Costa Rica 12

If this trip doesnt kill me first it can only mke me stronger. I just did another, longer and more extensive hike in la reserva Curi Cancha.  What steep, winding and never ending trails set in an absolue Eden of lush tropical beauty and natural grandeur!  I was completely alone this time, two and a half hours of near absolute solitude but for the forest and the wildlife surrounding me.  Of course there was the usual group of morons crowding around a tree with a quetzal perched in it with all their fancy and cumbersome viewing equipment, likely traumatizing the poor bird.  I do believe that most of us when we travel leave half our brain at home, and the other half seems to just stay inside the suitcase.  The tour guide tried to gesture to me to come join them to look at the quetzal but I wasnt biting this time.  Those birds, like the others, deserve to be treáted with respect, so I ignored them and walked on to the hummingbird garden.  It seemed nearly perfect and I had just begun working in my sketchbook when the same herd of dopes descended on me to get their close ups of the hummingbirds.  I was disgusted, partly for their lack of good manners the way they intruded on me, and partly for their lack of respect for the hummingbirds.  I promptly packed up my stuff and left.  I did see a trogon fly by, a relative of the quetzal and I think its going to be the next bird for me to draw.  Here´s an image



It may not come up on the page, but I did my best.  I´ll try another image.

Nope.  Tried aagain, and still no image.  this computer is hyper secure and blocks almost everything.  You´re just going to have to guess what it looks like, or Google black throated trogon, google images, and see for yourself.

The young man at the reception gave me the students´discount.  His mother works at the soda where I have dinner and they all seem to like me so far, and vice versa.

After wearing myself out on the steep, serpentine trails, I stopped to rest for a half hour on a bench with an incredible view of the valley and the forest covered mountains.  I saw very little in the way of birds, but I´m not really worried about it.  They don´t exist for our pleasure and of course they are going to be completely indifferent to our existence.  I only wish that the die hard birders would figure that out.

If a resplendent quetzal in the meantime wants me to see it, I´m sure it will show itself to me in good time.