Road from Fortuna to Monteverde, Friday 23rd October

The roads from La Fortuna to our next destination at Monteverde was too steep and twisty for Bety so we had local mini buses to get us to Lake Arenal and then a ferry up the lake and to be met by another mini bus and taken to Monteverde. Meanwhile Seb would drive Betsy around the lake on a long tortuous route to park the bus and catch a taxi to met up with us in the mountains.

On our route we passed the hot springs that we had visited the night before.

The ferry terminal on the lake.our boat was to be the big party boat on the far right.

View of us and some other passengers on the boat as we sailed up the reservoir.

A view of the volcano still partially shrouded in mist.

There were penty of other ferries on the water which said that it was the favoured means by which locals made the journey into town rather than take the much longer chicken bus to get to town.

One problem that the area has is that there is a lot of deforestation such as these photos show...what the tree cover should be like and where it has been cleared for farming.

Beautiful flowering water plants at the ferry terminal.

 Views of the mountains.

 Our hostel in Monteverde.

 The annex.

 The terrace.

 Communa area.

 Views across the valley.

 That afternoon some of us went for a tour of a coffee farm that also produced sugar and chocolate...three tours in one!

 Ox cart.

 Coffee bushes.

 Don Juan, 78 years old who set up the farm with Ginger.

 Drying coffee beans drying under plastic with Nolleig and Evie looking on..

 Crushing the beans.

 Roasting, being displayed by our guide...a real card.

 Chocolate process and tasting.

Plus of course chocolate tasting... but people helped themselves before I could take a photo, hence the only partially filled plate.