Cloud Forest in Monte Verde, CR

Monte Verde and Santa Helena, Costa Rica 9/6/08

Today was pretty exciting. We got up to broad daylight at around 6:30am and thought we were waking up at noon. Psych! The guy at the desk, Ran, told us about this really awesome tree that we could hike to and climb up. The tree was taken over by an invasive plant species called the fig something strangler something. Anyways, it was like a ladder that you climbed up into the tree and once you were at the top of the tree, could see the entire valley in its awesomeness. So Ran gave us directions to this tree, and we hiked and hiked and hiked. Supposedly we went about 6 times further than we were supposed to.. and apparantly it was all uphill. When I say uphill I mean up a vertical dirt hill.. hahh.. can you say out of shape?

So we never found this tree. Tomorrow, tomorrow.

At 10:30 we were picked up by this cool van and taken to this place in the cloud forest where there were 8 massive bridges along a trail. It was amazing. Like, words can't describe how awesome the rainforest is. When you're on the bridge it feels like you're on an airplane looking down at the clouds.. but really you're a body looking down at the treetops. It didn't rain, thank goodness.. well, not until we were back at the hostel. I took many many pictures, and we hung out at this hummingbird area. I was close enough to flick them with my hair, if I had long hair. Hah! Anyways, I can't explain this rainforest. The whole time I was thinking about how I was going to spend six months in a rainforest like this.. without tourists and resorts.. just pure jungle. It was so green! Okay, this is not sounding coherent.

We got back at around 2pm and I fell asleep right away. I think I'm going to shower.. or make pasta.
Pasta. -S