The sights of Monteverde

We went on a walk with no fee,
To see a huge, hollow Fincus tree,
With a skip and a hop,
Sam had climbed to the top,
And for miles around she could see

 

This was followed by a hike at night,
To search out animals with torch light,
We were amazed by what we saw,
Coatis, porcupine and macaw,
But the deadly snake gave us a fright

And so to the famous forests of cloud,
Where the animals and birds were so loud,
The continental divide,
Two oceans, one on each side,
Were not seen despite there being no crowd

For the coffee there is wide acclaim,
The climate and terrain give it fame,
The production takes time,
To ensure each drop is sublime,
No more will it all taste the same

The rest of our stay in Arenal Volcano National Park

The highlights of our last couple of days were:
- A free 4x4 tour of central Costa Rica: you won't find this in any guide book - mainly because it was just us getting lost! Having driven a fair way from our lodge through La Fortuna and onwards to a village called Venado, heading for some caves, we were just a couple of minutes from getting to the caves, when we decided they couldn't be this far, forgot the directions we had been given, and instead followed a map we had bought which had the caves marked on in a slightly different place. There followed a 2 hour drive through the most tiny and bumpy roads you can imagine (that made most bridleways in the UK look like beautiful roads to drive along) - before we finally returned to where we had originally turned around, and drove the extra 5 mins to the caves! And amazingly, we managed to maintain our sense of humour throughout
- The caving (when we finally arrived): excellent tour, great value for money, large extensive caves, huge numbers of bats (fruit, nectar and vampire) and large spider like insects - plus some climbs and squeezes through v. narrow gaps
- Kayaking on Lake Arenal: having picked up a double kayak from a slightly random one man band, and waded through mud to the launch site, we had the lake pretty much too ourselves, and spent a good few hours playing David Attenborough paddling through the reeds trying to get good photos of the wildlife:

- Chilled out afternoon in the garden/farm: after a short walk from our ecolodge (by now we'd moved from a room into a hippy tent where we could sleep with one side open with a view of the jungle and lake - and amazingly not get eaten by bugs), we arrived at the lodge's organic farm - which also had a lovely garden with pond, table and hammocks - the perfect spot for a picnic, some reading and a siesta...

- Our best dinner yet: having read about a place called Gingerbread before we arrived, we had past it on our way around the lake to our lodge. So we decided to book a table. Our memory clearly wasn't great - what we'd thought was a c.30 min drive turned out to be nearly an hour! However, it was definitely worth it: we chose to sit at the bar in what was a stylish restaurant (Sam's favourite was the sliding ladder used to reach the spirits on the higher shelves). The menu had a relatively small number of starters, salads, mains and puds all to share - and all of which sounded delicious. We opted for the squid starter - perfectly cooked two ways (grilled and battered) - with a really good interesting salad (incl. avocados and sun dried tomatoes), followed by the fish tacos - divine Mahi Mahi in soft flour tortillas with rice, veg and avacado and creme fraiche sauces - absolutely amazing! And the portion sizes were huge as well - which meant that we walked away from the evening with half of the taco's wrapped up for us to eat the next day (and having just eaten them, we can confirm they taste just as good the second time around!) Sam wants to tell you how she successfully achieved cold chain storage for the 5 hours between El Castillo and our next stop, but I've told her that's too geeky and dull.
- More wildlife: a close up of the rainbow parrot we'd seen every morning at breakfast, and, on our drive to the dinner above, a sighting of an armadillo (no pics I'm afraid)

 

Christmas Day in Costa Rican Sunshine

Our first full day in Costa Rica - Christmas Day none the less - certainly didn't disappoint.
But going back a day, we arrived into Liberia (a city in Costa Rica, not the country!) at midday. The airport had the best border guard to passenger ratio we've ever seen and you even checked in with the hire car company whilst waiting for your luggage which meant that the whole arrivals process was as efficient as something you'd expect from the Swiss. However, sadly it is becoming clear that this was not indicative of the rest of the country. We ended up being very fortunate to be able to pick up our hire car; various other people were told despite having bookings, that they had no cars left. Somehow in all this, they'd decided to reserve one for us - which meant they had to sneak Alistair out the back, so everybody else wouldn't see. Whatever was going on we were very pleased that despite having to wait a while we got a car, as after three flights we were starting to get weary.
A LONG drive later and we arrived at our first destination at night.
We awoke to glorious blue sky, Sunshine and the imposing Arenal volcano:

The place we are staying (Essence Arenal) is a funky, vegetarian, Eco lodge which has it's own farm and great views of the volcano. The downside is that it is many kilometers up a dirt road, although we soon discovered the faster you drive, the less you feel the bumps....

