We lived near the frog pond here in Santa Elena, a few km away from Monteverde and about a 25-30 minute walk from school. There are a lot of extremely cool frogs in here, and going at sunset when they get active is very worthwhile.
The scenery here at 1500m (5000') is dominated by rolling hills.
Many of the trees have been cut down for grazing pastures. That's the town of Santa Elena in the distance.
The whole region, consiting of three towns, barely has 6000 people, and downtown Santa Elena, seen here, is pretty tiny.
Horsies!
Closer view of downtown. Most everything shuts down by about 8pm here.
There are a good number of buses that will take you around town for about ¢300, or 0.60$ USD.
The roads up here are, of course, atrocious, and a source of local pride. Various groups oscillate regularly on whether or not they should be fixed.
Huge selection of birds up here, fer shur.
Roooollling in the hay, rooolling!
Driving on the roads can be extremely tricky, even when they're really nice and dry now. It's a disaster when it's really wet out (especially for pedestrians).
Most of the buildings contain stores and restaurants targeting tourists.
The road on the hill is called Calle Cruce (Cross Road), and is a little shortcut to get up the hill towards our school. Saved us about 5 minutes and a lot of mud each way.
MMmmMMM ... pizza.
This place is interesting. It's the local art gallery, internet café, and massage parlour. And they do shipping as well.
One of the swankier hotels in da hood.
There are still large areas that are forested, and various nature groups continue to buy as much land as possible to protect it.
The views from up top of the hill here can be really good on some days, with views all the way down to the coast as well as the Bay of Nicoya and the Nicoyan Peninsula too.
This is the school we studied at, and we enjoyed it quite a bit.
The "campus" is pretty sweet, and they give you fruit and snacks every day during recess. Sweeet!
This is called "The Hill". It's basically the steepest hill in town, and many cars can't quite make it up this, especially on slippery, wet days.
Big buses and trucks avoid it as much as possible.
This is the Serpentarium. We never went there. Nor did we ever see anybody going there either. Hmmm...
Walking down The Hill into "downtown".
Ooooh, so close on the English translation. This was "the" place to be on Fridays and Saturdays.
Santa Elena itself has an older "Western" feel about it.
This is the bank. In March of 2005, there was a major robbery attempt and shootout there that left like seven people dead and the entire country scarred. Banks are kinda insane with security now.
I keep looking for the hitching posts on the main street, for some reason.
There are a number of cheap local restaurants, as well as a lot of places trying to get you to do tourist activities.
And there's a church, of course.
The police station, and a a restaurant that's actually supposed to be pretty good.
Our host mom. She was kind and liked to cook and chat.
One of the days we were there, we did a guided hiking tour of the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, which has lots of animals, and is now protected land. The guides are pretty nice and know a tonne.
One of teh coolest things we did: A tree colonoscopy. Just stick your hand in with a camera and snap a shot, and hope that there are no spiders or snakes.
What fun would life bee without teeter-totters?
Dinner with the family.
Hey! Stop taking photos.
There was a clan gathering one weekend.
It's a whole gaggle of Ticos.
Awwww ... purdy kitty!!
It's a aminal party!
The girls decided to learn how to skip. There were varying degrees of success at this activity.
The animals here ruled the land.
Samantha and her friend did a weekend trip to Arenal. They actually saw the volcano. w000t.
The hotel they stayed at was really nice too.
One last shot of the gang, and a couple of random guys too. It was hard to keep track of everybody.