Cloudy With Animals

 Monteverde is one of the cloud forests located in north central CR, south of Lake Arenal.  It became 'known' in 1983 when National Geographic did a feature article on this unique area and the observation that this was a key location to see the 'resplendent quetzal'. (a bird). And my family has that issue, I know they do. The Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve has over 100 species of mammals, over 400 of birds, 120 of amphibians and reptiles, over 3000 of plants including the largest variety of orchids in the world - over 500 species.!

Quetzal - you cant see the looong blue tail.

The Turk and I jumped in our travelmobile and headed northwest. We had been warned, as is everyone, that the last hour of the drive to Monteverde is over unpaved, rugged, windy road that will jar your brain.  The rental car companies especially love this road because that  is how they rent their 4 wheel drives.

The 3 1/2 hr trip took longer than that of course. The dirt (or as one website says 'dirty' road) was torturous. Mark handled it well but noted that his left arm was sore from holding the steering wheel to maneuver around the holes/rocks/dips.

We are doing pretty well with the major roads, but once we get to the location and need to find the: hotel, office, park, etc. we circle like drunk sailors. And this of course happened when we tried to find our hotel.  Not sure this is a real teachable moment because I seem to be missing the directional cells in my brain. And this must be contagious because the Turk has developed the same deficiency.  Be assured, we did not sleep on the street and finally got to our hotel. One look at us and Jose, the owner had us sit down to relax. He brought out coffee and tea and talked gently until our rattled nerves were calmed. Thank you Jose!

Notice the varieties of wood in ceiling and wall and door of our room. The woods of Costa Rica are beautiful and used extensively

This is why its called 'Cloud Forest'

Hiking along

unusual rain forest creature

The cloud forest area was settled by Quakers, from ALABAMA, during the Korean War.  As religious pacifists, they were initially jailed for refusing the draft. Once they were released, they gathered family and friends and drove...yes drove back in 1949 with those roads, to Costa Rica. Monteverde specifically.  They set up dairy farms and settled the area.  Then they started to realize the importance of their location and they began to preserve the land in the cloud forests.  And that is why we have them today.  The country of Cost Rica has added more preserved areas and today, more than half of Costa Rica land is preserved. 

Our first objective?  Find animals.  Our guide Christian grew up in the cloud forests and learned what plants he could eat, how the animals behaved (when we wasnt shooting them with his slingshot), and how the forest behaved.  He made sure we got photos of the key birds we saw on our hike. I dont remember all the names - but they were quite colorful!  We also saw the Costa Rican version of raccoon called a coati.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-nosed_Coati   And one of our favorite things - hummingbirds - were everywhere.  We even got to have hummingbirds land on our fingers. They tickle because they are flapping their wings so fast.

Some kind of Tanager

Mark gets tickeled

 

2 legged visitor critters

Giants next to giant tree

Old growth tree covered in fig tree

  After hiking for 5 hours, we decided we should get back into town and have some local ice cream.  Remember those Quakers had dairy farms, and with dairy farms comes.....ICE CREAM.  So we tried the Monteverde brand at the local ice cream shop and it was quite delicious.  I didnt even try chocolate because I wanted to taste the cream - and taste I did. YUM!  

Then we had to check out the Don Juan cafe.  Don Juan is a Costa Rican company that processes coffees and ...chocolate!   I found half kilo packages of chocolate but none said the level of cocoa.  I saw numbers like 117, 118, 111 and thought these might be important. Indeed they are.  I found out that the lower the number means darker chocolate.  I asked the clerk for the darkest and found out that was 100.   I want 100!  Alas, no 100.  So, the clerk kindly called the local office (on top of the rain forest mind you) and they sent a deliveryman with my dark chocolate 'bar'.  Yes he thought I was a little crazy, but kindly posed for this pic.  Costa Ricans (ticos) are so nice.

Don Juan delivery man

We rested up to be ready for our Night Walk in another cloud forest.  What can you see at night? Not much unless you have a guide with a really strong flashlight and knowledge of where the animals and insects might be.  There is a whole different thing going on at night and we got a glimpse of it.  We saw a two toed sloth hanging upside down from a tree branch. Found out that he was scratching himself because sloths are home to thousands of bugs, including some that live ONLY on sloths. Dont want a pet sloth.   Also seen: 2 varieties of toucans - hide their heads when they sleep, a giant bright green viper wrapped around and hanging from a branch, red kneed tarantula that our guide teased out of its hole, golden beetle that is worth $200 in the insect market because it looks like gold...really.  My good camera had a dead battery, so I was able to capture only a couple of critters in pictures.

Golden beatle

Leaf bug