On a walk about the property what looked like a line of moving leaves turned out to be some industrious ants:

You can't walk up the Arenal volcano, but you can get up the slightly smaller chap Cerro Chato to the right of it, which was our mission for the day:

Being dormant, this volcano has a lake in its crater...

...which made for a refreshing dip after a sticky jungle hike:

The hike also had a variety of wildlife from the small, but heavily armoured...

...to the fluffy:

So all in all a great way to spend Christmas - and all that is left for us to do is wish all our friends and family a very Merry Christmas!

Costa Rica here we come

Apologies for the somewhat intermittent blogging so far...having got into the day to day rhythm of a skiing holiday there never seemed to be that much to say on any given day. We're sure that's going to change though - starting with our 10 day whistle-stop tour of Costa Rica - including Christmas near the Arenal Volcano, a couple of nights in the cloud forests of Monteverde, and then to the chilled out beach town of Montezuma for New Year.
Ski kit safely back in the UK, we're now left with apparently all we're going to need for the next 7 months! The official weigh in is still to come - but we're happy, for now at least, that we've stuck a good balance between backpack weight and comfort (although this has involved the purchase of various pieces of somewhat overpriced lightweight kit over the last few months!).
A very long journey with an overnight layover in Miami hasn't dinted spirits too much...looking forward to arriving tommorrow!

Final thoughts on Banff

All in all a great start to our trip. Snow could perhaps have been slightly better - but a reasonable amount of fresh snow on and off over the last week kept things interesting and even gave Sam a decent powder day (Al was recovering from a strained back - which, as at time of posting this is thankfully well on its way to recovery).
We enjoyed skiing in both Lake Louise and Sunshine - the former with slightly more vertical and wider choice of runs, but the latter with some great little areas, particularly off Wawa chair (unfortunately Delerium Dive wasn't open during our trip).
The area is famous for its wildlife - our highlights were a wolf that walked past Sam on the piste, numerous Elk around the town and a Racoon (or similar) running through the trees (we weren't quick enough for any photos I'm afraid!).
Having never done it before, we had been slightly apprehensive about the bus journeys up to the resorts, but it was fine, and gave us a great opportunity to fit in our twice daily Spanish lessons (thanks Moira and Jess for recommending Michel Thomas - we can certainly add our recommendation too!)
Banff was a good town to stay in with a very wide range of restaurants and bars (see other post) and lots of other stuff going on - we fitted in Jonny Cash tribute band, quiz night at Bruno's, the parade of lights, a slightly underwhelming Rail Jam (snowboarders getting towed along a small amount of snow shovelled onto the street and up a jump onto a rail), the hot springs (definitely worth a visit) and a trip to the cinema to catch The Hobbit.
Our accommodation at Irwin's Mountain Inn was pretty much as expected - having a fridge and coffee making facilities worked well for us (daily cereal for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch), bed was huge, and bedroom was a good size. We were disturbed on a couple of night by extremely noisy neighbours, but other than that slept very well. And the hot tub provided a good way to relax our muscles at the end of each day.
So, all in all it has been a great way to relax and unwind before our back-packing adventure really begins...

Banff nightlife

Ok, so this isn't a post about Banff's best party spots, but it is our view of the best restaurants...

Top three lessons learned about eating out in Banff:

1. Whilst clearly very distinct from their American neighbours, Canadian restaurants have a similar approach to portion size. Main course only if you want any chance of finishing it!

2. Despite it being in the minus thirties outside and the restaurants struggling to heat themselves, they still insist on putting huge amounts of ice in the water, why?!?!

3. Perhaps we're just out of date, but a minimum 18% tip expectation does seem a little OTT (unless of course the service is exceptional)

 

So, vaguely in order (as we couldn't reach consensus on all!):

1. Maple leaf – large cocktail menu, maple hot toddy was a really good way to start on a cold evening (although a good 20 degrees warmer than it had been remarkably). Then we went for the seafood platter which was fantastic. Lobster, two ways, large prawns and squid in a lovely batter were our favourites. Also present were mussels, rice and a good selection of veg which were all quite delicious. If we’d had room, the pudding and the teas looked great too. We wanted to go back.

