Exploring Monteverde

April 1, 2007

Several weeks ago I took a trip to Monteverde which is a large cloud forest. I went with three friends, two of whom are Ticos from camp. Friday after classes we left on the 5 hour bus ride. The bus was packed with people headed to Monteverde, most of whom were American tourists like myself. Many had to stand for the entire bus ride and because I was not feeling the greatest I did not end up offering my seat to any of them, though I would have liked to. I saw several students with Penn State x-country shirts on the bus and discovered that they were here studying for the semester.

We stayed in the little mountain town of Santa Elena, a town sustained mostly by tourism. Our first day we went to the Monteverde Reserve which is reported to have many monkeys, wild cats, and beautiful birds. Unfortunately we did not actually see much other than a few birds. Later in the day we visited a serpentarium which contained many species of poisonous snakes. A Quaker school group from Philadelphia was also there doing a tour and it brought back memories of Outdoor Education in Pennsylvania. There is a Quaker community in Monteverde but I did not actually visit their cheese factory or cross paths with them. That night my one friend and I went on a guided night hike. We were able to see tarantulas, the Mexican hairy porcupine, coatis, raccoons, sleeping birds, and praying mantises. I was hoping to see a poisonous snake (from a distance of course) but we did not see anything quite that exciting. I enjoyed being on the receiving end of a night hike after having led many at Black Rock Retreat.

On Sunday we had the opportunity to do the Canopy Tours and hanging bridges. Canopy tours are very similar to gigantic zip-lines but they span gorges and run through the very top of the trees. A few of them reached heights and lengths that were quite thrilling. Because it was very windy that day, there were several cables where you had to go in pairs to prevent getting stuck out in the middle and having to pull yourself in. I was thankful that I am comfortable with heights or else the letting go would have been very difficult.

Kinkajou
Monday two of my friends left to return to San Jose while the other two of us took a guided tour at another reserve. Unfortunately it rained and rained which limited what we could see. We did see a Kinkajou (the above picture was taken in the zoo, not on the hike) up in the trees and then a peccary walking around outside the café area. Interesting fact: the kinkajou has a very long tongue that is twice the size of its head. Before heading back to San Jose I was able to get some ice cream from a little shop. It was rich and creamy and reminded me of the ice cream made in the dairies in Lancaster. Due to some accidents and broken down vehicles in the middle of the road the trip back to San Jose took an extra long time but thankfully it was much cooler this time and the bus was not so crowded. We also got to witness a beautiful rainbow coverng the sky to the left of the bus.