Monteverde

 Today I started the day with a lovely short walk at 6am on the street where the hotel is. The houses were very nice and the birds were many.

After breakfast we packed up and left early, taking a bus to a boat to cross Lake Arenal. 

We saw one of these on the side of the road.

The volcano Arenal looked great!

We saw peccaries, about five of them. Our driver backed the van out and HE jumped out of the van to take pictures. He said in 25 years of driving he had never seen them wild! He couldn't get over it!

On the boat we saw some herons and cormorants.

Then we walked a bit through sand and sandbags to get to our next van. But when we got to Monteverde there was a traffic jam due to a celebration.  There were bands and a parade with masquerade. 

We finally got going to our hotel. I felt depressed by the room I was given (right on the parking lot, tiny bathroom, noisy) but after lunch I asked for another room and got a much nicer room, quiet! And it has a decent sized bathroom and a king sized bed and a little balcony!

At lunch the 4 people closest looked at their cell phones until the food came. So rude!

Shortly after lunch we went for a walk in the Monteverde Cloud Forest. It started to pour 15 minutes after we got there. Except for getting soaked with my inadequate rain jacket, it was cool. 

After almost 2 hours, we got to my favorite part; near the Cafe Colibrí (closed, unfortunately) were many hummingbird feeders and many hummingbirds! 

Pictures really don't do justice to the wonder and beauty of these many birds, at least mine don't. There seemed to be dozens!

 It's so much cooler here than anywhere I've been in Costa Rica. There is no AC in the rooms, and not even a fan. It was 75 earlier and now it's (still) raining and is 64 degrees.