Costa Rica - part 7

After La Fortuna and the volcano, our holiday certainly felt like it was over. But there was one more sleep! We left La Fortuna at a leisurely time and hit the road once again toward San Jose.

The drive took us over a mountain pass, so for some time we climbed 5000ft toward the clouds... and then into them. There was a spunky little truck we got to follow up the slopes and through the fog.


We stopped at the town of Zarcero, which has a beautiful church with a topiary garden. In fact, it seems every town has a fancy church as a centrepiece.


Nearer San Jose, we headed off the highway to hit up a few artsy towns, including Sarchí and Grecia. Sarchí boasts the world's largest oxcart. It certainly is big, and the paint job is quite something.


The church in Sarchí.


Sarchí is known for furniture and traditional oxcart production. Along some stretches of the road almost every store was a furniture place.

Mini oxcarts for your pantry.


In Grecia we had our final "vest guy" experience. A phenomenon we'd seen a few times, guys make work for themselves by wearing a traffic vest (to look official) and try to get paid by tourists (and maybe by ticos too; I don't know). They'll work their magic while you, obviously a useless driver who needs his assistance, park your car on a busy street; this magic may include directing you by gesticulating wildly, or even by holding up traffic since you obviously need the entire road space to complete your amateurish parking job.

So anyway, the local vest guy eyed us coming and made a beeline for our car as we quickly parked before he got there. Then he pointed at us, then at the car, then at himself, indicating that we'd hired him to kindly watch our car for us while we were out and about. We did our best not to acknowledge him other than to glare discouragingly at him. We were, after all, getting out just to stretch our legs and check out the goings-on in the park across the street.

When we got back to the car not long afterward, vest guy got in our way trying to close the door after the girls as they got in. I did my best to get in his way. Once we were all piled in he waited near the driver's door, standing in the way until we paid him for his wonderful services. Reuben was at the wheel this time, and I suggested that we all just sit tight for a minute or two until vest guy got distracted. Sure enough, when other cars started showing up and parking nearby, vest guy was visibly torn between getting paid by us and moving on to potentially easier game. After a car or two he took off to gesticulate wildly to his next clients. I told Reuben to take off, which we did successfully. Vest guy noticed and tried to run our way for his paycheque, but we got away clean! Woohoo, saved another 25 cents! Looking back, it's less about the money than the thrill (and the principle of course); I suppose we should feel bad for the guy, but useless services are useless services.

We got to our final stop (a one-night stay), a B&B in Atenas, which is a town 20km west of the airport. Atenas is widely held to be one of the best weather spots in the world. The B&B was high on a hillside and overlooked Costa Rica's Central Valley. The view was certainly phenomenal.


There was a pool from which to enjoy the view; we went for a quick dip, but we arrived pretty late, and at this altitude late afternoon isn't exactly sweltering.


After enjoying a nice sunset, it was again time for a cigar.


And then the fair happened :(.

Quite a ways below us was a bustling fairground, and things were in full swing before too long. The noises in general weren't too bad; the problem was the guy on the megaphone! Some contest was being held, and the commentator was very VERY LOUD. Amazing how sound travels in a valley. After a couple hours the yelling stopped, which was great...

...until they replaced the voice with music. Also very loud. This lasted not quite as long, until finally the fair was over. And then came a pleasant surprise: they had a great fireworks display! Obviously just for us, as an apology for being so annoying. Watching fireworks from above is pretty cool, and the show definitely improved our evening.

The next morning we were off to a fairly slow start. Our flight was at 1pm, except Carrie's which was a couple hours later. Of course being on time and dawdling eventually turns into not being on time and wishing you hadn't wasted time on this or that. Our half-hour drive, plus an attempt to find a gas station, plus some time spent returning the rental car, put us at the airport a little later than we wanted to be. We lined up to pay the tourist exit tax (!) of $28 (Carrie's diplomatic passport exempted her). Then a short wait at the ticket counter; we were down to three souls then as we lost Carrie while she chased around for that exemption. Then a longer wait in line to get to security; after at least 20 minutes of waiting in that line we finally got to the front... at which time Carrie the diplomat waltzed right by the queue, and we were all together again!

Irene got randomly selected to have her laundry aired out in public, as it were. They went through her (and three other people's) stuff in plain sight. Fortunately they found no contraband.

