Armadillos...crunchy on the outside, smooth in the middle

Am now in Monteverde which seems a bit like Disney World for wildlife (huge areas of protected cloud forest, 300 types of orchids blah blah blah and 200,000 visitors annually, all of whom seem to be here now giving me even more of a culture shock), but is pretty cool nonetheless although none of the locals seem to appreciate my spanish here and I got told off by the waiter yesterday for attempting to not speak english!

Arrived here on Sunday with Caroline and Stephanie after a rather long journey from Malpais made bareable by the fact we splashed out and got a private transfer all the way! Bargin $40 each for 6 hours of travel. Anyhow, got ourselves organised and on a dusk hike that night in a lesser known reserve that covers hundreds of kms of cloud forest and which was bought by fundraising efforts of children all over the world. Pretty cool really. Turned out to have an amzingly knowledgable guide and we saw loads of cool things, including as you have probably guessed, an armadillo (which is apparently quite rare). Also saw (amongst other things) a hummingbird in its nest, a couple of HUGE tarantulas, some click beetles that glow really brightly and a big guinea pig thing (think small dog size) whose name escapes me. So feeling suitably inspired, I then went on a nature walk this morning in Santa Elena (Dad, see I am your daughter after all!) and whilst I didnt see nearly as much wildlife, the walk itself was beautiful and there were virtually no people there, a minor miracle given the hoards of tourists here. Best bit was a research tower I found which had an amazing view from the top right over to Arenal volcano, as amazingly it was a clear day today.

Then as if that wasnt enough excitement, we then all met up for a zip line thing this afternoon where you fly over the top of the forest on wires! Not as much fun as I thought it would be as I was too worried about following instructions wrongly/falling off etc etc but did manage to kick my friend over who was in my direct line of flight as I "came in to land" taking a photo of me! We thought it was hilarious but the guides thought less so! Then managed not to break when I was meant to so nearly ended up flying off the end of another landing bit (sure this isnt technically possible but it felt like it at the time) Needless to say, I was quite relieved when it all ended and I could have a recuperative snickers (the mothers genes coming out!)

And just incase you thought after my "losing all my money incident" I might be more sensible, how wrong you were. Managed to lose both my glasses and prescription sunglasses yesterday. Luckily though after a phone call this afternoon, discovered that my lovely taxi driver has them and they are going to be delivered to me tommorrow! Do wonder what else I can possibly lose on this trip....and still with 2 months to go