Show Me the Way Outta San Jose

It's about a nine hour flight from Rio to San Jose, including the one hour lay-over in Panama.  This gave us ample time to do some research (timely, I call it) and it was about then that I read that in order to get of San Jose (which every single review, comment and article highly recommended you do), you need to book your bus ticket in advance.  Perhaps that research could have been more timely.  When we got to our hotel however, the very efficient guy at the counter, on hearing of our plan to leave the next morning, promptly called the bus company and booked our tickets.  Problem solved!

We travelled up to St Helena/Monteverde, a small town nestled in the mountains.  The trip into the mountains on ever-decreasing quality roads went through some beautiful country but the main attraction in this region is the cloud forest where you can go on canopy walks (or tarzan swings if you remembered to pack your loin cloth) and get to see the forest from all perspectives.  Nonetheless, when the first thing the guide showed us was a dead orchid, we did wonder what kind of exotic paradise we were going to be seeing.  But the views were great:

The place is full of wildlife.  Apparently, Costa Rica has more birdlife diversity than the USA and Canada combined and more wildlife diversity than the USA and Europe combined.  I reckon most of this diversity was right outside my hut and I can tell you - these animals didn't avoid extinction by putting their heads down and keeping schtum - you need to hear the  racket at 4.30 am to believe it.  In addition to the external cacophony, there was some strange mouse-like creature (possibly a mouse) in my room, which, when I ushered it out, made a lot of noise about wanting to come back in again.  I guess it was cold...

And there are a lot of hummingbirds:

The town also has one of the coolest restaurants I've ever seen:

Yup, that's me.  In a tree.  And very relaxing it was too!