After our day of visiting the various grizzly beasties to be found in Monteverde and Santa Elena's tourist attractions we decided we should definitely check out as much as we could in situ. The Monteverde reserve was created when North American Quakers emmigrated on masse after being jailed for their pacifist beliefs during the Korean war in 1949. When they first arrived they agreed to preserve about a third of their property in order to protect the biodiversity around Monteverde.
It was a half an hour bus ride up a bumpy road to the start of the trails that you are allowed to traverse. The trails only cover a tiny section of the reserve, but the round trip that we took on was still a good 4 hours going at our usual leisurely 'check everything out' pace.
After getting underway, we almost immediately saw what I later identified as a
coati. It's a large mammal that is the shape of a racoon, but a bit bigger with a white face. Soon after that we saw a toucanette. Unsuprisingly this is a small version of toucan. The vegetation was really dense, but the trails were very well marked and not too muddy.
There were lots of lovely big trees.
Some nice flowers, peeping through the shiny greeness.
Here is an orchid we recognised from the Coban orchid farm in Guatemala.
Clairy couldn't help picking up this hairy beast of a caterpilla.
More nice forest flowers.
A bit of colourful fernage.
About a third of the way round the walk we reached the continental divide. This is the range that stretches all the way down through Costa Rica, separating the Atlantic from the Pacific. On this side you could see all the way to the Pacific and all water rained past this point will flow that way.
Here's the view fom the Caribbean\Atlantic side. It was an epic sight. This side the reserve stretches on for another 15 odd miles.
Oh hi! Yeah, its quite windy.
'I'm not looking down, I'm not looking down'
Some genuine butterflies in the wild. This one was a translucent glass butterfly.
We were absolutely desperate to find a sloth on this walk, as we had been told that they were native to the area. Sadly they not only resemble very closely the wispy mossy lichen that dangles off all the trees, apparently they also smell like lichen too, to make it deifficult for predators to find them. We had no chance!
Here you can see where a sloth isn't, but might have been.
Some byambyoo and more fernage and fungi.
At the halfway point, we go out our french stick and cheese and salad and made some immensely vast sarnarges that would put subway to shame (well I did anyway). Mine also had cat-ham in. I should probably point out that the name came from the fact that it was thoroughly enjoyed by the cat from the hostel we were staying in, and not because it was made from cats. As you can see this bench was in the centre of an intersection of many paths. As a result several groups of people of various nationalities got to admire our sarnarge skills.
'Look I'm picking up a gurt millipede an all!'. Fortunately, the day before we had been informed that though large and scary looking, these fellas won't hurt you.
A pretty little waterfall on the way round.
We did eventually come across all 3 species of monkey found in the park. But the first and most photogenic were these white headed capuchins. We later found out that they are the most ruthless of Costa Rica's monkeys and regularly steal and eat baby howler monkeys. Nasty little buggers, but very pretty none the less.
This was a gurt mahoosive tree that doesn't look quite as mahoosive in this piccy.
When we arrived back in the car park where we started there was a bit of a commotion coming from near the pond, where this poor enormous beetle was being harassed by a member of staff. It was vast though, so I had to get a picture.
We still had an hour or so to kill until the bus turned up however, so we walked up to the hummingbird garden gallery. I didn't realise that they would be so tempted by a bit of sugary water, but it was absolutely incredible. There were about 30 all getting in each others way.
Clairy accidentally took this one with the flash on , and exposed its glorious irridescent markings.
This chap was seriously concentrating so I got quite a crisp picture.
A very pleasant ending to a lush walk.
It was a half an hour bus ride up a bumpy road to the start of the trails that you are allowed to traverse. The trails only cover a tiny section of the reserve, but the round trip that we took on was still a good 4 hours going at our usual leisurely 'check everything out' pace.
After getting underway, we almost immediately saw what I later identified as a
coati. It's a large mammal that is the shape of a racoon, but a bit bigger with a white face. Soon after that we saw a toucanette. Unsuprisingly this is a small version of toucan. The vegetation was really dense, but the trails were very well marked and not too muddy.
There were lots of lovely big trees.
Some nice flowers, peeping through the shiny greeness.
Here is an orchid we recognised from the Coban orchid farm in Guatemala.
Clairy couldn't help picking up this hairy beast of a caterpilla.
More nice forest flowers.
A bit of colourful fernage.
About a third of the way round the walk we reached the continental divide. This is the range that stretches all the way down through Costa Rica, separating the Atlantic from the Pacific. On this side you could see all the way to the Pacific and all water rained past this point will flow that way.
Here's the view fom the Caribbean\Atlantic side. It was an epic sight. This side the reserve stretches on for another 15 odd miles.
Oh hi! Yeah, its quite windy.
'I'm not looking down, I'm not looking down'
Some genuine butterflies in the wild. This one was a translucent glass butterfly.
We were absolutely desperate to find a sloth on this walk, as we had been told that they were native to the area. Sadly they not only resemble very closely the wispy mossy lichen that dangles off all the trees, apparently they also smell like lichen too, to make it deifficult for predators to find them. We had no chance!
Here you can see where a sloth isn't, but might have been.
Some byambyoo and more fernage and fungi.
At the halfway point, we go out our french stick and cheese and salad and made some immensely vast sarnarges that would put subway to shame (well I did anyway). Mine also had cat-ham in. I should probably point out that the name came from the fact that it was thoroughly enjoyed by the cat from the hostel we were staying in, and not because it was made from cats. As you can see this bench was in the centre of an intersection of many paths. As a result several groups of people of various nationalities got to admire our sarnarge skills.
'Look I'm picking up a gurt millipede an all!'. Fortunately, the day before we had been informed that though large and scary looking, these fellas won't hurt you.
A pretty little waterfall on the way round.
We did eventually come across all 3 species of monkey found in the park. But the first and most photogenic were these white headed capuchins. We later found out that they are the most ruthless of Costa Rica's monkeys and regularly steal and eat baby howler monkeys. Nasty little buggers, but very pretty none the less.
This was a gurt mahoosive tree that doesn't look quite as mahoosive in this piccy.
When we arrived back in the car park where we started there was a bit of a commotion coming from near the pond, where this poor enormous beetle was being harassed by a member of staff. It was vast though, so I had to get a picture.
We still had an hour or so to kill until the bus turned up however, so we walked up to the hummingbird garden gallery. I didn't realise that they would be so tempted by a bit of sugary water, but it was absolutely incredible. There were about 30 all getting in each others way.
Clairy accidentally took this one with the flash on , and exposed its glorious irridescent markings.
This chap was seriously concentrating so I got quite a crisp picture.
A very pleasant ending to a lush walk.
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