Monteverde Pretzal Parties

The morning after descending Chirripo, we were in the bus by 5:15am and on the way to San Isidri where we then needed to change for a bus to San Jose and then change again for Monteverde. It was yet another early start. They really are becoming all too common these days. We ate oreo biscuits and watched the sunrise on the first bus, ate homemade platano verde (chipped banana pieces) that we bought from an unexpectedly swanky snack-stop during the second and on the third admired the absolutely awesome view driving up through the cloudforests. It was just about nice enough to compensate for having to put up with some greasy douche replaying the chorus from Mark Anthony’s annoyingly mega huge hit over here on his phone’s loudspeaker over and over again. 

We arrived at Hostel Tranquilo in Monteverde about 6:30pm and with the sun now set there was little to do other than to hit the shops for some dinner and try to organise an early start in the cloud forests for tomorrow. 

Unfortunately a lack of baked beans in the local supermarket marked an end to the possibility of special beans but we improvised with the red and black beans you get out here and made a sort of Tuscan bean soup equivalent. It worked a treat and is now our new favourite dish!

New style beany feast!

We were off to the cloudforests by 7:30am the next morning. Waking up wasn’t hard due to the booming voice of the strange middle aged Australian lady next door who sounded just like Ozzy Osbourne. It was bizarre just how much she sounded like him. I also got to speak to Mum just before we headed off to wish her Happy Mother’s Day so the day started well.

Being at such high altitudes, the forests are often shrouded in cloud, hence the name, but we had stunning weather with really clear views all day! 

Far reaching views in Monteverde Cloud forest

The day actually started on a really lucky foot. We had only been walking the trail into the forest for 5 minutes, before we saw a group of people who had stopped on the track and were either hunched over cameras or pointing up into the tree. As we crept up to them, one of them pointed out a pretzel up above. He was close enough that you could see his little head twitch with every sad puppy like chirp that he gave (such a sweet sound) but unfortunately too far to make a good photo, so we pressed on to gain some distance from the crowds and towards where we thought we heard another. Unfortunately this next one was to be heard but not seen so we continued with the trail.

A lizard, some amazing views, an awesome sandwich and a little snooze kept us amused for the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, but we were a bit disappointed that we had had no more luck pretzel hunting. 

Lizard with the longest tail I've ever seen!

Snoozing after lunch

It was then late in the afternoon as we were walking across the suspension bridge that gives you views right up close into the canopies and just as Tim said ‘all we need is to see a pretzel now’ that he spotted something red in the tree and it turned out to be one of the rare beauties! At that point, we were the only ones on the bridge and had him all to ourselves. We watched him for a good hour within which time some other people came and went. After some time he was joined by another, before then flying off himself and leaving the other behind.

Searching for pretzals in the canopy on one very high up scary suspension bridge!

Jackpot! We watched this guy for over an hour. Such a crazy looking but beautiful bird.

 After a further half hour or so a third male and female joined the one still in the tree. The twitchers and guides now about the place were getting so excited, making little reports into their walkie-talkies. It was funny and very sweet. Me and Tim stood there proud that we’d found him first and hissed at people to be quiet if they noisily approached the bridge. After a while of trying to keep 2 eyes on three birds, yet another 2 flew towards the tree before all 5 flew off together. Everyone was in shock to see so many at once and the guides were busy trying to explain this type of behaviour to the tourists. 

We think what happened was something like the original pretzel got to the tree meeting place and was waiting around for his mate. When his mate arrived, he flew off to get his girlfriend before then returning, whilst his mate stayed there preening and sorting himself out. The three of them then sat around waiting for the 2 birds who were late. Soon enough the others arrived but didn’t even have time to stop and darted straight through the canopy picking up the other 3 before they all headed off for a pretzel party.

With only 45 minutes left before the park shut we headed back towards the entrance to get a coach back to the hostel. It had been an amazing day and never had we imagined to have such luck spotting so many of these birds. The cloudforests had given us access to some really beautiful and remote parts of the jungle but at the same time, all the paths were well marked and it never felt overcrowded.

