The Story Of Us

After leaving La Fortuna we headed to Monteverde. It was a very rough and bumpy 3 hour drive from La Fortuna. Not pleasant at all.  Monteverde is most famous for its cloud forests. Cloud forests occur within tropical mountainous areas where there is consistent cover of clouds or fog. The constant moisture produces tremendous biodiversity. The Monteverde and Santa Elena Reserves boast 2.5% of the world’s biodiversity.          Also of note is, current day Monteverde was founded by Quakers from the United States whose pacifist values led them to defy the American draft before the Korean War. These Quakers and pacifists chose the area for its cool climate, which would facilitate dairy farming, the country's non-violent, army-free constitution, and its friendly Costa Rican inhabitants. The Quakers stewarded and farmed a large tract of land, part of which they eventually set aside for conservation, today the Reserva Biológica Bosque Nuboso Monteverde (Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological

Around the same time last month we started our winter break by flying to Costa Rica. It was an adventure of a lifetime!  We took a red eye flight on the 21st of December landing in San Jose bright and early on the morning of the 22nd. Picked up our rental and drove for 3 hours straight to our first destination. GPS worked perfectly, we didn't have too many issues with connectivity and the roads were in decent condition.  When we were home the forecast in Costa Rica did not look so good. Thanks to global warming the rainy season which was supposed to end in November seemed to be extending far into December. We saw a solid 7 days of rain ahead of us and while we were not happy about it we were prepared to make the best of it.  San Jose had been nice and sunny but the closer we got to our first destination the rain started to pick up. Our first destination was La Fortuna home to the Arenal Volcano (active, last eruption in 2010), Chato Volcano (dormant), the La Fortuna Waterfall as we