Finally, boarding. I hate standing in line so I like to sit and wait until the last moment, preferably so late that my name gets called on the PA. Then wait a couple more minutes. At that point almost everyone in the plane should be seated and there's not a huge lineup still in the jet bridge.

The air is quite turbulent above San Jose, so flying can be quite bumpy above the valley. It can also get quite warm, as our pilot explained: "Sorry the cabin got a little warm folks; we had to turn off the air conditioning for max takeoff power." Apparently not that uncommon. Our three seats happened to be together on this flight so we endured enjoyed a few more hours together. Our return trip went through Newark again, and en route we saw New York City lit up in the dark... a pretty cool sight!

Anyway, got safely back to Ottawa at 11pm and took a cab home; Carrie flew in two hours later so I still had to pick her up.

It wasn't that wintry when we got back, but enough to take some getting used to. That's all changed now, with temperatures this past week reaching 27 degrees and the snow pretty much gone. Kind of reminds me of the weather in Tamarindo...

Which then reminds me of driving around at 50 km/h. For 1100 km.

And of not worrying about gas prices when you buy (it's the same price across the country)... (okay, still worrisome, as the price per litre is higher than in Canada... sigh).

And of muertos (that's what they call speed bumps; literally, "dead people").

And of oodles of stray dogs and too many roadkill dogs.

And of lost stuff (each couple lost a camera case; could be worse I guess).

And of fences, fences everywhere (theft deterrents obviously... they're certainly not for looks).


(Even around the churches... how welcoming is that??)


And of deliciously fresh and tasty fruit.


And of Reuben wanting to jump in the back of every off-road vehicle to go for a ride.


Sorry Reub; wanna burn around in my sweet Corolla instead?

Good times. Pura vida!

Costa Rica - part 6

Beer in Costa Rica is hardly something to write home about. If you're a beer connoisseur, your expectations are best kept very low indeed. The one national brewery in the country all but monopolizes the beer market, with hardly any competition from microbreweries. All of its products are rather tame to the point of being boring and are quite similar to one another.

One of very few microbreweries that we could find in the country happened to be near Lake Arenal, and on our way from Monteverde to La Fortuna (a town near the volcano and national park named Arenal). As the crow flies, the actual distance from Monteverde to La Fortuna is a mere 25km to the northeast. But the road to get there goes around the lake, which is north of Monteverde and west of La Fortuna. So, we had a scenic 3.5hr drive along winding roads.


We stopped at the Volcano Brewing Company for lunch and samplers.


Since their production is extremely limited, we couldn't even buy a case of beer but had to settle for a few overpriced bottles to enjoy over the next couple of days.

Waiting for lunch.


And on the road again. The drive was scenic, as the lake was in view for much of the way. The first half hour from Monteverde was on gravels roads, but beyond that the roads were paved again. This meant conditions were improved, but not exactly perfect. We went from things like this (note the movable posts indicating the alleged "safe" mark on an ever-eroding road)...


...to this: sure it was paved, but the canyon to the right was still caving in at an alarming rate. They were nicely extending the left side of the road for us as we waited. Of note was the fact that the entire road crew consisted of the Cat operator and the guy leaning on a sign. Nice and cheap... except I imagine they're there every week for more of the same repairs.


Also of interest were the frequent bottlenecks along the road, presumably because of natural obstacles. One direction of traffic was marked with a "CEDA" (yield) sign. This word looks a lot like the English word "cede", which is how I tended to translate it in my head. Sometimes when Reuben was driving we'd encounter such a bottleneck. If our direction had to yield but he didn't realize he had to yield, and traffic was coming from the other direction, I'd eventually be forced to start yelling "Cede! Cede!" as everyone but the driver became increasingly aware of our impending doom. Reuben would be all "What are you yelling about seeds for?!" before finally noticing that the oncoming transport truck was in fact going to be the one to win this contest if we didn't move over. I think I eventually learned to yell "yield!" but it took a while to retrain my brain.


Arenal Volcano's cone is hidden by clouds much of the time, so we didn't see much of the mountain as we drove by it toward La Fortuna. Many tourists stay for days and don't see much of the mountain at all, so we hoped we'd at least catch a glimpse during our two days there.

We arrived in La Fortuna by late afternoon and found our hotel. The main drag of La Fortuna seems to consist largely of hotels and tourism offices. Our hotel was in the middle of it, with an inner courtyard that our rooms faced and which housed a small pool. The courtyard was also their secure parking area, which, with controlled coming AND going and with three-cars-deep parking, was about as convenient as a hole in the head.


