Monteverde

I drove from Manuel Antonio to Monteverde. Originally I was to spend three days there but decided that much of what I could hike would not be good for my knee. I changed my hotel which unfortunately was cancelled by the owner. The next day, I found another.

The roads were not as bad as I thought. Along the way there was a place to stop at Crocodile Bridge to see the crocodiles underneath.

I had a snack which was a walking ceviche taco.

The mountain roads reminded me of some of the Backcountry Western PA roads but there were some rougher areas and larger potholes. The views were amazing but not many places to pull off and take a picture.

Eventually I arrived in Santa Elena which is below Monteverde. Unfortunately, the hostel I booked was full with workers from the area and the poor manager did not know it had been advertised in the app I booked it from. She was so sweet and I had a great opportunity to practice my Spanish. She offered to find me an Airbnb but I found another hotel instead. I was lucky as there were few accommodations left, let alone for that night.

This restaurant I almost passed by but looked at their reviews online. They were great so I stopped.

I ordered casada which is a typical Costa Rican dish. I ordered the pescada (fish) but they had many options.

I felt like a snack and picked up treats made in the country. I had tried the coconut cookies before.

The next morning I took a tour to Selvadura park near the montaverde cloud forest. They have a great system of 8 hanging bridges that overlook much of the canopy of the forest.

This looks at the Continental divide here in Costa Rica. You can equally see sunrise and sunset at this point (depending which way you are facing).

After the tour of the bridges, I took the sloth sanctuary tour. There are only females here and they were unable to be returned to the wild and will spend the rest of their lives here.

This one was asleep.
What better place to wait for food?

Some sloth facts:

There are two toed and three toed sloths. There three toed are down south on Costa Rica and the two toed in the mountains.

Two-toed sloths primarily eat leaves, fruits, and shoots. Their diet is low in energy, leading to their slow metabolism and slow movement.

Despite the name “two-toed,” they actually have three toes on their hind limbs. They do, however, have only two fingers on their front limbs.

Two-toed sloths are slow-moving and spend the majority of their time hanging upside down from tree branches. Their slow movement helps them conserve energy.

They are mainly nocturnal, being more active during the night. This behavior helps them avoid predators and cope with the heat of the day.

They have a slow metabolism and 4 chambered stomachs, that extract nutrients from their low-energy diet.

After the tour I drove to La Fortuna. It is on the other side of the mountain and across the Arenal volcano area. Not many kilometers but it took time to go around all of the mountains. A beautiful drive. Along the way I saw this animal. It is a coatimundi.