To inject a bit of adrenalin into our day, we booked the Monteverde Extremo Canopy Tour. Canopy Tour is probably a bit misleading because it gives the impression of a slow meander up through the upper branches of the forest. What it really is, is a number of connected zip lines that allow you to whizz past the upper branches of the forest.

The transport from town to the outskirts was an adrenalin fuelled ride in itself. Our driver must have had ambitions to be a rally driver, the way he was throwing our van around the dirt roads. There was a beautifully coloured bird by the road but we flew past it in a blur. At one point, he nearly drove straight into a bird of prey, that had caught a squirrel, flying low over the road - no way was he braking unnecessarily.

After getting all the required harnesses put on, and a hard hat, we went out for our briefing. Nothing too difficult - once you're clipped on by the guides, sit down in the harness and hold the line behind your head to stop you spinning. Braking was simply by pulling on the line with thick leather glove. Let the fun begin...

Extremo has 14 zip lines which travel up and across a very deep and wide valley in the highlands. The first couple of lines were really short and were more for practice and to get us to the first proper one to take us across the valley. We could see the people in front of us disappear in the distance, the line was so long. It was only when we were on it ourselves that we realised the height. We were looking down at the bungee platform which was at 143m so we were higher and we had a long time to look at it, maybe 30 seconds.

The four longest lines on the tour are 550m, 500m, 600m and 1km and they are all between 75 and 180m high. Even though it was a little cloudy, the views were fantastic from both the platforms and while on the zip lines. Maria saw a Quetzal bird flying past while waiting on one of the platforms. Quetzals have amazing colors, like a parrot, and have huge tail feathers that are maybe twice as long as their bodies. Even Costa Rican's watched in awe when it flew past, it obviously never gets boring to see this colourful bird.

To break things up, we had a 30m rappel, or abseil, down from a platform to take us to a Tarzan swing, and no small one either. It was a 60m swing which had maybe a second of freefall before the slack was taken up. Maria let out a little yelp after dropping off the platform but walked away with a huge smile on her face.

The rain started as we made our way up to the last cable. This was different though, it was called the Superman because you were clipped on horizontally underneath the cable in a 'Superman' position. It was a very long cable too, it took about 50 seconds to get from one end to the other. Maria didn't quite reach the end and the guide had to come out and pull her to the platform. Turns out that because Maria is so light, there wasn't enough weight to build up sufficient speed to get up the last bit of the cable (they sag in the middle). David, however, had sufficient weight behind him and came flying in testing the brake man's skills.

Later in the afternoon we took a walk on the Ficus trail, a free walk to see some very unusual trees. It was a steep walk up a dirt road before taking a path into a forest overlooking the town. The trees were very cool and almost looked man made for a movie set. It was like they were 'hugging trees' that were left standing after the host tree died. The tree was completely hollow with holes in the sides too - it's quite hard to describe and easier to look at a photo.

It was even possible to climb up inside one of the trees. David went all the way up but Maria just went half way because she was afraid she wouldn't make it down again. We met some locals by the tree killing time on a lazy Sunday afternoon. One of them had lived in Santa Elena for 15 years, but had never went up the tree until now.

We went to Musashi for dinner, a Japanese restaurant, even though we were quite far from the sea. It was well worth the visit. All the sashimi and sushi was cut, made and rolled in front of us before being served tapas style. The fish was very fresh and tasty too, despite being up in the mountains. There was a shortage of Asahi beer in Costa Rica though but the wine, Chilean again, was a good second choice.