This weekend four of us left Thursday at 2:30pm for Monteverde. Monteverde is a section of Costa Rica that holds the cloud forest and many species of animals that are only found in this section of the world. I was so stoked to travel there. We arrived at the hostel, Sleepers, around 7:30 pm. The hostel was absolutely wonderful. We paid $11 dollars a night, had hot showers, towels, nice beds, wifi, a FREE BREAKFAST, and transportation to different activities. It was the best. It was also the best free breakfast I've ever had. Some cornflakes+milk, watermelon, pineapple, banana, toast, eggs, and coffee or tea. Perfect. Free. Fantastic.
The view from our window!
I woke up to the sounds of a rooster crowing, and cows mooing.
It doesn't get better than that!
The first real activity we did in Monteverde was the canopy tour. The canopy tour had a whole bunch of different zip lines. Most of them were the normal variety, but there's one called the superman where you literally just look like superman with your arms out. Another one was called the tarzan swing. I hated it. It was a 50M free-fall drop with some swinging at the end. Uhg, not worth it. Some people like the "adrenaline rush", but it is so not natural to just willingly fall that far....so I can say that I really do hate it. Anyways, the whole thing overall was neat. Not my favorite activity but cool. I met some really cool people from all over the world. These guys from Vancouver called me Indiana the whole time, which was kind of funny. Oh, I would say it was worth it for the money. We only paid $40 to do it all.
Feelin' pretty confident
Not confident. Terrified.
going up the tunnel ladder
at the top, it really is a lot higher than this picture lets on.
But look how small Alannah is!
This is where Caleb would have sat if he was here. =/
He would've probably been wearing his FiveFingers too.
Sigh.
Going back down the tree tunnel!
After the tree we headed back to the hostel to get ready for our night tour that began at 5:30pm! Aaah! I loved it!!! It started out perfect. They gave me a hot mug of free coffee. They won my heart from the beginning. After we all finished our coffee, and received our flashlight, we headed into the forest with our guide. It was incredible. This man was an amazing tour guide. He was so passionate and we saw so many cool things like: a viper, it was bright yellow, and super dangerous. It was hanging beautifully on a little tree. The guy said we are incredibly lucky to see it. Vipers are usually not able to be seen so close to the floor but because of the earthquake things have been a little off. We also saw a sloth, which was cool, but kind of over rated. AND THEN. We saw a kinkajou!! A kinka-what? A kinkajou! It's like this jungle cat/monkey. It looks like a cat but has a tail that grabs things like a monkey, and therefore it can swing from trees like a monkey. The guy also said that they're rare to see. The guy found a huge dung beetle that I got to pet, some tucans, and some other night creatures.
I talked to him a lot, and asked a ton of questions. Pretty typical, but I was talking to him at the end of our tour about how I really wanted to see a Quetzal, this amazing bird, we talked about it for a little bit and then he told me that he could tell that I was genuinely passionate about the wildlife and such and said if I made it to the birdwatching area at 7:15am he promised me he would find me a Quetzal. I was so jazzed! This man had just offered me a free tour and promised me a Quetzal! So the four of us headed back to the hostel and joined up with the rest of the group that had just arrived (they came later because they had classes on friday).
So I'm telling them all about my night tour experience and about how I'm going to go birdwatching tomorrow to find a Quetzal and they all just laugh....They were like, "Ooh Sara's celebrating her 80th birthday tomorrow by going birdwatching at 7:15 in the morning! Woooo...." Yeah, so maybe they weren't as impressed as I wanted them to be, but it didn't crush my dreams. The next day, woke up, ate my free breakfast, and headed back to the cloud forest with Alannah (She was nice enough to go) to see myself a Queztal. The guy was there! He said it was actually his day off but that he didn't mind, since he usually spends his days off in the forest anyways. We only had to pay the entrance fee (10$, which is good for the entire day). He told us to hike the trails on our own for awhile and then he would meet up with us later to hunt for the Quetzal. Here are some photos of the forest:
This hummingbird is only found in Costa Rica!!
It's huge compared to others.
Walking through the trails was magical.
Alannah and I didn't speak the entire time.
We were speechless.
Aaand then, for the grand finale! We headed back to find my newly made tour guide friend. He took us out to this place to spot a Quetzal, and previously a different tour guide before us said that he couldn't find any today, and that it would be unlikely. My new tour guide friend didn't buy it. He literally knows everything about Costa Rica's nature. He knows all of the movements, patterns, calls, and life-styles of all of the flora and fauna. It's incredible. So we go out looking for a Quetzal, he checks this tree, doesn't see one, but tells us to keep looking because he knows one will show up here. He heads off to set up his telescope for birdwatching. AND THEN I SPOT IT!!! There was a Quetzal in the tree the whole time! Even the birdman missed it! He quickly set up his stuff and then we had a great view of it. I was able to take photos through the lens of his telescope! Here they are!
This was another bird he spotted.
I forget its name...
Off in the distance is this weird mammal thing which clearly I can't remember its name either...
There were two and they were playing!
A super cool, GIANT moth
That was the trip! We headed back to Heredia, made it back an hour earlier than expected, and end the weekend well!
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