Whilst waiting for the coach back, we also managed to spot more hummingbrds, a cukoo and some guy came up to us with a really huge insect he’d found at the side of the road eating a banana!

There were hummingbirds everywhere. This shot however is nothing in comparison to Tim's last effort!

Luckily this bug was more interested in the banana than us.

We cooked an identical dinner to the previous night coz it was so damn good and 6 beers were drunk between us to celebrate the 6 pretzals we’d seen! 

We spent the rest of the evening planning what we’d do throughout the rest of Central America. Jungle bugs were wearing a little thin and together with the fact that we really want to spend a good amount of time exploring Mexico, we decided that night to perhaps leave Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador for another trip. Instead we could apparently jump on the ‘Tica’ bus and head straight up the Pacific Coast all the way to Guatemala, a country that people have only raved about and where there would be more volcanoes, amazing lakes, jungle if we so wish, colonial towns, Maya ruins, the list was endless.

So armed with some home cooked banana bread from the great people at the hostel, the next morning we said goodbye to Costa Rica and headed off to start the epic 2 day journey north.

The Journey to Guatemala

As it happened, our goodbye was a little premature. Due to the unbelievable amount of buses and therefore time needed to get us to a jumping on point for the ‘Tica’ bus we were unable to get a place on the bus that day. Instead we ended up in a town called Liberia in the north west of Costa Rica where we spent the night in a cool little hostel called Posada Del Tope with fish in the wall, a cute little garden but unfortunately a ton of mosquitoes. The epic amount of mosis even required us to use a mosquito net for the first time, but luckily it was not so threatening that I needed to break out the mosquito face mask.

Sad to have to be in a mosquito net. Stupid mosis.

Unsurprisingly, the next morning demanded another early get up as the bus left as 5:15am. Not opting to make coffee before we left in the hope that one of the many fast food joints down the road would be open was a mistake as the roads were deserted with the only sounds being from the hundreds of grackles in the trees. These are scavenging birds that look like crows and are able to mimic nearly all the sounds you can find on those little hand held buzzer things that make all those really annoying noises. Imagine hundreds of these. 

So to get our coffee fix, before the bus turned up we cooked some up using our stove at the side of the road. We were surprisingly slick about it, especially given the hour. The bus being late caused us to then buy another when the cafes opened, but just as I was walking to carry them back to Tim, the bus arrived so we poured the bought coffee into the thermal cups with lids that we have to take on the bus, where we were then given another coffee.

Cooking up some much needed coffee at the side of a highway at 4:30am

It could have been too much coffee, being served a BK hamburger croissant for breakfast, having to get on and off the bus about 4 times throughout the day for border control intensive searches of luggage requiring standing around in the heat for ages, the really fat women across the aisle from us constantly pulling snack bars out of her cleavage and devouring them or the del-boy-esque cocky balding guy behind me who had held us all up at customs for having far too many duty free bottles of perfume and bracelets in his luggage and was now playing cheesy dance anthems from his mobile which he held right in the gap between mine and Tim’s seat, or maybe it was a combination of all the above, but the journey wasn’t the best. It did however result in a good night’s sleep, safe in a bed in a hotel somewhere in El Salvador for the night.

Another 5am start the next day had us finally cross into Guatemala. My immediate impressions were good. People were friendly at the border, although to be honest, most of the border control and customs workers had all been really friendly, wishing us happy travels. Many of the little houses along the roadside had the terracotta ceramic roof tiles that always remind me of Spain. Everyone I saw was doing something, albeit opening a shop, painting some outbuilding or sweeping up the rubbish from around their house. I like it when I have a lot of people to watch and the first people I laid eyes on in Guatemala seemed to have a desire to make the place look clean and respectable. This was a sight for sore eyes given the amount of garbage and graffiti I’d passed by across the previous 2 days. I felt good about being in Guatemala and wondered if it would live up to this first impression.