love tree children, unite!!

I was definitely up for making our third weekend here more action-packed than walking around looking for turtles in the dark (though admittedly that was an experience itself), so I decided to go zip-lining at Monte Verde! The 5-hour bus ride was a bit ridiculous. A bunch of us ended up standing or squeezing 3 people into 2 seats because the company had sold way too many tickets (a common practice here, even though it is illegal to stand on a bus?). The roads just got narrower and more inclined as we climbed up; it was so nerve-racking sitting helplessly as the bus stalled all the way up, up, eventually up above the clouds! When we finally got into town, we were bombarded by people hawking their hotels, from only $5-10 a night. Chad found a really awesome hostel for us to stay at: the place was just so homey, with its Christmas lights, dogs and cats, free internet and free coffee/tea.

Our room had a loft for 2 (or here, 6!) people. Que divertido!

It started raining, so we scrapped the horseback riding idea and asked our hotel manager for suggestions about cool things to see, and he gave us directions through the nearby cloud forest to a “tall tree” that was apparently good to climb. I originally imagined climbing maybe a good two, three stories up, but when we finally found the tree, I realized we'd be able to climb all the way up, to the top of the forest: the tree was literally 30m (about 100 feet!) high!! Part of the tree was made up of a honeycomb-like formation of branches that coincided into a tunnel (a stangler fig most likely), so it was like a ladder, basically! The experience was definitely one of the coolest, most offbeat things I've done in my life.

The Tree! This is Shannon trying to climb the outside of the tree before we noticed the tunnel on the inside.

We all climbed at once, single file with me leading the way to the top... I was so terrified of snakes and spiders and stuff hiding in the cracks, but was like hey, I probably won't come back, so all the way baby!!



Hannah and the White Light - it got pretty cramped towards the end!

The view from an opening towards the top. Yujing, John, and Didi sang/beatboxed "In the Jungle" up here. The acoustics were great!!

The wreakage that was my pants post-climb. xD

Super-excited and giddy after the climb!

The next day, we went to Selvatura Park to zip-line and tarzan swing! That was a lot of fun and absolutely exhilarating flying through and above the trees...

The last zipline was especially crazy, a scenic zip across two mountains, so long it required two people!

Geared up yo -

To top off the excitement, we went to Santa Elena Reserve for a leisurely stroll along a beautiful path through the rainforest. Awesome weekend!! :]