After settling in we headed to a nearby fancy restaurant, which was our most expensive meal yet (we paid first-world prices--gasp!); the food was fantastic. After that, a dip in the pool, followed by a cigar and nightcap, as was our wont.


The next morning we got up on time to drive out to our only planned outing at Arenal: a hanging bridges tour. This guided tour would provide a floor-to-canopy walk-through of the cloud forest. We were fortunate to have beautiful weather and a great view of the volcano.


The volcano was very active in the 1990s, and has had significant activity as recently as October 2010. Since then, it's been doing little more than oozing steam and gases, as seen coming from the newer right cone; that side of the mountain looks bare, while the slopes below the older left cone are noticeably greener.


The hanging bridges tour started okay, with eight tourists in our group. Our guide did a decent job at first, pointing out various plants and animals and explaining things around us. Before too long, however, the route we were following became very busy indeed. Both guided and unguided tourists follow the same narrow trail, and there were fast people trying to pass slow people (e.g., us trying unsuccessfully to gather around and listen to our guide). Then there were hanging bridges with limits as to how many people they can hold at one time, so traffic got backed up at these as people waited to cross. To top it off, many unguided tourists were talking loudly enough to scare off any potential animal sightings, so we saw very little wildlife. In the past the tour company has limited how many people can be in the reserve at a time, but if that's still the case, this limit is far too high. Tour groups should be spaced much farther apart, and the unguided ones should be told to keep it quiet for the rest of us. I blame the Germans! But to their credit, one of the Germans started singing Bavarian folk songs while we were waiting to cross a bridge, and we could imagine we were in the Alps; we had a grand old time... for the moment.

While both the entrance fee and the guide fee were overpriced, it was a nice walk through the rainforest and across wobbly bridges, with the occasional nice view of the volcano.





We did see a macaw, but it was the pet of a local, so that hardly counts.


After the tour, we asked around for a good place to swim. We were told of a swimming hole very close to town, and we headed there after lunch. It was a nice deep swimming area at the river, complete with a Tarzan swing.


Reuben enjoyed the Tarzan swing. Didn't do back flips off it like some of the loco locals though... maybe next time.


Carrie made an attempt, but she wrenched her finger in her (mostly successful) efforts to hang on to the rope long enough. Good thing she hung on, or she might have ended up with worse ailments than her currently (and likely permanently) crooked finger.

That evening, Reuben and I decided we needed to buy more cigars. Our new favourite and regular smoke, the massive one from Tabacos Exclusivos, had been a great buy back in Tamarindo, and we were running out. So we struck out on our mission while the girls hung out at the hotel. We hit up a number of touristy shops, all of which sold cigars, but generally they focused on ripping you off with overpriced Cubans.

Some clouds were rolling in, and the darker sky made for a neat contrast with what we'd enjoyed earlier in the day, from this...

...to this.


Well aware that tourist traps wouldn't be the cheapest place to buy cigars, we left the main drag to seek out less conspicuous shops. Our search caused a great thirst to ravage our throats, so we also kept an eye out for beverages. We visited the nearest grocery store--and wouldn't you know it, they were offering taste tests of a new brand of beer! We had a couple of samples and bought a can each; it was pretty run-of-the-mill Costa Rican beer, but it served to slake our thirsts. Back to the streets! Eventually a liquor store stumbled into our path, but since we couldn't bring our cracked-open beers inside, we had to hang out outside while we downed our drinks. Nothing but class.


Once inside, we learned that beer is cheaper at the grocery store! So that worked out well. On the other hand, we found the right cigars here and for a great price, so we bought a healthy stash.

Meanwhile, back at the hotel, the girls were dealing with a big problem. Like the size of a massive tour bus. Actually, the problem was a tour bus. A bus load of American school kids was taking over most of the hotel, and the bus driver was trying to park the bus in the courtyard. Our car was there, and the girls didn't have the keys. So having the bus in there would effectively prevent us from going anywhere; we planned to leave early the next morning, and the bus wasn't planning to leave until later. Carrie told the driver and the hotel guy that they couldn't park their behemoth there, as it messed up our travel plans. So after 20 minutes of incredible maneuvering to get the bus in the courtyard, they pulled out and just parked it on the main drag in front of the hotel. We win! Except the place was crawling with snot-nosed kids. Okay, they were teenagers and were surprisingly well-behaved. Plus, the next morning they ended up leaving for a day trip well before we were checked out, so things would have worked out fine anyway. But still, keep your ugly bus out of our tiny courtyard.

