Day 4--Heaven

If yesterday was a rainy hell, then today was a sunny, clear paradise. We arrived by both water-ferry and bus around noon. Then we went on a whim and decided to go on a 4x4 tour of Monteverde (the place we will be for the next two days). I should preface this by telling you about the balcony I am writing this on…Picture this: a beautiful tile balcony, with cast iron railing. I am sitting in a wooden rocking chair that overlooks the pacific ocean in the distance. The weather is a chill 65 degrees (it is 10:00 at night). The night air is as fresh and clear as it ever was. When Haley and I looked up in the sky to see what stars we could see, I commented that "we could see a lot more stars if that large cloud wasn't in the way." It turns out that the large cloud was the milky way, which shines as bright as a large white cloud. We busted out the binoculars and truly appreciated how nice it is to be down here. Even though we are surrounded by lights in our small town, we were able to see the Milky Way, open clusters of stars, and we even thought we may have seen the Eagle Nebula.

Haley and I are really excited for Ometepe, in Nicaragua. We head down there in two days. I guess they say Nicaragua is quite far off the beaten path and that we are gonna be roughing it for the next couple days. Ometepe is in the middle of the largest natural lake in central america and consists of two volcanoes (one active and one extinct, I believe). We are going to stay in a hotel in the middle of the two volcanoes in the middle of the lake. Again, we will be traveling via water-ferry (is there any other type of ferry?). Should be fun.

Okay, I meant to write about our ATV tour of Monteverde. Today was a beautiful, windy sunny day. We got to ride on these Honda 4x4's up and down all these mountains for about 3 hours. Someone in our trip had asked to do something a bit more "technical" and wanted to see some mud, so our guides took us up a mountain that was full of mud. Two of the ATV's got stuck sideways in a puddle of mud, but Haley and I made it just fine. It was quite thrilling as we winded up and down these back roads, revving up those 350cc engines to go as fast as they could. Haley was clutching onto my chest for dear life, threatening to kill me, all the while having the time of her life. It was so amazing. Then at every house we passed, the locals could hear us coming and came out to wave to us. We had to stop for cows a couple of times to let them pass. Our guides were really good sports and kept racing us, and spun their back tires on us a couple times, kicking up mud (be sure to see pictures of some of the people in our group that go really dirty). And to think that the 3 hour tour only cost us $30 each. Incredible!

We are really looking forward to tomorrow, where we will hike through the local cloud forest, go on massive zip lines through the canopy, and then walk through the treetops on rope bridges. I am sure it will be a full day, but worth every minute of it.