Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve

WOWOWOWOWOWOW So much to tell you.

Yesterday was lucky enough to hike the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve with one of the most famous guides in Costa Rica. Koky, is a local and can literally tell you anything you can imagine about Costa Rica's bio-diversity.

We left the Tree Houses early and barely down the mountain he spotted two bright green Toucanets. I couldn't figure this out: he was driving, the windows were up, the Toucanets looked just like the trees...green and they were way up in the trees. Needless to say, after 30 seconds with Koky, I was sold...and in for a trip of a lifetime.


Even before we made it into the reserve, he had spotted a Sloth in the trees. Again, we pulled over, he whips out a telescope and grabs my camera for photos. At the same time, tells us everything any encyclopedia might know about sloths in Costa Rica. Josh and Lauren, the other two along for the hike we're loving this as well.


In the reserve Koky would stop, start talking 'bird' and suddenly the forest would come alive. At first I thought this was fake, but he continued to call almost any bird during our hike. Once, he started calling howler monkeys, I about peed.


I'm fascinated with the cloud forest here. There are trees called strangled ficus trees and what happens is the original tree gets taken over by other trees growing from its branches, sounds odd but it works here. Then the new tree sends down roots for more nutrients and eventually takes over the old tree. The old tree then rots and the new tree seems huge, but is hollow in the inside. Check this out, I was inside a tree here. INSIDE A TREE.........



Looking up inside the tree...

(remember the days of gym class where we had to climb the rope!)

Things we saw:
-the worlds smallest orchid,
-a female praying mantis (took me back to high school days watching Mary run during basketball practice)

-A sweet walking stick, don't worry if one of their legs fall off, they just grow another!

-so many birds I don't remember their names (big ones, blue ones, small ones, birds that sound like alarms, birds that sound 50times their size)
-huge ferns (like the one's in Jurassic Park) Koky said that scientists were recently able to prove that ferns have been around longer than dinosaurs. WOW.
-gigantic snails, turns out in cloud forest environments snails don't need to be in water.....weird snails in the mountains!
-and some beautiful hummingbirds. Did you know that this continent is the only to have hummingbirds, they don't exist in places like Africa or Europe.


Wish it would have been possible to record Koky for the trip, but it's just not the same. Come and visit Monteverde and see the reserve for yourself. When you do, I HIGHLY recommend getting a guide and if you can, call Koky Porras 88274953!