Atenas to Monteverde, Feb 28. Climbing, climbing, climbing!

Today, we left the B n B in Atenas which we truly enjoyed. We gassed up, bought a few groceries and headed out. The first road and the last road were tough. The first because it was twisty and turny, but paved; the last unpaved and precipitous and windy, windy, windy!

We drove to Guacimal, a very very small village on Rt 606. It is a miracle that we found the Sustainability Project run by Alex and Veronica from whom we have rented Casa Cielo by Monteverde. We recognized it soley from Veronica's desciption of the building. Guacimal was having a small village fair, organized by Veronica in hopes of convincing the farmers not to simply raise cows and destroy the fields. For sale - vegetables, handicrafts and food. We had to stop there for about 2 hours because the 606 is mostly closed for construction. It is only open before 6:30 a.m., then for 20 minutes around 9:30 a.m., noon and 3:30. Then, it is also open from 5:30. So, we were aiming for the 3:30 opening. We had some local foods and chatted with Veronica, her 12 year old Stuart and two other Americans who were in Guacimal for the month doing a lot of volunteer work with Veronica.

  

 Anyhow, we eventually left and headed out on the unpaved 606. It was about 14 or 15 kilometers, but took quite a while as the road is really in tough shape. We were stopped twice before being allowed to proceed.  We drove past Casa Cielo at first and would have missed it entirely if we had not been counting the kilometers.

A neighbor, Gisele, met us in the driveway and let us in. We have to go through a gate and down a rutted path to the house. It is an A frame perched high above the Gulf of Nicoya which is in the distance. The bedroom is up some rather harrowing stairs. Gisele showed us around and took us down to a lower property to show it to us.

Unfortunately, there is no internet service. (This was written several days later.) We are in about as remote a place as we have ever been.