Getting up at 6AM wasn’t as hard as I thought. Henry and I chose to go bird watching and we had to be ready at the dining place or whatever it is called. Anyway, we went bird watching but all of the “Earth Watch” people came, well, it was really Henry and I going on their bird watching trip. It turned out to be kind of lame because it was too windy for there to really be birds and then the older folk that belong to “Earth Watch” moved really slowly. I didn’t really get to take many pictures because one, there weren’t any cool birds, and two, there wasn’t enough light. Altogether it was a shame, but I am glad I got up early for some reason.
Breakfast was good, we had some of the best fresh fruit ever coupled with fresh Monte Verde coffee and, black beans and rice. The beans and rice is a little weird for breakfast, but I guess if you’re hungry you can eat anything. And trust me, I was hungry!
After breakfast we went on hike on a trail called Camino Royale. It ended up being a really cool trail. The trail was pretty steep some times and even though it was only a mile it was draining. Cameron, the Scottish naturalist, was out guide on Camino Royale. He is a really cool guy, and definitely one of the nicest people here.
Like I said before, this place is full of spectacular views and that held true for Camino Royale.
We kept walking for a bit, still awed by the “jungle-ness” of this trail. Cameron would stop periodically to shows us plants and other things and would tell us about them. One of the times he stopped he showed us a coffee bean.
One of the next stops we saw a Leaf-Cutter Ant mound. This one was abandoned, but there were still one or two ants about. This mound was huge and quite possibly the biggest ant mound I have ever seen.
This is one of the ants that was left behind.
Not far from the ant mound we saw another cool bug, I still have no idea what it is though.
Soon we ran into what is probably the coolest tree ever, well, that I had seen so far. I don’t remember what the tree underneath it was, but it was covered up by a large and elaborate network of strangler figs. I got Henry to take a picture of Hunter and me inside it.
Then we had sweet view number two. That house that is kind of in the middle is owned by either a Colombian or European family, apparently they don’t talk to anyone in the village or anyone else. Everyone thinks that they might be doing sketchy things.
A little later on our hike we found a meadow with another ant mound in it.
We kept going on the trail and I figured it was almost over. We saw another cool strangler fig, but this time the tree inside was completely gone.
Lunch was the usual variation of beans and rice and after lunch we went to the botanical gardens. I ended up being a little late because I went back to the Cabinas to get my camera and then when I got there (it is a good 10 minute walk) I realized that I didn’t have a key to our room. Very frustrated, I jogged back to the Comedor (the place where we eat and is also the main center of operations) and got a key from one of my roommates. Anyway, I caught up to the group at the botanical gardens and had to roll under the gate because I didn’t see the little side gate for people. It was no big deal and made me kind of feel like a secret agent. After I caught up with the group we walked around a bit and the person leading us, I forgot her name, found this orange looking fruit on the ground. She peeled it, tore off pieces, and handed the to all of us,
The fruit turned out to be the most tart, sour lemony tasting fruit I’ve ever had. It was nasty. We continued to walk through the gardens and I ended up taking a picture of a lot of flours. This, I think, is my favorite one I took.
I was actually pretty bored at the botanical gardens but there were some cool plants like elephant ears, I think they were called, that were water-proof. The water just beaded up and rolled off.
Leaving the botanical gardens we had another spectacular view.
There was supposed to be a Spanish lesson after the botanical gardens but no one ever showed up to get us, so after a while Henry, Jason, Hunter, James and I went on some random trail in hopes of seeing animals. Sadly, we didn’t see anything but James got a hilarious video of Jason acting like a monkey and Jason didn’t realize James was filming. That was the best part. We also had some fun when we left the trail because we stumbled upon a soccer “field” and screwed around a little bit. I thought this picture was pretty epic.
After our hike all we really had to do was dinner, so everyone just hung out and talked. The sun was setting and we were all being kind of loud, but then I looked over my shoulder and saw a Coati like two feet from me trying to get at the bananas they hung to attract birds.
The Coati is a really strange animal. I can’t really describe it except that it was pretty big and really fuzzy with a long tail. Eventually a dog appeared about 20 feet from the Coati and they had a big time stare down, it was pretty cool.
I continued to take picture of birds and other things. I also found out that I could take pictures of humming birds all day. Doug and Jack showed up a little later and I got some really cute pictures of Jack.
We had steaks for dinner, I think, along with more beans and rice. The fruit and vegetables here are always really awesome. Everything is fresh here and it is amazing. After dinner I came outside and caught the sunset. It was beautiful.
We went on a night hike at 7 but didn't really see anything. I wish we had because I really want to see a monkey. We went back to the Cabinas and played Taboo until about 9 or 10pm and then finally crashed. Some of the people on this trip are really serious about Taboo.
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