Well I'm back on track. This morning I left early 5.30, to get the 6.30 bus. Of course there wasn't a taxi when I wanted one. I legged it to the bus station. I had been most of the way yesterday and thought I knew where to go. I got to the station at about 5 to 6 and asked if this is the station for Santa Elena and they said no. Great there are bus stations all over the place? An old bloke was trying to give me directions but I didn't understand. A young boy there told me 150mtr up the side street. I was close. The bus station turned out to be behind a shopping Ctr. You go to the second floor to get ticket then ground floor for bus. That took a bit of sorting.
The drive out of San Jose is up hill then down hill to get over the mountains on the Panamericana. Then we turned right into the highlands. The last 22km (there was a sign) took an hour. It was all uphill on a goat track that snaked its way up into the mountains. There were some amazing views, in places all the way to the coast. When I got here there are touts! I love touts, they do all the work for me.
I had picked a place but it is way down the hill and the tout had a place closer. He took me to look and it is Ok so I am here for 3 nights. My room is kinda like a cubby. I can't actually stand up in it but there are 3 beds to choose from. I got a 10% discount out of his wife and threw in breakfast so I think it is a good deal. Tomorrow I am going bird watching with a guide, Freddy, and in the arvo doing a coffee and chocolate tour that includes tasting. MMMM Tha day after I am going to try to go to a cheese factory near here.
Tonight I went down town early for dinner cos the clouds are rolling in. It is quite winters here tonight, I might have to put on a long sleeve shirt.
For the first time in 2 months I slept under a blanket last night. It was quite cold up here in the mountains.
This morning I went on a bird watching tour with Freddy. He was supposed to pick me up at 6.30 but arrived at 6 in a beat up old 50 series Landcruiser. We didn't go far from town and stopped in a carpark where Freddy was checking all the big trees. There were a few birds, including some Toucanets and Woodpeckers. We seemed to hang around here for a while and I was thinking we should be walking and looking for birds. After a while we did walk and in the jungle it is much harder to see the birds. You are in the dark, looking through the canopy, into bright light. We did manage to see a Toucan. Right at the end of the track (there was a sign) Freddy stopped and said there was a Toucan in the tree. He wanted me to look through my binoculars (it different) but I just wanted to look and try to get a pic. That one was pretty cool. We walked back to the car and I thought the tour was going to finish an hour early but he took me to another place. We walked along the road but didn't see anything. So my 4 hour tour lasted 31/4 hours? It was a pretty good tour but I have come to the conclusion ther are not many birds in Central America. Take out the ones at Copan and I have see very few birds. Even at the beach there were no seagulls?
The photos are not very good but I going to put up the best of them. There is a lot of rubbish that I have deleted.

This arvo I went on a coffee and chocolate tour. This morning the weather was soo good and this arvo it has been raining all arvo. Most of the tour was outside but we managed to duck in and out of the showers. The guide, Eric Wonka, was a pretty funny guy and the tour was really good. They had plenty of hands on stuff, he turned on all the machinery to show us how it worked. Best of all there was plenty of free samples. The cacao seed tastes sooo sweet, till you bite into it and the middle is purple and bitter as hell. We tasted it after he crushed it, I spat mine out, then with sugar added, I spat it out again, then with milk and that was like real chocolate. That one I didn't spit out. After that we made sugar and tried the local moonshine. It is 60% alcohol and tastes like ****. In the house we tried some local vegetable, I can't remember the name, a bit like a potato on a tortilla, that was a bit average. Lemonade was good and the local coffee was poison. Then into the shop where we could buy lots of WAY overpriced goods like coffee and souvenirs. I restrained myself but I did notice the free samples of the coffee liqueur. Let's just say I was quality control for that lot. It is the first tour to go overtime and a really great tour. Maybe the free alcohol makes for a good tour?
I don't know what I am going to do tomorrow? I was going to tour the cheese factory but apparently the Mexicans have bought the place and they don't do tour anymore.

This morning I walked to the cheese factory but they wouldn't do a tour. They did have a viewing room so I stood there for a while watching them make cheese. I was right at the end so mostly I watched them clean up and they did a great job. Hose down, scrub, spray on foam, scrub hose down then hose down again all with 3 different colour coded hoses. On the way back I say my first wild monkeys. There was a troup going through the trees on the other side of a valley. I got to see nearly as much as I saw yesterday on the bird tour.
This arvo I went for a walk and it looked like it was going to rain so I came back to get my poncho. Lucky I did. I stopped at the bank for cambio (change money) and while I was there it ****** down. I got stuck there for 1/2hr and walked home in the rain. I stopped at the supermarket to get some beer and instant noodles for dinner cos I don't think I will be going out again. It looks like the rain has set in.
Tomorrow I am out of here to La Fortuna.