We left Liberia for Monteverde today. We were intending to spend the morning at another reserve southeast of Liberia before getting on the road proper to Monteverde, so we left our collection of bags in one of the motel rooms to be collected at around midday.
Where we ended up was down another makeshift road at the Lomas de Barbudal Biological Reserve. This country is certainly rich in biological reserves. No officials appeared to be present so we parked up and sauntered down the main track from the entrance. We were early, naturally, reaching the first bit of river but there were a few damsels which amused us awhile.
The next step to a signposted waterfall, maybe 1½kms distant, took forever with the boys minutely examining every stream/flush, of which there were many in the well forested surroundings, on the way. I did what I could without wellies but again, was a little hampered. We finally made the waterfall by about 10:30. It was OK – not spectacular but OK.
Having left our bags in one motel room, we said we’d be back by 12:00 to collect them. We made it with a little time to spare, not that the owners would have minded, loaded our bags into the car then called in to a local hotel for lunch. I went for a filet mignon to try Costa Rican beef. It was tasty enough but smothered in onion and red pepper gravy so I’m still not entirely sure. It was, at least, real food served with the inevitable papas [chips]. I am yet to have a bad chip in Costa Rica, whereas I can’t remember the last time I had a good chip from one of our own fish ‘n’ chip shops.
After lunch, I thought we were done for the day and were on the road heading for our last stop, Monteverde. Wrong! We fairly soon dived off the highway onto yet another gravel road heading for Catarata Llanos del Cortés.
Catarata Llanos del Cortes is a popular public swimming hole beneath a sizeable waterfall, much more impressive than the waterfall from our morning excursion. Despite the boisterous public though, there are odos in the waterside vegetation which, of course, is what we were interested in. It may not be spectacularly coloured but there’s something classily impressive about this Dusky Dancer (Argia translata).
After an hour or so, at last we mounted the steep staircase back up to the car park. I felt completely wrung out.
Now we were where I thought we were going to be an hour or so ago, heading for Monteverde. It was about 15:00 and we had 85kms to do. Easy, right? Well, the first part of the journey was easy, on a motorway. When we turned off, the fun began.
First, though, soon after the turn off we found a town with the necessary supermarket for some beer and a panaderia for the baked goods fans. We’d be at Monteverde, our last location before returning home, for four nights so I bought two 6-packs of Imperial, my favoured local beer, and an expensive bottle of red wine in case the beer didn’t stay cold enough on the remainder of our journey. The expensive wine was expensive because it was an Italian import but it was the only one with a screw cap and, yes, I do have a corkscrew but I suspected I wasn’t going to want to faff about.
Back on the road with our purchases, we found the landscape leading to Monteverde not exactly mountainous in the Alpine sense but more of a a never ending collection of large, rounded lumps of land, the road being a collection of constant hairpin bends with steep inclines and descents making our poor little underpowered rental car struggle. The satnav suggested that 35kms was going to take 75 minutes. Suddenly, kilometres were ticking off slower than do miles. [I hate miles.]
After what felt like an age, we made it to within 10kms of our target. Then we really slowed down [!]; we left any tarmac behind and were once again on stony, rocky, steep tracks. It was raining by now, too, so the stony, rocky, steep tracks were becoming slick. Street lights began switching on; it was almost 17:00.
We still had 6kms to go – about 15 minutes said the satnav. Finding these rental places in daylight is hard enough but in the clouds, the rain and the dark, it would be damn tricky. We prayed that the location marker had been accurately placed this time. 
Mercifully it was accurately placed. At the pin location, Mr. Leader recognised our entrance from the description in the documentation. The owner, who lives on site, greeted us and showed us around. We have a very pleasant 3-bedroomed house with a view of the surrounding hills/mountains – when you can see them. Monteverde itself is down in the valley below us.
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