"Sube y Bajo, Sube y Bajo, del Cielo Hasta Inferno"

This week passed in a sort of monotonous blurr highlighted with thrilling adventure.

There is a certain amount of drudgery in aspects of everyone's life. The hill by the Serpantario, is one of mine. There is this HUGE steep hill that separates us from the town of Santa Elena. And since we pass through Santa Elena at least once daily, I face this hill often. It has this great hand rail that looks so enticing to slide down, but somehow no matter what pants I am wearing, the rail won't slide. I've tried jeans, I've tried nylon, and I've tried cotton. I've tried rainy days, I've tried sunny days, I've tried cloudy days, and I have even tried sunny days where it rains without clouds. I have attempted every sort of combination of clothing, weather, and body angle but it just won't slide. This means bruised toes and achy knees as I walk down. The walk up is, of course bad as well, for it is steep and long and we usually are carrying heavy groceries or freshly washed laundry.


Ziplining, on the other hand, is a thrilling adventure. Mom and I decided one afternoon to sign ourselves up for a zipping adventure between trees and mountains. We were zipped across the forest at high speeds with the wind blowing our hair and inflating our jackets. We were also pushed off a ledge into the infamous Tarzan Swing, where it wasn't until 5 seconds into it my fall my scream caught up with my body. Despite the scary free-fall, the Tarzan swing was quite fun and exhilarating. Mom was fearless and did it too!

There is a certain drudgery to the weather. The wind is obnoxious and although it calmed down for a few days this week it is back in full force tonight.

On the other hand, there is great joy going with mom to sample pastries from the various cafe's around town. Mom is always down to get a coffee and a pastry and never feels guilty about indulging ourselves in a rich brownie or fresh cookie. We have sampled, judged, honed and perfected the art to pastry eating here in Monteverde. Despite Costa Rica's reputation for Coffee and the plethora of chic shade grown coffee plantations littering every hillside, the coffee here is not that good. Perhaps it all gets exported...The coffee is usually a lukewarm disappointment of bitter black water muted by some milk. Luckily I don't like coffee.

The magical Santa Elena Cloud forest makes you quickly forgive sub-par coffee. The forest is engulfed in a forbidden-forest like fog that can send chills up your spin. The trees are dripping with mosses, vines, and bromiliads. The diversity of plants is overwhelming, and you are sure that the diversity of animals must be just as astounding. Unfortunately, no matter how quietly I walk, no matter how hard I crane my neck up down and around, I hardly see any creatures, particularly mammals. So there is a certain drudgery with the excitement of potentially seeing that by the end of the day is let down with a sore neck.

We also went on a night hike which had the same sort of feel. 90% of the forest is nocturnal, but even so, the most exciting thing we saw was a stick that glowed. A small decomposing straw-sized stick glowed faintly in the deep black night. This certain fungus gives off this faint light to attract moths who foolishly mistake it for moonlight (which of course does not reach the forest floor). The moths fly down to the stick, land on it and pick up a little bit of fungus to spread across the forest as the journey on.

While it was easy for me to decide that the glow-stick was the most exciting part of the night hike, indecision (which I know all too well) is like a sickly plague. After much torment and back and forth we, luckily, made many decisions this week. First of all, Mom and I planned a trip (leaving tomorrow) to the famed Corcovado National Park. This remote peninsula of Costa Rica is known for its outstanding wildlife sightings and mom has been toying with the idea of going since we got here. Secondly I decided upon a new major, which is not only exciting to me for my prospective classes, but also means I will graduate before I go gray! Thirdly we booked our flights for Spain, which is quite a relief since every time we brought up the subject of Europe we planned a new plan, pushed around dates and got no where.

And so folks, we have one month left in Costa Rica...with much excitement planned!