We got to go back. We picked the Maple Leaf as our favourite Banff restaurant for our last night dinner and it didn't disappoint. The Asian salmon was divine, and the Bison very good. Chocolate soufflé type desert excellent too - with an amazing raspberry sauce. The service here is fantastic, the decor delightful and both the food and the drinks menu exciting. A well deserved No 1 spot!

2. Nourish - ended up here on our first night, a vegetarian restaurant with good reviews. When we walked in the door it wasn't quite as expected - a hip(py?) bar with a few tables around the edges. We were seated on a cool table- made out of the roots of a tree supporting a glass eating surface. Food and drinks were great - big sharing bowls of pasta and gnocchi (possibly the best gnocchi we've ever had) washed down with a couple of local beers. And then to top it off, the live music act of the night was a manplaying a digeridoo!

Second trip to Nourish was again on a Monday, this time with a DJ was quite different. The chefs continue to amaze this time turning a salad into a thing of wonder, adding 26 ingredients to the humble nacho to elevate it from basic snack to delicious and a lovely chickpea curry and homemade naan. The service on the other hand was spectacularly bad, we waited a long time even for drinks, when nothing more than the salad had arrived for over and hour the waitress came back admitting she had forgotten our order. They didn't have the drinks we ordered on the menu for the second week running ( so take them off the menu?), and they had to send something back which had been made without the requested vegan cheese. To give them their dues, they gave us a discount from the price in recompense without us having to complain, which was well received. Independent of the service the food at this place is too good to ignore. I'd keep going back if I could.

3. Giorgio's - yum yum double yum. Ended up here only because Wild Bill's was not serving food. Really pleased though - very good seafood platter with calamari, clams, mussels, prawns, salmon, linguine and asparagus - a great combo, well cooked (although central heating was losing the battle against the-36C outside!)

4. Cafe de Paris - ended up here by chance as Wild Bill's wasn't serving food again, despite what they'd told us the previous night! There's two restaurants right next to each other - we think probably served by the same kitchen - the bistro style Cafe de Paris and the upscale Le Beaujolais. There was some problem with the heating in the bistro, so we got a table in the posh bit with the bistro menu's (and this was the first restaurant we'd been to which was actually a pleasant temperature). Food was good - excellent snails to start (smothered in an amazing garlic butter), then we had a beouf bourginon pie (impressively large and tasty) and gnocchi and prawns (each component cooked well, but a slightly weird combo). All washed down with an excellent vin de table.

5. Coyotes - yet another one we hadn't planned to go to - this time because there was a private party on in the Bear Street Tavern. A Canadian/Mexican menu - and the verdict is split. Al thought it was excellent -a nice salad to start, a really great flank steak Asian-style, followed by meltin middle chocolate cake. Sam on the other hand was underwhelmed - thinking the salad was tiny for what it would have cost if we'd paid full price for it (rather than effectively getting it for free on the set menu), her bean burrito was ordinary, and having spotted that the chocolate cake had come out of a wrapper! We were at least both in agreement that the vin de table was excellent value!

6. Chaya - tiny noodle bar that is only open until 8pm (we had tried to come earlier in week but failed). Simple standard Japanese menu - well cooked and truly great value (we both ate very well for less than £20 in total). Only real downside is that you need to keep your jacket on as all the tables are close to the door which opens regularly! A second visit didn't let us down either - and the Chicken Don and Vegetable Katsu has been so good the first time we both went for exactly same again.

7. Saltlik - A moderately upmarket independent steak house. One of the highlights had to be the lovely twin- table we had in front of a big roaring fire. A cocktail to start was good, Al's large rump steak very tasty - accompanied with very well cooked skinny fries and asparagus, although Sam's scallop and prawn pasta was slightly disappointing given the venue.

8. Melissa's - A local restaurant with a wide ranging menu. It was founded in 1978...and virtually everything on the menu on the night we went was $19.78. Both the rump steak and the salmon and lobster combo were huge - with more sides and salads than we could even contemplate finishing - and were decent but not great quality.

9. El Toro - had the (large) benefit of us not needing to go out our hotel! Menu relatively simple but food was tasty and typically Canadian portions. Highlight was probably the prawn fajitas - huge succulent prawns, withwell cooked and spiced peppers and onions and fresh homemade salsa and guacamole.The bison chorizo sausages were also very tasty. And being 'wine Wednesday', we tucked into an easy drinking cab sav. Didn't quite have room for an excellent looking chocolate cake - but hope to be back to see if it tastes as good as it sounds.

