We travelled to Monteverde via 'Jeep-Boat-Jeep' and despite Ben's excitement that doesn't mean we came here by transformer! Just a jeep, a boat and then another jeep. Bless him! It was more than exciting enough for me though as the roads are unsurfaced and we were sliding all over the place even in a 4WD trying to get through the mud without getting stuck. We made it though and are now in a little town surrounded by tropical cloudforest. Not being an ecologist I can't tell the difference between the cloudforests and the rainforests but I guess it's to do with being higher and the clouds tend to settle in the forest giving it something of an eery quality.
We've been doing lots more hiking and a little bit of tree hugging - the trees are incredible and definitely worth hugging :0) In parts of the forest there are hanging-bridges set up so you can actually walk through, and above, the cloudforest canopy, which is pretty special. It feels totally different walking through the canopy than on the forest floor. As you look down you can't see the ground as the plants are so dense and beingamong the tops of the trees gives you a much better understanding of the symbiotic relationships going on around you (and some not so symbiotic but I'm sticking with my romantic vision). Each tree has so many other plants growing on it and is obviously supporting loads of insects, and birds, and other animals, each tree is an ecosystem in it's own right.
We're still wildlife spotting and keep finding that as we walk quietly for miles in the forest, looking up, trying hard to spot things we don't actually see much in the way of animals, yet as we get back to the ranger station, and Ben packs his camera away, wild animals seem to practically dance through the car park!!! We've spotted quite a few fury friends right by the road. We saw a grey fox and some coatis (Ben even managed to get some photos - I take it all back!). Also, in one spot someone has set up lots of bird feeders filled with sugar water and so there are literally hundreds of beautiful multicoloured humming birds flying around. They were hovering so close it felt like I could have just reached over and picked one straight out of the sky.
My special reward for being so incredibly patient whilst Ben takes all his photos (!) was to go zip-lining. When I signed up for it I thought it was going to be one of those 'death-slide' things you see atassault courses, but there were actually fifteen of them and the longest one was 600 metres! It was so exciting! I had to wear a climbing harness thing then was attached to a metal cable right upamong the tallest trees and then just zipped along from platform to platform. Some of the runs were really fast and scary and some of them you could just enjoy the views below whilst hanging in mid-air. I loved it apart from thisTarzan swing thing they got us to do, which basically involved falling off one of the very high up platforms and then swinging around in the air until one of the (young buff!) instructors jumped up and hung off your feet and dragged you back down to earth. It was all a bit too much like a mini bungee jump for my liking. (Sorry there's no photos so you'll just have to take my word for it. Ben was off photographing more things that will stay still for him!)
Ben:
More photos here!
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