Monday 12/6/04 -
The Trapp Hotel
When we woke up Monday morning I was becoming a little paranoid about our ride to get to La Paz in the late morning, Today was already our last "real day" in Costa Rica - tomorrow morning we headed for the airport. La Paz closed down at 4pm and was 2 hours away, according to our MonteVerdeInfo contacts. So I had the Trapp front desk call the driver directly and talk to him, to confirm our 11am pickup. That done, I felt much better.
The mornning was VERY misty, clouds rolling right by our windows. We had our breakfast - waffles, fresh fruits, fresh bread, even eggs if we wanted them. Full and happy, we waited in the lobby area for our birding guide to pick us up.
The dining room - we got 'window seats' at each meal
The lounge - Jenn has a hat just like mine now
The bar
Lovely wood everywhere
Soon he showed up, and there were two other middle-aged women from Switzerland in our group. The guide wanted us to walk over to the cloud forest ("only 5 minute walk") but the two women wanted a ride. The hotel kindly arranged for a driver to drive us over there. As we drove, it was more than a 5 minute's drive, and the Swiss woman pointed out that this would have taken her a long time to walk on foot.
Once we were there, we met up with another 4 people who formed our little tour group. We bought our entry tickets and were told how once morning gets going people often wait 2 hours or more to get into the cloud forest. There is only a certain number of people allowed in at once so once that many are in, others have to wait outside for people to emerge before they can go in.
The Swiss woman told us that she attempted the Night Tour last night - that there were over 60 people on it, many without flashlights, and that the guides made no attempt to keep track of who was there and who wasn't. She and her friend left after a few minutes to return to the hotel, and they saw other people leaving the group too, without anyone noticing. She was very happy she hadn't stayed on the tour.
Photos from the Cloud Forest
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