When you come to Monteverde, a lot of the talk is about Cloud Forests versus Rain Forests. The difference is that a Cloud Forest is at higher altitude, has less rainfall (3 metres per year as opposed to 4.5 metres), lower temperatures and higher humidity. This means that some of the vegetation and animals are different. Today’s activity for the morning was a walk through the cloud forest. This was again a pretty well-run commercial operation at a place called Selvature Park, where you can also go zip-lining through the canopy.
We opted for the walk which has lots of hanging bridges to get you up into and above the canopy. Those of you who know that I’m not that good with heights should note that some of these bridges are about 130 meters above the forest floor. It is a great way to look at the different layers of the forest. We had a small group of 8 and our guide did the walk in the reverse direction to avoid getting caught behind some of the bigger groups. We saw lots of birds and insects and again the guide was very knowledgeable.
After we finished the walk we had to pile into the bus back to the hotel with a bunch of rude Germans and I had to cram into an available seat that I clearly could not fit into in any degree of comfort. After banging my knees on the seat in front fr twenty minutes on the bumpy roads we arrived back at the hotel and walked down the road to have lunch. We found a place that did a delicious serving of Pork Ribs and then set out on foot for the Monteverde Butterfly Farm which from the outside is an unassuming concern, but inside has 4 different butterfly habitats to simulate the different places in Costa Rica where butterflies live, from the low rain forests to the elevated cloud forests.
We learnt lots about the continuing evolution of these beautiful creature as they continually change their defensive characteristics. Some are toxic for birds to eat, so others evolve to look like those. Other one just use camouflage to look like their surroundings or have big eyes on the wings to look like something else. The farm also has a display of other insects, just to confirm how yucky insects can be. Our guide for this section was a young american girl … I could help thinking that she probably has parents some where that probably don’t undderstand her passion for cockroaches and the like.
The Buttery Farm is actually owned by a Canadian copule who came here as volunteers and eventually bought the farm. One has to admire passion like that!
We headed back to our hotel via a local bakery, prior to giving our feet a break before dinner. Probably, our main take away from today is that nature is sometimes beautiful… but sometimes really gross. Sticking with the beautiful for my photos.
Until Tomorrow!
Rob's "Beats Working" Blog 