However, after my day and a half trip to Monteverde, one of the places I have now had the opportunity to visit twice in Costa Rica, I feel compelled to write about this place while the experience is still fresh in my mind.
Monteverde is the famous Costa Rican Cloud Forest. We headed there on Saturday so that Ashley could carry out a small project for her advisor, and heck, I didn't have anything planned for the weekend so I decided to join in. The project is exploring the effects of global warming on lizard populations in this cloud forest, and eventually elsewhere.
At 7:30am we left Bagaces via Marlon our driver (and indispensable friend by now), and it took about 3 1/2 hours to make it to Santa Elena, the town associated with Monteverde. It was strangely familiar to enter Santa Elena and Monteverde, as I remembered the restaurants, and the reserve from my trip in 2007.
The scenery during the drive was unbelievable, nothing that I could properly capture with my camera, but I will try to give you an idea:
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| en route to monteverde, on a very windy and pretty scary road One more, just to see how these panoramic shots come out: |
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| another view, con Marlon So we make it our room and settle in a little bit, making sure to breathe the incredibly fresh air. Bagaces is pretty damn hot sometimes, so a cool mist with breezes has been a relief for two days (though it certainly isn't helping out the tan that I still lack). We then walk over to el 'Laboratorio' to meet with Dr. Alan Pounds, who has been living up here for probably over 30 years. I am surprised to find how amusing and enjoyable his company is. We set off (sorry for the changing tenses) to check out the lizard sites, and not even two minutes into our walk, Ashley cautiously asks "er.....what's that?", and before I've even had a damn second to process what she's talking about, Alan reaches down by his left foot, swings his arm and scoops up.... a 4 FOOT LONG SNAKE So I'm thinking that this man is just completely bonkers, because one usually spends their time avoiding touching snakes, at least Ashley Kelsey and I have so far. I quietly ask Ashley if it is venemous, because you look at these things and I know nature is tricky, but I was thinking there was no way this thing was harmless. Turns out, it was a King Snake, an imitator of the coral snake (don't pick these up...Alan learned this years ago). They are much bigger than coral snakes, and this creature was beyond beautiful. Ashley kept her distance at first, because she feels about snakes how I feel about cockroaches, plus the fact that cockroaches aren't going to squeeze or bite you to death. You must excuse the 7 pictures I'm about to put up- Me with the snake, Alan with the snake, Ashley with the snake, group shot with the snake, Snake as accessory, etc. But it was cool. Really cool. In a way that hanging out with snakes in a reptile petting zoo cannot be. The Snake + Alan's Arm:  So he's hangin out with the snake, obviously having a blast:  and I think...I'd like to have that much fun, pass me that creature.  These are the second group of pictures I'm actually in out of the 500 I've already taken, so I'm taking my time. Except, about 40 seconds into my snake montage, I realize...holy hell I'm holding 4 foot long snake and am I really sure that this thing isn't going to murk me??? And so Ashley captures this moment:  the full image of my face is more frightening than the snake, but you get the idea. Ashley, inspired by my incredibly show of bravery, decides that she, too, wants in: --> transfer of snake -->  |
Those are some awesome photos! That sky is amazing...I think if you had a shot of the snake eating your face, that would have been cooler, but I suppose these will do :)
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