Superman and Tarzan

After a five hour bus ride from San Jose I finally arrived to the beautiful mountain top city of Monteverde. I had made a reservation earlier that day for the cheapest hostel listed on hostelworld. Sleepers Sleeping Cheaper Hostel was a very silly name and I was skeptical of the quality but I was blown away by how nice it was.

For $9 a bed it was definitely a good deal. The four bed dorm had its own bathroom which was very big. They even had hot water. The family that owned the hostel was very nice. They answered all my questions and helped me book my tours and even gave me a discount. The next day I woke up early and started on the extreme canopy tour ($40). It was a series of zip-lines. Some short and others across the valley. From zip-line to zip-line we climbed up staircases through the jungle. In between we did the Tarzan Swing where we jumped off a platform on a rope. The first drop is the scariest, then you hit the end of the rope and swing back and fourth a few times coming in close contact with the trees and branches. After this we continued through a few zip-lines before we got to the Superman. Here we were reharnessed so that we were laying stomach down on the wire our feet in stirrups behind us. We were released and we flew across the valley, it felt like flying. 

After everything we loaded back up in the car. I was driven to my next and venture: canoning ($45). Here we repelled down waterfalls some short some 40 meters high. This was not as easy as it looked. The rocks were slippery and because you had your hands on the break rope, if you lost your footing you would go smashing sideways into the rock. Constantly cold water was pouring on my face, at the end we would drop down into the pools below. Some shallow others deep. 

A couple scrapes later I headed back to the hostel to eat with my new friend Marina, who was already preparing dinner. After pasta we headed to the Tree House Restaurant to dessert and drinks. The Restaurant was built around a tree. Each table was situated between the branches, lanterns hanging over each table. In the background a cover band played Juanes and Shakira covers. After we headed to the supermarket with the 5 year old son of the hostel owner. I let him pick out my snacks, I ended up leaving with the Costa Rican equivalent of Doritos and Cheetos and small chocolate soccer balls. 

I headed to my room for some sleep, looking forward to making up at 5am to catch the bus out of town.