hey little bat!

December 27, 2009 We wanted to take a guided tour of the Monteverde Cloud Forest; however, Heidar, the guide that Jenn recommended was not available. Actually no guide was available and you needed reservations at this time of year etc. In place of this, we decided to have a zipline adventure (eeeeks!) at Sky Adventures . I believe this is located in or close to the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve . It's just down the road from Hidden Canopy Treehouses. Driving up to it, we could see the people ziplining by. It looked scary - I mean, I am admittedly a first-rate wimp. We looked over the different packages and decided to go with the whole she-bang, the whole enchilada. That included a tram ride to the top ( Sky Tram ), the ziplines ( Sky Trek ), and a guided hike via suspension bridges (Sky Walk). $75 per person. After coming back from the restroom, having mulled over the crazy decision just made, I started chickening out. I informed Nick that I really didn't want to do this....

I hate to say this, but the Night Walk at the Ecological Sanctuary and the trip to the World of Insects was kinda lame. It seems like the better guides are not working during the holiday season. Still glad we went though. During the Night Walk, we spent a lot of time searching for an owl. The guide was just completely obsessed with finding this thing and unfortunately was unsuccessful. We saw a gigantic tarantula in a dug-out shelter, a few sleeping birds, and an ant mound of 5 million ants. I did notice the blue and glistening eyeshine of a spider by myself because I had been reading about this. That was my highlight. banana trees in the moonlight gigantic mound of 5 million ants Afterwards, we had dinner at a fancyish restaurant in our smelly hiking clothes. I remember it being overpriced and good but not great. I think it was called Sophia . Later, we got back to our chilly treehouse, and I photographed some bugs through the windows, trying to capture the eyeshine. bugs succe...

December 26, 2009 Costa Rica is home to 110 species of bats, and 60 of those are found in Monteverde. That makes Monteverde the perfect place to house a bat museum! So here we are - another trip to the Bat Jungle!  bat house on the grounds out front oversized bat heads illustrate the diversity among species the arm structure is like a human's with greatly elongated fingers some of the bats in the exhibit I was very happy the gift shop was open this time round because I not only got to purchase this book, but I was able to get it autographed by bat researcher Dr. LaVal! (He designed and manages the Bat Jungle.) * * * first visit to Monteverde Bat Jungle next post >> Monteverde Activities previous post <<  Hidden Canopy Treehouses

December 25, 2009 The flight from Houston to San José was okay. It took forever to get our luggage; it took a while to find our Adobe rental car representative and took longer to wait for the other customers riding with us. However, this had nothing on the wait to actually get the rental car. It was HOT! We were tired and hungry and it was taking FOREVER! Finally we get on the road to Monteverde in our BeGo, which seems to be the older, more ghetto version of the Terios, which we had last time. The drive is not bad. We stop for a late lunch along the way. It was called Cocina de someone, beginning with a T. We had the "usual" casado con pescado . It was good. The restaurant had a beautiful view and also a guard with a threatening rifle next to two guys playing the marimba. I wish I had the courage to take a picture of that, but I only took a picture of the view. We continue on our way. The only thing is that Hidden Canopy Treehouses is not showing up on the GPS. It'...