Monte Verde

• Posted by: Noel McQueen
• Comments: 1

We are in Monte Verde cloud forest and it is our last day in Costa Rica. So far we have gone to the butterfly farm, hiked in the jungle at night, hiked a series of suspension bridges in the canopy, and gone zip-lining through the jungle. It has been pretty busy. Our last day in La Fortuna saw us on rappel lines in a jungle mountain stream gorge, canyoning down a series of seven waterfalls. Our evening was filled with a volcano hike on Arenal Volcano – an active volcano that sounds like thunder when it erupts – on average of every 7 minutes. I am going a little backwards here… sorry.

Yesterday we went to the butterfly farm here which is actually an educational center where you watch a little video on the life cycle of the butterfly and an explanation of several different species. The video was worth the price of admission, as it was narrated by some guy who was definitely a 60′s draft dodger who had smoked a big fatty before the camera started rolling. He was inordinately concerned with the “sex life” of butterflies – favorite quote:”There’s nothing like a long cool drink of nectar after a huge meal of bird crap.” I’m not kidding. Regardless, it was loads of fun to go to the “classroom” afterwards to handle and poke the tarantulas, elephant beetles, cockroaches, walking stick bugs, and an escaped praying mantis. There were also several butterfly cocoons in various stages of maturity. They had butterflies that had just emerged from their cocoons in little plastic tubs, and we got to carry them with us into each of the 4 butterfly environments they had set up in the jungle, and release the butterflies into their respective environments. That was neat. Each environment was a section of jungle that was netted off and represented different altitudes and light levels of forest – there were beautiful royal blue butterflies, owl eye butterflies, glass butterflies, leaf butterflies and some that were brilliant red and yellow. It was great – we could actually identify butterflies in the forest today when we were walking through the suspension bridge pathway.

We went on a night walk in the jungle last night, which is a little spooky in the pitch black. Our guide had an enormous battery pack on his back for a high powered flashlight – we all had little hand held lights with dying batteries. We did get to see a big jungle porcupine – very different from ours at home (they have a face like a badger and a long tail). We also saw an enormous two toes sloth, an owl, two tarantulas, three toucans sleeping in the trees, leaf cutter ants, and some little birds that our guide was very excited about, and I will have to look up when I get home. A few of us were bitten by some kind of bug that makes you sit up and pay attention immediately – wow, did it hurt for 10 minutes straight, then it just dissipated.

Today we walked through the jungle on various levels of suspension bridges on the “Sky Walk” tour. We didn’t see too many animals – a few goofy flying turkey birds, and some beautiful hummingbirds, but it was nice to quietly walk through the jungle and look at all the plants and flowers. Everything here is so super-sized it makes you feel like you’ve shrunk by comparison. The ferns could easily cover the roof of our house with a few leaves, the vines run for dozens of meters from the canopy to the jungle floor, and the trees grow on top of plants that grow on top of other trees. It’s a little overwhelming.

The zip-lines were a series of 11 pulley – cables that you hooked into with a climbing harness, and went screaming down cables suspended anywhere from 20 to 130 meters above the jungle floor for distances of 35 meters to 770 meters. It was loads of fun – we got to see the canopy from all different levels, and we actually zipped past birds and through clouds in the jungle.

Our last day in La Fortuna we were canyoning around the Arenal volcano. We started at the top of an endless mountain gorge with walls that narrowly enclosed a tumbling stream that threw itself off cliffs into waterfalls seven times before we were at the end of the gorge. It was great. We rappelled down waterfalls that were anywhere from 7 meters to 70 meters high. The water fell from so high that by the time it reached the rock cauldron at the bottom it was a shower of droplets. Every time we reached the bottom of one line, we would walk through the stream to the next waterfall, imagining ourselves to be in “Land of The Lost” – the walls were so high, the plants were so huge and the spiders were alarmingly hairy (and the size of my entire hand). I’m glad I didn’t accidentally grab that guy in a search for a hand hold.

That night we walked around the active volcano, and found a place near the bottom of it at the end of the hike where we got a glimpse of molten rocks that are regularly thrown out of the volcano – it is a very young volcano, and one of the most active in the world.

Tomorrow we are taking a bus, a boat, a cart and another bus to get to Nicaragua – it will be a very long day. Here’s hoping none of you have to spend time on a chicken bus tomorrow. We’ll let you know how it goes.

As usual, we miss our families, friends and doggies. Take care,

Noel & George

Post Information

Date posted :	Jul 15, 2007
Last modified :	Jan 2, 2008
Categories :	Central America, Costa Rica
Tags :	Costa Rica, La Fortuna, Monte Verde, Nicaragua