Current location: Cloud Forest, Monteverde

Today's trek from Jaco/Bejuco up into the rainforest of Monteverde took about two hours. This place in the clouds is, according to the owner, "a hotel that isn't a hotel." It's eleven years old and can best be described as elegantly rustic.

(I'm writing this to you from the hammock suspended from the bedroom ceiling.) 

After settling in it was time for lunch. Three languages were simultaneously spoken: Spanish, German and English. The guests were caught up on the latest microclimate changes in the area (five kilometers up the road it has been raining the past few days. Here it's currently bone dry). Javier, one of the employees, jokingly shushed a wind chime he bumped into as he stood up from the hand-carved table. After a lunch of curried eggplant, turmeric potatoes and bow-tie pasta came a three (yes, three) hour nap. 

The stillness is triumphant. It's a kind of quiet you can't prepare for - your ears need time to adjust to it. The stars are more vivid than they are in a night sky over Carolina's back country. And merciful goodness, I'm happy to report there are also a few less mosquitoes.

Cooked dinner in-cabin. A simple mix of red pepper, onions and black beans on a crispy tortilla. Fresh cilantro and lime to top it off.  

Now, I get about twenty minutes with internet-on-a-stick. Then it's back to reading, writing and generally doing as the sloths here do.