On the road to Monteverde

We left Mt Arenal this morning 

And took a strange boat across the huge reservoir (Lake Arenal) to the other side.

  Hard to figure out exactly where we landed because the trip ended at a bank of the lake and we struggled to pull up our suitcases to the road.  Ended up on this funky bus with about 8 other tourists and off we dove on our way to Monteverde. 

Let me digress a moment to talk about this road.  More than 45 klms of a winding single lane dirt road over a mountain range, with lots of trucks and traffic coming the other way.   I used to think  the road to Stinson Beach was bad or the road to Johnson's Landing or Harris Road on Saturna were a pain but they are easy compared to what we endured today.  They say the road is famous, yeah...famously bad!  Exhausting.... We did see cowboys on horses though, and kids in schools and ladies shopping as the road wound through small villages tucked away in the mountains.  

Haven't made in to Monteverde yet.  We at staying in Santa Elena which is the adjacent touristy town.  And when I say touristy, it is a cross between Tofino and the worst parts of Banff with a soupçon of a crapy Mexican town.  Perhaps Dawson Creek.....certainly a feeling of being at the end of the road.  Happy to say we are staying in a small Pension outside of the town.  Once a walk around the town was more than enough although they did have a good pharmacy, ice cream shop and fabulous orchid garden, something like 200 (out of something 400 ) of which are native to Cost Rica.  See below for some of the showy ones. 

This one is called Dragons'sTongue