After an embarrassingly large lunch yesterday afternoon, I took a leisurely stroll around Monteverde/Santa Elena while enjoying the ice cream, cookies, and beer that I had just purchased from the supermercado. I made it back to my hotel just in time to catch the van for my guided nighttime hike through the rainforest. Upon starting down the trail, our guide immediately found a sloth and two green pit vipers, which made for a dramatic start to our trip. We then passed a large traveling band of army ants, which were unremarkable until we ventured into the nearby underbrush and were attacked. I sustained only one bite above my ankle socks, but it turned out to be both painful and itchy. If I wasn´t such a cruel person, I would have probably felt sorry for the idiotic man who was wearing sandals, but hey, that´s natural selection.
During the hike, we saw a funnel web spider, a huge aquamarine caterpillar, a toucan, a coati, a number of other insects, and two tarantualas. I wanted a better picture of the tarantulas, who were hiding in their burrows, so I decided to tickle one of the large spiders with a stick. It literally flew towards my hand, and I nearly fell off the steep incline behind me in my haste to retreat. The resulting pictures were great, however, and I was more than popular for ¨taking one for the team.¨
When our group got back from the hike, a few of us decided to get dinner at a restaurant that was built around an enormous tree. The food was mediocre and pricey, but it was incredibly cool to be sipping drinks in the canopy of the tree. Well, until it started raining, and then it was also incredibly wet.
When I got back to my cabin at the end of the night, a tiny brown dog came running up to my door. I let her in, figuring I´d play with her for a short time and then turn her back out into the yard. However, she immediately jumped onto my bed and rolled on her back with her tail wagging fiercely. I fed her Fruit Loops and rubbed her belly, and she was fast asleep in my blankets in moments. I didn´t have the heart to kick her out, so she spent the entire night in exactly the same place on the bed. (In my defense, she appeared clean and smelled like a warm little taco.) She has followed me around the hotel and slept in my lap all day, and I´m thinking of trying to smuggle her home in my luggage.
Today began bright and early, when I had to catch a 7:15am ride to the cloud forest to ride on the zip lines and explore the rainforest on massive, narrow suspension bridges. The zip lines were absolutely amazing – there were nine of them, and we hit speeds of forty miles per hour and a high point of 452 feet off the ground. It was amazing to go zooming through and over the rainforest, but I was constantly afraid that I was going to crash into an unsuspecting parrot. Okay, so climbing up a mountaintop tower to a platfrom thirty meters off the ground in the gusting wind was ALSO a bit unnerving, but to my credit, I didn´t cry OR wet myself.
In comparison, the suspension bridges were substantially more sedate. I was able to walk through the upper part of the canopy and observe life in the treetops, where I saw an enormous sloth and a lot of butterflies. I was hoping to see something terrific, like a lounging jaguar or a unicorn, but no such luck.
Some guy at a nearby computer is using the entire force of his body to literally bang the keys and it is INCREDIBLY irritating, so I´m going to stop here. Besides, I have an appointment at the serpentarium to see the exotic poisonous snakes…I´ll be certain to bring some home for all of my favorite people.