Costa Rica - part 5

I'm told that people, when they think Costa Rica, think beaches, ziplining and exploring rainforests. I can't say I thought of all that when the possibility of our travelling there presented itself. I figured it was probably beachy but knew little else about it. But maybe I'm just not well-read. (Okay, not maybe.)

Having endured enjoyed the beach for a few days, it was time to head inland again and do that other stuff. Our next destination was the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve, and the eponymous adjacent town.

Driving in Costa Rica has its challenges, not the least of which is determining how to get somewhere. We were using a smartphone as a GPS; if your phone has a built-in GPS chip, you can preload maps onto it and use it as a basic map without paying for any service; note that it's just a map with a locator, and not a direction-giving British lady. Up to this point there hadn't been too many problems getting around; we'd heard that signs were almost non-existent in Costa Rica, but in our experience so far that turned out to be less than accurate.

The trip to Monteverde, however, was a little different. The first part was easy: getting back to the Pan-Am Highway, and taking it for a ways to Las Juntas; there the road was supposed to get worse (unpaved), and at that point we'd depend more on the GPS. We (okay, I) had decided we'd take a different route than might have been suggested by Google Maps. (This was so we'd retrace as little road as possible; no point seeing the same boring road twice!) What our phone failed to mention was that what looks like a fatter line on the screen may not actually be the fatter road.

After a while of very slow driving, the road was getting quite steep and rocky and the views becoming spectacular. A certain occupant in the car was developing quite the imagination and seemed convinced the SUV was going to tip over backwards. After a particularly scrabbly climb, said occupant decided to hyperventilate and make us rethink our route choice. We found a flattish place to park, and some of us got out to enjoy the view.

Palm trees on a windy mountain.


After those whose needed convincing were convinced we weren't going to die, we got back in the car to drive just a little further and see what we could see. Presently we happened to pass some government service guys in a pickup truck. The very next hill we tried to climb proved to be a problem. If you stayed on the road, its red loamy constitution provided no traction, and we found ourselves spinning out halfway up. While not entirely discouraged, we realized that there might be many such tricky climbs ahead, and with our treadless tires and only three adventurous occupants to goad them on, we realized this might be an escapade better left for another day. We took another break, and I headed back to the guys in the truck to see how much worse this road would get.

When you speak 20 words of Spanish and your conversational counterpart speaks just as much English, it is unsurprisingly difficult to discuss a specific topic. Fortunately, hand gestures and facial expressions abound and we somehow communicated. They checked that our car had four wheel drive (it did) and that we idiot tourists actually had it engaged (we did). Then they looked at the lousy tires and made up their minds: we should probably head back. Turned out we were on a shortcut (in distance, not necessarily time) on a road that wouldn't be getting any better. We should have turned off back in the town of Las Juntas, but our GPS hadn't been very clear on that.

Dutiful spouse explaining to spouse that we are nowhere near death. Govt truck parked nearby.


I tried to get pictures of some of the crazy hills, but a photo never does it justice. If it had been rainy season, the drive would certainly have been memorable; roads become nearly impassable for a number of months, except with a well-equipped 4x4. Maybe next time...

Oh, but that's not to say this drive wasn't memorable. Thanks, certain occupant!

Anyway, a bit of a backtrack to Las Juntas where we found the turnoff we'd missed, and we were on our way again. Curious to know how far Monteverde was yet, I rolled down my window and asked some tourists "How much English do you speak?" They spoke plenty, and we learned that Monteverde was only an hour or so away. Sweet!

The Interwebs tell of crazy roads with potholes and boulders galore, but we found this to be quite inaccurate (if, of course, you take the well-travelled routes). Roads were narrow at times and dusty of course, but the drive wasn't so bad. We had to back up for oncoming trucks only once, but traffic overall was remarkably light.

Who needs to see anything, really? Seeing while driving... so overrated.


Um, so we just go in the ditch, right?


We got to Monteverde well before dark. Or was it Santa Elena? The two towns are very close together, surrounded by rain forest, cloud forest and transition forest (some classification between the other two). We found our hotel (with no pool--gasp!) and hardly had time to get settled before our first organized forest activity: a night tour in the forest.

