1/14: adventures in the cloud forest

We packed up so we could meet the check-out time but left our luggage at the airbnb so that we would have a car that was an invitationLara booked a tour (caminata guiada = guided walk) for us today in the Reserva Bosque Nuboso Santa Elena, the Santa Elena cloud forest (http://reservasantaelena.org/). It is a nature preserve owned by the government and managed by the board of the Santa Elena Technical High School.

Here's a copy of a hand-out I found at the reception desk. I always like to have a copy of the trail map even though we were with a guide.

Our guide was Ruth. She was knowledgeable, chatty and clearly enjoyed her job. She was a product of the Santa Elena high school and she told me more about her post-graduate training but I didn't quite understand what it was. But when I asked her if she was finished, she said something like: "thank god, yes, I am 25!" 

Here she is at our first stop. She is calling a Quetzel. It was up in the canopy but I never got a good look at it nor a good shot. The girls told her that I was really into birding and I was carrying the camera so I made the appropriate and appreciative sounds while she tried to make it reappear so we could get a better view.

Here she is delivering a lecture on biodiversity. I think she said that Costa Rica was the home of 5% of the earth's biodiversity.

She pulled one of these round fruits and rolled it with her fingers to produce a citrus smell. Like a lot of things that she pointed out that might have been tempting to try to taste, she did not know if it was poisonous or not. Probably better not to be the first one to try it.

This is an orchid.

And this is a zombie beetle that she showed us when we got back at the reception area. The beetle ingests the spores of the plant and the beetle becomes a host for the spores that germinate in the beetle and force the beetle to provide a launching pad for the next generation of spores. I know of some insects that do that but I never heard of a plant using an insect this way.

We arrived at a viewing spot for two owls. These pictures are through her telescope. Earning certification as a guide must include being able to take pictures using someone else's phone through a telescope!

We climbed an observation tower and it was really windy, so windy that I was more uncomfortable on the stairs with railings than in the canopy the day before with only a carabiner clipped to a safety rope.

Here are the girls trying not to get blown over the guardrail.

We left the cloud forest and headed back to the same restaurant for a quick lunch before hitting the road. It was about 4 hours to our next stop and we went from the mountains down to the coast.

I have pictures from scenic view turn-outs but I need to get them off the camera.

What a transformation! We went from high altitude microclimates that alternated between misty to sunny with sunshowers in between to brilliant sunshine and hot muggy air. This must be what American snowbirds are looking for. The roads also transformed from dirt and very rough narrow pavement that could barely accommodate two vehicles passing each other to an authentic highway with passing lanes and dotted yellow lines. Wow. 

We pulled over in a beach-side town to view the sunset.

Here it is.

It was still about an hour or two to our airbnb and since most of the rural homes don't have addresses, Lara input the geo-coordinates into google maps to find it. We drove around single-lane pathways (they could barely be called roads) for a while before we finally found it with the help of texts from the owner. We had a car with available 4-wheel drive and there were moments when we would not have made it if we didn't have 4WD.

I began to unpack the car while the owner gave Annie and Lara a tour and I must have stepped into an ant crossing because I got about 30 bites in less than a minute. They hurt more than any other encounter with an insect. I took a look this morning at where I had stepped last night and they are small and look unremarkable but their bites really hurt like hell.

The picture of my foot a couple of hours later shows some of the bites. I took pictures but they don't look very impressive but I am still looking for sympathy.