Costa Rica Again 13

I did another hike in the reserve, taking an extra long and steep hill.  Try to imagine the ups and downs of the track of a giant roller coaster and you will get an idea of what it's like for walking, except that it's much bigger and higher than any giant roller coaster.  The steps kept going up and up, and no sooner did I think I'd be reaching the top then it would continue going even higher in another direction.

I did have a little bit of trouble getting in and the woman working at reception didn't know me, so she had to make some phone calls to verify that a special arrangement had been made for me to get in free after paying the first time.  It costs thirty-five bucks Canadian to get in, so, if I had to pay for each time I wanted to go hiking in there then I would soon have to give up eating.  Eventually she got all the information and Bob's your uncle, or, in Spanish, pan comido, and I was in.

I quite wore myself out on this hike, only two hours but lots of climbing.  The lush dripping vegetation there is one glorious tangle.  I will ask Uncle Google for a visual aid or two.










Seen enough yet?

That is the stuff that surrounds me here in Monteverde.  It started raining so I began singing one of my favourite songs from when I was fourteen,  It's titled Rain O and it's by a Vancouver band, Chilliwack.  Here it is on Youtube if you want it for soundtrack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvIIVF5swYc

Of course I was getting looks from others.  Why wouldn't I!?

There weren't a lot of people in the cloud forest today.  There aren't a lot of people in Monteverde right now, or at least there aren't that many visitors.  The pandemic paranoia panic has scared everyone away.  It's rather nice having the whole jungle to myself, if in a decidedly creepy sort of way.

I stopped and rested for a while in the onsite restaurant, and couldn't really sit outside on the patio because I was feeling cold and wet from rain and perspiration and quite chilled to the bone.  The waiter brought over a couple of customers to admire my art, and I think I'm getting sort of used to that now.  Gorged myself on pasta, then on my way back to the bed and breakfast I saw my second motmot today.  The first one was this morning perching on a wire just outside my room.  These birds have a powerful resonance for me, as they do for my friend in Colombia for whom I did a drawing of one of these birds, before leaving Colombia for Costa Rica, so, Alonso, this one is for you!