Sunset Hotel.


We were picked up at the hotel and driven to a nature reserve for our 5:30 start time. It always gets dark before 6pm and the idea was to start at twilight. At the reserve we each got a flashlight and we were assigned to a group with several other couples.

While waiting, a coati came around sniffing for treats. They are to Costa Rica what raccoons are to us: overly bold critters that like to stick their nose in your garbage. This one was no different, probably expecting a snack.

Reuben entertaining the coati, or vice versa. Wait a sec -- Reub, you look younger...


After waiting around a bit, we met with our knowledgeable guide, and we finally started on our tour. Some of the first animals we saw were coatis. We also encountered agoutis; these are large rodents, basically like a rat the size of a large rabbit. Now I forget if it was coatis or agoutis, but suddenly a whole herd of them came running by, appearing out of nowhere. It was very cool to see and hear, especially in our nice twilight setting. A certain member of the group, however, seemed quite convinced that we were going to be eaten alive by them, so said member did not enjoy the first minutes of the walk quite as much as the rest of us. Fortunately said member was miraculously convinced by a doting spouse that there was very little danger of being eaten alive, and fortunately did not drop out of the tour.

Again, you made for a memorable occasion, said member!

A cute li'l agouti.


Not knowing what to expect looking for stuff in the dark, we were pleased with what the tour had to offer. Of course animals are what we most hoped to see, but some plant life was interesting as well. In particular, the strangler fig tree drew much interest. It's a tree whose seeds can be deposited via bird droppings on top of a tree of a different species; such a seed might start to grow, way up there, and start sending roots down to the ground. The roots take hold and slowly a tree is grown over and around its host tree, which eventually dies as it is enveloped. Sometimes what's left is a strangler fig with a large hollow centre, where the host tree used to be but died and decayed over time--we're talking many decades of course.

Inside a hollow strangler fig, looking up.


Carrie chillin' inside a strangler fig tree.


The guide knew where to find various animals, partly because some, like birds and tarantulas, have permanent roosts or dens where they can predictably be spotted. This tarantula had to be coaxed out by poking into its den with a stick. It came outside to give us a good look.


One British lady in our group was not at all thrilled with the idea of encountering a tarantula in dark. As the guide started poking with a stick, the lady hightailed it down the path a ways, making it clear that she didn't see the point in waking the spider, much less agitating it.

Later, after we'd moved on and retrieved the British lady, we were standing around our tour guide when a cricket flew into me and landed nearby. The guide quickly grabbed it and asked whether we wanted him to feed it to the tarantula. Stupid question, right? So we headed back to where the tarantula was still standing guard outside its den, and our guide put the poor cricket to good use. A wonderful National Geographic moment!


Other than a bunch of birds and stuff, the other big sighting was a two-toed sloth. These critters hang out way up in the forest canopy and are hard to spot. They come down to the ground once a month to do their business, and we just happened to be in the area when one sloth did exactly that. The guide's radio crackled and, on hearing the good news about doo-doo, we hustled to where another guide had spotted the sloth. That guide's group probably got some decent pictures; while we got some decent views of the sloth as it "hurried" back up into the treetops, pictures didn't work out that well. Except one very crisp shot of a pile of poo, but I will spare you that. Our guide was very excited about the sighting as even he hadn't seen a sloth come down for a monthly poo visit.


On our provided ride back to the hotel, we swapped stories with tourists from other groups who had just done the tour, and it seems we were very fortunate to see as much as we did. Money well spent, in hindsight!

We had dinner at a great restaurant recommended by our hotelier. Typical Costa Rican meals: rice and beans, some veggies, and massive portions of meat. And of course smoothies or milkshakes with fresh fruit.


Back to the hotel, where it was time for a cigar and nightcap.


These monstrous 7" Costa Rican cigars take well over an hour to smoke. Inexpensive but well made; we wish we'd taken more of these home. Of course, without a humidor it's hard to store them long-term, so it's probably just as well that we didn't buy too many.


The next morning we headed out to go ziplining. Apparently it's the thing to do in Costa Rica, regardless of the cost. We got our gear and headed out with two guides and a group of ten or so.


Our first run was a tiny practice one, to let us get the feel for it. Apparently even this one can freak some people out, but once they successfully traverse it and find themselves still in one piece, they are able to shake their fear and have an absolute blast on the real runs!!

