So, we left the Pacific coast and headed back into the Central Highlands. Here’s the view back toward the peninsula.
The number one mountain destination for Costa Ricans (who call themselves ticos) is Monteverde. Almost all tourists who get off the beach go there. I can see why. The parks, Monteverde and Santa Elena, are in a cloud forest about 1400m (4600 ft) up. The constant mist creates a cool jungle. You can have a jungle experience without the heat or the mosquitoes. The town everyone stays at is Santa Elena. It is the classic tourist town, with dozens of sleeping options from backbacker dive to upscale. This appeals to most tourists, including us. The first non-indigenous people to settle there were American Quakers who refused to be drafted into the Korean War. After their imprisonment, they emigrated to here. It was a hard life then. You wouldn’t know it now, Costa Rica is no Honduras. Life’s good, Or as they say here, pura vida.
There are quite a lot of animals here. As always, we have some pictures, mostly bad, and didn’t see the rare animals. There are mountain lions and ocelots, and many others we haven’t seen in Central America. We did see an armadillo. It was dark in the forest, so the image is out of focus.
What I would call a coati, and they call a pizote, was hanging around a picnic table at the entrance.
There are loads of butterflies and birds. We went on a night walk with a guide, and saw a sloth and another kind of racoon-type creature that lives in the trees. No good pictures of them in the dark. He pointed out a couple of cute frogs I never would have seen by myself. There’s so much life in the forest but, like when I’m diving, I just don’t have a good eye for seeing, especially little things. These frogs are about the size of your thumbnail. Looking at them reminded me of looking for nudibranches while diving. I know they are there, but don’t see them as often as a lot of other people.
Heres a taranchula, a couple of venomous vipers and a colorful bug.
Myung is really into flower and foresty pictures. She takes about 90% of the pictures. I’ll put a few in here to give a feel for the places. I know, these all look the same after a while. You gotta be there, though. It’s beautiful.
Where’s Waldo?
It goes on and on.
Y’know, if, by chance, anybody wants to look at sometimes hundreds of pictures of some place we’ve been, I can send you “albums” have have stored in the cloud. Those go all the way back. India, Southeast Asia, Korea, China, Nepal, Mongolia, Africa, South and Central America, Myung’s pictures from Turkey. Just ask and I’ll email it to you.
That’s it for now. Coming soon is a post from the urbanized central valley around the capital. Be well, all of you.
