Monteverde Trip: Day 2

 After a bad night's sleep with all 5 of us in one room, we woke up the second day in Monteverde and were ready for adventure. Our hotel was really nice, nestled in lush gardens off a winding dirt road. They had walls made out of cement in the main building where they had laid glass bottles as they built the wall. So the walls looked like they had all colors of glass circles, squares, and rectangles. When they turned on the light inside of the walls, the bottles lit up and the walls looked so pretty! It was a really cool idea.

 We headed up to Selvatura Park where they have zip-lines through the trees, nature walks, suspension bridges, hummingbird garden, reptile house, etc. We walked though the beauitful jungle and over amazingly high and suspenseful suspension bridges. I had a hard time looking down without feeling like I was going to freak out and have an anxiety attack! Some of the bridges were a couple hundred feet off the ground. Sometimes I feel like a mother hen who runs around clucking and flapping my feathers to keep my kids safe and out of trouble. Being up there on those towering bridges brought out the hen in me for sure! But we still had a great time.

We walked along the trail talking about where the fairies live, and I opened up a package of M&M's and left "fairy treats" here and there along the trail for the kids to find. My dad used to do that when we were hiking in the mountains of Utah and it was so thrilling for my brother and I to find a little colorful treat. I'm planning on making M&M's a permanent part of my hiking curriculum.

5 little monkeys swinging on a bridge...

You can't tell from this picture, but this fern was about 12 feet across! So pretty!

These boys!! They make my heart go pitter-pat. They are such sweet little guys and are so good, they are the joy of my life. I'm so lucky to have such awesome kids. Even when they are being super busy and require me to be ON full-steam-ahead, once they are tucked in bed and sleeping sweetly, I love to kiss their soft cheeks and snuggle them and think about all the happy times we had that day. It's a lot of work to be a parent, but every moment is worth it.

Again, you can't tell from the picture, but these leaves were HUGE! I love these awesome jungle plants.

The jungle is so lush, there are plants growing on plants. The trees are covered with moss, vines, flowering plants, even some look like big bushes! It's amazing to have SO much green all around. Utah is going to seem like the Moon when we go back!

Papa and Ella. These two are quite a pair. She's only got eyes for Papa, especially if she wants to snuggle or play. Mama is good to have around when she's ready for eating or sleeping, but Papa, now he's the man who makes life worth living! She's a very blessed girl to have a dad like Sean!

This is a big spider web with dew drops. So pretty.

Jackson trying to make the bridge swing, which later we found out was against the rules :)

Tarzan Vines!

This little guy is called a Pizote. We were at the hummingbird garden looking at the beautiful iridescent birds, and this friend wandered out of the bushes. I threw some cracker crumbs at him and we were instant friends. He LOVED crackers and was doing his best to be cute to earn more bites. He would come right up to us and take them from our hands! The kids loved feeding him because he was so big! When he stood up he was taller than Elora. 

Cute little car/motorcycle outside the tourist shop where Jackson knocked down an entire rack of hundreds of post cards. By the time we got done with the Selvatura tour, we were SO tired, hungry, and getting grumpy. After the post card incident, we got lunch-to-go and walked home on the winding hilly dirt road, whining and crying the whole way (ALL of us were whining by that point). So after a couple hours of napping, we were ready for the next adventure! Off to the sugar cane/coffee/cocoa tour!

This tour was one of my favorite things we did! We learned about how local coffee is grown and produced, how chocolate is made, and also how sugar cane is processed! We got to even make our own cocoa powder and sugar cane juice fudge! It was really fun to be so hands-on. Our tour guide was really great with the kids.

Peter being fixed up for some child labor in the coffee plantation.

Those bushes on the left are actually coffee trees. They keep them short so they can reach the berries easily.

This machine pits the coffee berries, and the machines in the background sort and roast the beans.

Jackson chewing on some fresh sugar cane. That stuff is SO yummy! No wonder we're all addicted to sugar. It's really easy to get to the good stuff without much processing. 

This is a traditional costa rican ox cart, and we got to go for a ride! Woohoo!

The kids were all hyped up on sugar and cocoa, so getting them to sit still for a picture was quite a feat. Jackson found this tiny bench suited for kids, and they posed for a pic. 

This is one of my favorite pictures of ALL TIME! What cuties :)

These are cocoa pods. You cut them open and the cocoa seeds are surrounded by gooey white stuff which tastes great too! The seeds are then left out on a drying table for a few weeks until they are ready to grind up. 

Sampling freshly ground cocoa seeds

And of course cocoa is much tastier with sugar mixed in! Our guide showed us how to use a stone grinder to mix it.

Beautiful mist rolled in in the afternoon. 

Here we go with the child labor again. This is a hand crank to extract sugar juice from the stalks. Good thing Peter is so strong! 

These oxen are turning a huge sugar cane press. The juice then runs into large vats that are boiling with sugar juice, which turns into carmel-like fudge after it cools.

We all got to make our own. What a great tour! The boys loved taking home a little bag of sugar fudge they had made themselves. That's the kind of learning that I love! They'll never forget something like that when they get to be so involved. 

We went to bed that night very tired, but happy to have had such a great day.