Again, thanks to "some people" for making this so memorable... okay I'll stop, this is getting old already!

So after the practice run where they tell you what not to do and teach you how to slow down (or not, as needed), we were off to the real ziplines. This sometimes required a long climb up a tower.


There are nine sections of cable. Median height above the forest canopy is 60m, with the highest being 100m up. Most lines are 400m or longer, with the longest being 750 metres! That one's pretty long but it takes only about 40 seconds, being the fastest one at 75km/h.

Strapping in.


And off she goes!


As some long lines have less elevation drop from start to finish, significant speed is required to make it all the way. And since more weight translates to higher speed, we had to go in tandem with a partner on some of these lines. Oh, and if you don't make it, you have to do the hand-over-hand thing all the way to the platform, a.k.a. the crawl of shame. And it's not so easy, since it tends to be uphill due to the sag in the cable. Let's hustle, kids!


Us going tandem, coming in for a landing. Our guide on the right is holding an arrestor rope of sorts, which helps to slow us down. We came in too fast quite often, making him earn his keep.


Ziplining was fun, but hardly the adrenalin rush some claim. I guess skydiving should be next.

We had nothing planned for the rest of the day, so we enjoyed a hummingbird sanctuary...


...and a short hike to a waterfall.



Here, as everywhere else in the country, leaf-cutter ants abound. These busybodies are amazing, running all over to chomp chunks out of leaves and bring them back to the anthill. We were constantly coming across little two-way highways of leaf-cutter ants marching to and from work.


You rarely saw a bush or tree without the telltale holes.


I forget when, but one day while we were driving, Irene took off her wedding ring to put on some moisturizer. She put the ring between her leg and the car seat and promptly forgot about it. When she remembered many bumpy miles later, the ring was no longer there. It had presumably fallen into one of many nooks and crannies and settled out of reach. But, against the girls' wishes, the guys managed to figure out how to pull the seats off; and the ring was easily recovered, and the day was saved, and they lived happily ever after.

I should mention that my efforts to colour worked too well. I burned early on (especially my face), and I started peeling within a couple of days. I lost a good layer in Monteverdi, doing my best to spread out the flakes so no one would notice them. I failed once: Carrie wasn't thrilled when I left her a sinkful following a particularly satisfying peeling session.


The Sunset Hotel was aptly named, and we did happen to be there at the right time one evening to enjoy a beautiful sunset.


Later that evening, R&I had a wonderful surprise in their hotel room: a real live scorpion! I'm so jealous that they got to encounter one. Said encounter ended with a well-placed stomp and a throwing into the bushes outside. I looked for it later but couldn't find it back, so a pre-stomp picture from Reuben will have to suffice. Needless to say, we checked our shoes and blankets a little more carefully for the next day or so.


The next morning three of us were going to go on a private birding tour. We'd get up bright (actually still dark) and early and make the short drive to meet our guide at 6am. I used my watch as an alarm clock. Reuben used his phone; sadly, his phone--not having any service and thus not having changed from Ottawa time--was an hour off. At 4:30am Reuben knocks on our door, bleary-eyed but dressed and ready to go. I mumble to him to come back in an hour... poor fellow was probably not too well-rested that day.

Birding sounded, well, not terribly fun to me. I see lots of birds in Canada and I'm generally not inclined to pull out my camera and capture fond memories. But seeing as things are decidedly more colourful in Costa Rica, I decided to go along anyway, keeping my expectations fairly low. Fortunately I wasn't disappointed.

The guide had an excellent telescope, through which it was possible to take pictures. That worked better with Reuben's camera than mine, so he has much better close-ups of birds. The guide was amazing; he was very knowledgeable and was able to spot camouflaged birds at a distance.


Some birds we spotted.
Top: parrot; motmot
Middle: emerald toucanet; collared trogon
Bottom: great-tailed grackle; some random yellow bird


The resplendent quetzal is an elusive bird that seems to be the holy grail of bird watching. We never did see one. To make up for it we saw a viper in a bush near the trail. In hindsight I should not have come so close for a picture; this guy's fairly venomous. Oops.


The birding tour took nearly five hours and was well worth the considerable sum we paid for a private guide who knew his stuff. This wrapped up our rainforest visit. Off to see a volcano! Bye, Monteverde.