10. Samurai sushi restaurant - We went to this place a little out of town as we had made the trip out for the hot springs. A small restaurant where the sushi and sashimi meals were good but not great. We both agreed that the star of the show was the oyster appetiser (and Sam doesn't normally like oysters). Quite expensive for what it was compared to other places in town.

11. Bear Street Tavern - Pizza was good, with interesting topping combos, but cocktails slightly disappointing. Another great value place though on one of its special nights.

12. Miki – Al la carte or all you can eat Japanese. We went for all you can eat as we compared prices and decided this was the best value. Started with sushi which was OK, nigiri was fine, sushi rolls pretty average. Star of the show was the tempura, you can chose from all different things and we had prawn, cod, squid and veg. All really yummy. Then some hot dishes which were again nice but not spectacular. Ordering like this in courses worked for us as it meant you could get a feel for the size of the dishes without ordering too much or too little. Lovely friendly staff, nice place.

13. Banff Brewing Company - best part was the beers - we had the tasting samples, a glass of each of the 6 beers brewed on the premises. The blonde was particularly tasty (the beer that is, not the waitress). Food was ok - pulled pork burger (good for what it was) and salmon burger (too spicy for our liking).

Halo

You may have noticed a distinct lack of skiing photos. That's because at between -25 and -35C the prospect of stopping to take any has been about as appealing as…[insert one of your most horrendous experiences here].

But here are a couple we (Sam!) did manage to snap, as the sun created halos in the alpine mist (firstly in Lake Louise and then in Sunshine):

Parade of Lights and the Ice Queen

On Saturday evening we went along to what is probably the highlight of the locals' year - the Parade of Lights. Ok, that may be an exaggeration, but the inflatable santa was pretty impressive and was surrounded by all sorts of other contraptions, equally well lit. Given the temperature (still c.-30C), the turnout was very impressive - the centre of Banff was filled with thousands of people.

We grabbed a quick bite in a great Japanese noodle bar (more on Banff's restaurant scene to follow in a later post) before hitting the town proper (well - a couple of pints in the aptly named Rose and Crown, one of several british style pubs, before going to Wilds Bills to watch an excellent Jonny Cash tribute band).

We had a lazy morning on Sunday - with a big cooked breakfast (you get half a plate full of fried potatoes plus some random fruit with anything you order!) before heading up to Lake Louise to catch the end of the World Cup - this time the Ladies Super G. 

The afternoon held in store what is definitely the most comical moment of the trip so far. Having found a really nice, virtually un-skied run (Meadowlark),  we came out the trees at the bottom and needed to cut across back to the bottom of the gondola. There was a snow cannon in our path, but fully togged up and having skied though many others over the last week, we pushed on straight through. Moments later: (i) we came to a grinding halt - it felt like somebody had superglued our skis to the piste; (ii) our goggles iced over so we couldn't see a thing and (iii) we were covered from head to toe in water from the snow cannon which, given it was still c.-30C, turned immediately to ice! Having managed to drag our way out, it took quite a while to de-ice all the essential parts…but since the water had permeated the fabric of most of our clothes before freezing, we remained partially covered in ice for the rest of the afternoon, attracting lots of surprised comments and questions!

The cold

Transpires it's a little chilly in Canada in December.

Coping strategies so far include:
- Mid morning coffee stops (after just 2 lifts is the record so far)
- Soup to supplement homemade sandwiches
- Copious amounts of disposable hand warmers
- Purchase of a new pair of mitts and a rather fetching Darth Vader face mask
- And an occasional sloe gin to warm up from the inside!

This morning, both our hotel staff and the bus driver thought we were mad venturing out - the slopes certainly were quiet.

The one saving grace is that since the first day (where Sam was blown sideways and we began to doubt our first choice of destination), there's been little wind.

We've got decent snow for early season, but is already getting a little hard and bare in places, and it's definitely in need of a big dump.

After two days in Sunshine, we've spent the last couple in Lake Louise - where we've had the bonus of watching the ladies world cup ski teams practice ahead of the weekend's racing. Watch out for two looney brits waving on ski sunday - now off to find a union flag!

And so it begins

8 months of negotiating, planning, booking and packing later and we are finally on our way. Currently 37,000ft above the Hudson Bay - with a great view of the ice cap (you'll have to believe us on that one as photo quality out the window too poor).

On our way to Calgary for 3 weeks of Canadian powder - can't wait!

We've already discovered why BA is best (T5 + delightful check-in assistant who sorted some minor issues + food even Sam can eat)...shame this is the only flight with them on the trip.
Watch this space...