...(something inspiring)...: ...Monte Verde, Costa Rica...

Okay Ill start from the beginning! So the Friday before semana santa was Mini Olympics, aka, the craziest time of the year for me - woke up at 5am to start working on the day, getting the equipment ready, making sure the fields were ready, and make coffee for everyone because it was going to be a looooong day! The day went very smooth, so immediately after the awards ceremony we jumped in the car for san pedro to stay at Villa Nuria for the night. We had an early flight the next day, but we made it to costa rica around 9am but had some time to kill because steph's mom didn't get in until 12. So we caught a shuttle to the Denny's, where we experienced our first culture shock being away from Honduras! The prices were even more expensive than they would be in the states, so we split a breakfast and took advantage of the all you can drink coffee, haha, but bfast was still like $15-20 bucks!! So finally once we had Steph's mom, Carol, we headed up the mountain to Monte Verde, a mountain community started by Quakers. It was 3.5 hours on pavement and 1.5 hours on a dirt road going up a mountain, I was really starting to wonder what in the world could be up there. The driving is much safer in CR, which I was very thankful for! Once we got there, we checked into our neat little hotel up in a cloud forrest and started planning the next 3 days. In Monte Verde we did several excursions including: waterfall hike and swim through this ladies back yard, went on a hike in the cloud forrest with some serious bird watchers, went on a cheese factory tour (awesome), and visited lots of local art museums and delis, and caught the rodeo that was in town! It was a very cool place, but we decided to leave a day early and go visit the Arenal Volcanoe. But before we do that, check out some pics from Monte Verde...