What a contrast! Our Daytrip driver was on time, and our 4 hour transfer started by taking us along the beautiful coast. We stopped for a photo at the beautiful Jaco town sign, with a great view across the bay.

Art is everywhere in Costa Rica, with beautiful murals painted on shops, houses, and even factories. It almost always involves nature! Many towns have ornate town signs, like the Jaco one, and you sense a real pride in their country and it's nature.
Next we drove through areas of agriculture and livestock farming, and then up, up up along twisty roads into the most glorious mountain scenery.

Think lower Alps with palm trees and jungle, and some great views back down to the coast!

Our destination was Santa Elena in Monteverde, 4,500 feet up in the rain forest. Everyone had told us that the rainy season, which should have ended in December, is still going strong, and that a big storm was forecast for the 3 days of our stay. Hmmmm. Anyway we arrived in sunshine with temperatures of around 19°C. But very windy! We had rented a tiny apartment with a balcony almost in the Rainforest and a very leafy view from the bedroom!

We were told we must not leave ANYTHING on the balcony because the monkeys will steal it! We found the supermercado to get some supplies, and passed the Monteverde town sign!

We then sat on our balcony as the wind grew stronger and stronger. Any birds or monkeys would have been hunkered down in this.

A quick dash to a cafe for supper and then we played cards, listening to the still increasing wind! Suddenly, bam - total darkness! A powercut. Luckily we have torch lights with us. Looking out, the whole area was black. Our landlord appeared with a battery light for us, and said it is a common occurrence in high winds! Just after we went to bed the power returned, but the wind has maintained its force all night. The good news is... I slept until 4.50!
A taxi at 7.45 took us to the Sanctuario Ecologico for a breakfast cookery session!

What a brilliant time we had. This area was massively deforested in the mid 20th century for farms and plantations. In the 1950s and 60s people began to realise the damage that was being done. Individuals bought up farms and parcels of land and began to reforest them with native species. The Sanctuary is one such area, established by a passionate family, who today cultivate produce in harmony with the rhythms and natural science of nature. The mother was concerned that there was no recycling scheme for glass, so she traded produce for empty bottles and repurposed them as walls, paths and sculptures in her gardens!
Firstly we toured the gardens, with explanations about different varieties of fruits and coffees, which plants can be grown next to each other and how mycelium from fungi help the plants share nutrients. They make organic fertiliser and pest controls from natural products too, and run a farming school to spread the word! Then we picked picked salad ingredients, herbs and fruits to use for breakfast.
Next, the cooking class, using home grown, organic ingredients and their own eggs, we learnt to make delicious pinto gallo, fresh herb omelette, tortillas and fried plantains.
It was all delicious, despite the hair nets!! The son, Chris, is a coffee expert, and he is experimenting with growing different coffees, and drying them in different ways. He showed us different ways of grinding the beans, and preparing the coffee to elicit diffeeent notes, and that even the shape of the glass you serve it in changes the taste. Remarkable, and a great experience.
A few hours break then we headed off again with our friendly taxi driver who took us to the main Monteverde Cloud forest reserve, high above the town for a guided tour with Luandro from 3 brothers tours.
The weather is still wild today, with force 9 wind gusts and sudden deluges of rain. This should be the dry season! This waterfall should be a trickle!

Suitably wrapped up we set off, wondering if we would see anything at all. Our guide was amazing. He found us a surprising number of birds and animals given the weather, but also told us about insects, parasitic plants, and so much more. It was a wonderful few hours. This is a Northern Emerald Toucanet.

Can you see the humming bird in it's nest? Their heart beats at 1024 beats per minute. To sleep they have to go into a state of torpor from dusk to dawn.
These are a Peccary pig, the rear end of an Agouti and some bats asleep in a tree trunk!
Some characters are both fascinating and macabre. This is a bees nest!

The slingshot spider pulls its web taught and then flings it out to catch prey. It then pulls it back ready for next time! See video!

How about the Zombie fungus, which gets into an unsuspecting insect. It then takes over the hosts brain and make it move up higher from the ground and attach itself to a leaf. Then, it causes a fungus to grow out of the host insect and mimic a flower to attract insects so the cycle can start again! This photo shows an incted red weevil with the fungus growing out to the left!

Or, meet an orange kneed tarantula lurking in it's burrow.

About the size of a man's hand, it has a predator... a Tarantula Hawk Wasp, which is over 6" long and has a painful and very deadly sting. Once it bites the spider, it only paralyses it. Then, the wasp can pick up the Tarantula and fly away with it! This is the stuff of nightmares! Then it lays it's eggs in the Tarantula, which is still alive, and the young feed on the still alive meat! (Photo from guide's camera!)

The trees and plants are so lush and vibrant in this area of primary cloudforest. Because there are no real seasons, their trees have no rings, like this oak, so they can only age them by carbon dating. Some are over 400 years old.
Many trunks and branches host epiphytes, bromeliads and mosses. Huge strangler figs send roots down from on high and produce cathedral like structures around the slowly dying host trunk. The eventual hollow interior makes a great bnb for bats, possums and other mammals, who have figs just outside! And suddenly the cloud eerily descends into the forest, giving it it's name.
But 30 years ago, there were only 25 dry days here a year. Now there are 125. Everything is changing. We ended the walk at the hummingbird station. We could watch them for hours!

That evening there was a crash on the balcony. We thought it was the high winds but it turned out to be 2 coati, fighting!
Next day we had more wildlife walks planned... we decided to skip the ziplining and whitewater rafting!
Our first adventure involved a taxi at 5.45 for a 6am bird walk in the Curicancha cloud forest, with our excellent guide Jason. We thought we looked quite chirpy, although Chris was wishing the coffee shop was open!

We explored for nearly 5 hours and saw over 40 new birds for us, ranging from different species of thrushes, wrens and sparrows, to a very rare Timaroo, and the elusive Quetzal, a vividly coloured bird that loves avocado's! You see his colours

My favourite was this gorgeously coloured Trogon.

The trees were even denser here, but part of the reserve is secondary forest, meaning it was once cleared for crops or pasture, but has been allowed to regenerate. Costa Rica has led the world in this. By the 1960s, only 35% of native forest remained. Now it is back to 85%! Incredible. A great walk where we learnt, and saw so much. This video mimics this flower being pollinated by a long billed hummingbird. As its beak reaches the nectar at the bottom, 2 pads come forward and deposit pollen on the birds head to enable another flower to be pollinated.
The scenery, flowers and plants here were so vivid and huge!
Back to town, and we visited the Orchid museum, and had a fascinating tour. There are 1695 species of Orchid in Costa Rica, and many are in the Cloud forests. They take so many forms and are pollinated by many things, from mosquitoes to humming birds. Some were so tiny we needed a magnifying glass! Gorgeous!

A good late lunch at the Mextea restaurant and then a break before our final activity in Monteverde, a night walk back in Curicancha. A completely different atmosphere as night fell, and watch how fast the clouds were moving!

The guide managed to find some real treasures, with photos taken through his night scope. The elusive Timaroo asleep in a tree,

and a new species for us, the keel billed toucan, who sleeps with his head twisted round at an impossible angle.

Look at that coloured bill! Then there were more tarantulas, luminous scorpions and a spooky salamander.
You can only see his head here as he was sliding back into his hole. The real highlight was this gorgeous green .. viper on the hunt for bats or rats.

Then back to our apartment to pack ready for our morning pick up! Where next?
Here is some local artwork to end with!
Or not to end! Just as we were packing the balcony was invaded by the Mafia monkeys, literally trying to get in the door! Quite a farewell!
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