which had a bunch of neat shops and restaurants. Our group went to the Tree House which literally made you walk up a staircase around this fake tree and sit at these wooden tables looking like tree stumps it was very cute...and expensive. I have a cup of soup for like 8 dollars! It was corn bisque and it was sweet! Very interesting...

Anna, Courtney, Tamara, Leslie, Nicole, JM, Brittany, Kellany and ME

 Every breakfast and dinner  we ate at the resort which was really nice and fancy (and free). We usually got lots of choices, like pork chops, spaghetti, chicken fajitas, garlic fish, for dinner and toast, granola cereal, eggs, beans and rice, tortillas for breakfast.

Breakfast comes with plenty of fruit :)

 TODAY was AWESOME! We rode the canopy (as the Costa Ricans call it- ziplined if you are a gringo) about 13 times. I went dead last so I was pretty freaked out by the time it was my turn, but after the first time it was pretty straightforward.
Words cannot describe the beauty of God's creation from such a perspective.
It was peaceful and yet thrilling. On about our 11th zipline, it began to rain. And I mean RAIN! We were drenched and this zipline was 1 km long so we had to go in pairs so that we would weigh enough to not get stuck in the middle. JM and I could not see five feet in front of us the rain was coming down so hard. THAT was exciting! I screamed pretty much the entire way haha. 
After our 13 ziplines we rode the Tarzan Swing- which was pretty much where you jump off and swing from a gargantuan tree. I thought I was going to be sick. To be honest I do not even remember jumping off that platform and I could not even let out a scream for the first few seconds because I was speechless! Hahaha but it was also very fun and I'm so glad I did it. 
As for the obvious question I know Mom you are thinking, yes JM worked very hard to step out of line and take pictures of us as we came down the zipline as well as the swing. I just don't have them because they are on his and Courtney's cameras. I do have this one picture though from the swing:

 

 

Jack did not even make a peep!

 Overall, a very exciting, and exhausting weekend. I really need to get some sleep now I wanted to be in bed about three hours ago haha but wanted to make sure you were all updated! Love you all and praying all is well.