After a good nights sleep in our little cabina, today started bright and early with a wake up call from a bird about the size of a quail with a greyish body and red head (who are you bird?). We then ate some breakfast and set off for a morning guided hike in Monteverde cloud forest. The forest
wasn't cloudy at all as it was a bright sunny morning. We set off with our guide Elbert for a 2.5 hour walk through the beautiful trees. We first attempted to see quetzal, a famous and rare bird in costa
rica that all touristas want to see. There weren't any at a common feeding spot but we did see a green toucanet and a guara (wild turkey), we moved on to spot several other birds and insects including a humming bird and we crossed a big hanging bridge ... Finally as we were almost back at the entrance we saw a beautiful female quetzal. After a short break, our guide took us to a small hummingbird garden with dozens of hummingbirds flying around. Very cool. Our next stop was the cheese factory which was on the way home. It was a traditional dairy with lots of cheese and ice cream. We got ice cream for our morning snack. It was raining so we decided our next stop would be the bat jungle. It's an indoor bat exhibit. After a lecture about bats from the guide, we went into a dark room
with the bats. Luckily, the bats were on the other side of the glass. The guide showed us some different kinds of bats with his flashlight and then fixed them a snack and we got to watch them eat.
They were all fruit and nectar eaters. After that we went to a cafe and ate (not fruit). After a quick stop to pick up sweatshirts, it's chilly here, we went to our last tour of the day. It was a tour of a coffee and
sugar cane farm. This was great! Our guide was extremely nice and focused on making the tour informative and fun. We saw coffee plants growing, saw how the beans are dried, hulled, sorted and roasted. We rode on an oxen drawn cart. We ate (chewed on) raw sugar cane, saw how it is squeezed and boiled and then made our own candy with the caramelized sugar. We also got to taste moonshine made from the sugar cane! Whew, it was strong! After making candy we were treated to a
snack of fresh lemonade made with the brown sugar from the farm, coffee and tortillas with arraneche which is a root vegetable grown here - yum!
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| ready for our 7:30 am hike |
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| The turkey - pic taken through the eye of the guide's scope |
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| a ficus tree |
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| Manda and Molly on the trail |
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| A cool butterfly with see through wings |
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| the quetzal - also through the scope |
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| one of the many hummingbirds at the garden |
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| a bat eating fruit - cute? |
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| our oxen drawn carriage (cart) |
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