Monteverde

After driving in the crazy mountains up and down some very steep grades that must be very bad for the brakes of any car, we made it to our next town and the Hotel & Spa Poco a Poco.  This was smaller than I had pictured but it was really nice and the grounds were beautiful.  They had an icemaker, hallelujah! They had a restaurant and breakfast was included and it was really good.  When we first got there they had this little show put on by a local group.  There were food and drinks but it was more than we wanted to pay for the food so we opted not to eat there and we were unclear if we were allowed to watch the show without paying, but who knows.  I really wanted to get my picture taken with some of the girls but I was embarrassed and we didn't have any cash to offer them.  It was cute watching the kids perform though.

We enjoyed hanging out by the fire pit at night.  There was a hottub but I don't like getting wet when it's chilly outside.  And it was chilly at night up here in the mountains.  We watched this big beetles fly into the flames and just die.  It was sad but man, they are stupid.  We chatted with an older couple from somewhere in the midwest, I can't remember now.  I was talking to Kylee on Marco Polo once and the fire had a little mini explosion and the whole thing jumped off the ground an inch.  It scared the crap out of me (Kylee claims I said a bad word but I didn't).  These ants came out at night and they were pretty cool to watch!  There was a long line of them we had to be careful not to step on.

After a long day of hiking we booked massages.  I was surprised they had us together, but it was kind of fun.  It was Ryan's first professional massage!  And he wasn't all that impressed.  He said it hurt a lot at times.  Sometimes the masseuse does not understand when you want nice and relaxing instead of kneading out knots...  But I thoroughly enjoyed mine.

We had some time to relax in and around the pool and hottub.

There was a short trail around the grounds.  And there are dogs, I assume they are strays but they are very well behaved!

This was our breakfast one morning.  Always starts with a fruit tray.  I got salmon avocado toast and Ryan got pancakes.

We went to this cafe for lunch.  It was yummy and this sad looking dog just wandered around the patio guests looking sad so someone would feed him.  Nobody seems to care that the dogs are there but they are really well behaved.

We walked around, stopped at a market looking for things to bring home to the kids, mostly candy because they like to try it from different areas.  And we stopped at this bakery.  We tried a few things.  Nothing to write home about.

It is clear why this area is called Monteverde.  They are definitely green mountains!  So much vegetation and big mountains. Getting up here on these roads was a headache.  You'll be cruising along and all of a sudden there's giant torn up spots on the road that you have to slow way down for.  Passing cars is a problem because of all the curves in the road.  And sometimes cars will park on the side of the road but that means in the road.  They are just stopped randomly in the road.  We are really blessed that we didn't have any accidents or any popped tires or anything.