Monteverde and Sarapiqui

Firstly, my apologies for not posting this last night! I will blame my tardiness partly on travel-endured fatigue, but honestly I was caught up in an exciting card game and neglected my blogging duties last night. 

Thursday, our students awoke to the natural splendor of Monteverde and Sarapiqui. Our students enjoyed a muddy hike through the aptly-named cloud forest (my personal favorite activity of the trip) and flying through the rainforest canopy via zip line, an activity few realize originates from the banana plantations of Costa Rica’s east coast. The Monteverde region is known for its remarkable biodiversity, protected by a patchwork of public and private preserves. Wildlife sightings of the region’s megafauna are rare (especially when hiking with a gaggle of adolescents), but the magic of this place is unmistakable. While not as special as seeing one, scaring away a quetzal before seeing it is more wildlife interaction than one gets on a typical Thursday anyway. 

Today, our buses will travel out of the mountains to the west coast, where we will meet again as a group in the beach town of Jaco. As usual, our travel day will be broken up with some pretty incredible activities, which I will save for tonight’s post. Pura vida!