La Casa de Arbol and El Cafe de Cielo

Today we decided to climb up a portion of the volcano... Our plan was to hike up the side of the mountain behind Banos to the huge cross that overlooks the town and lights up at night, proceed to La Casa de Arbol (the Tree House, a tree house that is located at the highest point up the volcano one can hike without a guide), then proceed to El Cafe de Cielo (The Cafe in the Sky which is part of a luxury hotel that overlooks Banos up on the mountain). It was our understanding that the trek to the cross would take about thirty minutes, and according to the map, La Casa de Arbol was about forty minutes away from that point. WERE WE WRONG! Apparently the map was not drawn to scale! So after two and a half hours and an elevation gain of 2000+ feet we made it to La Casa de Arbol. It was treacherous! The worst part was that the volcano as covered in clouds so we could barely see it. Fortunately for us Carlos Sanchez, a 68 year old Banos native, was up at the site monitoring seismic activity. He offered to show us a way to get to the cafe in the sky that only took 25 minutes. We were a bit skeptical at first, but once it started to rain, decided to follow him. After chatting with him a bit we discovered that he was quite a character! He spoke no English so we had a lot of fun communicating with him! As we were leaving the Tree House he grabbed his backpack and two and a half foot machete! HAHAHA. We immediately thought of the movie Hostel. OYE! So I walked behind Carlos and the three girls followed. It was quite the trek down... Carlos was showing us what trees and roots to grab on to while hacking away at bushes and vines in our path. Sure enough, thirty minutes after we started, we arrived at the Cafe in the Sky. What an EXPERIENCE! We splurged at the Cafe in the Sky and bought cocktails, dinner and dessert. It tasted so good after walking for three and a half hours! From there we decided to take a taxi back to our hotel. What a day! Stay tuned for bridge jumping tomorrow!