From our room last night

This morning’s view

There are often rainbows to be seen. Yesterday we drove along a valley known as Rainbow Valley and saw several rainbows – most below us. There seems to be a slight mist at all times even if it is sunny.
 Found out why the road here is so bad. This area was settled by Quakers fleeing the USA during the Korean War. They settled here because no army in Costa Rica. They did not want tourists coming into the area and stopped the road construction. It did not stop the tourists (did slow us down a bit though) and the area is a popular tourist destination. A drive through town this morning was like a drive through Whistler in the old days before it was developed – hostels, backpackers, hikers and young people looking for an adventure in the wild.

The wind was howling all night and again this morning so I expressed some concern about spending the day on hanging bridges, but we did go and I am glad we did. After what was supposed to be a hot breakfast of cold eggs, unevenly cooked bacon and cold potatoes, rice and beans, we were picked up by an old, well used van for the drive to Selvatura Park.

The drive to the park was along some of the same roads as yesterday. I don’t think they have graded the roads since they were first cut into the forest 100 years ago! Unlike other world class athletes we did not have time to acclimatize  to the altitude before starting our mountain climb. Here I am after finishing the hanging bridges walk

  
It is called the cloud forest for a reason. It rained the whole time (about 5 hours). We were told that wasn’t rain. Not sure what it was. We did the whole walk but met some people who had turned around after bridge 3 – to quote a Texan we met “even a chicken who has a brain this big (small circle with finger and thumb to demonstrate) knows enough to get in out of the rain” We were smart enough to leave our umbrella, rain jacket and rain capes in the hotel – I had brought that stuff specifically for today. So we got a little wet.

Our tour started in the humingbird garden. There are about 14 varieties of hummingbirds native to this area. We saw about a 6 or so varieties. There were hummingbird feeders set up and we could get right up to them . 

    
    
 
The guide said do not use coloured water in your feeders, use distilled water and add sugar. The birds certainly seemed to like it.

  
Note the bird on the right with the iridescent blue top, it flashed as he moved his head.

Next the butterflys. There ar 12,000 varieties of moths and 2,000 varieties of butterflys here. Moths open their wings when at rest. Butterflys close their wings while at rest unless they are in need of energy, which they get from the sunlight.

The largest butterfly is the Owl butterfly see why the name.

   
To protect itself from some predators it can make itself look like an owl

    
Or a snake

    
 
Pupa stage

   
 
Feedin on mashed bananas

  
Just emerged from cocoon.

  
Caterpillar stage. There are 4 stages – egg, caterpillar, cocoon, butterfly

Here are some more we saw 

    
    
   
Just hatching

   
 
A couple of the nurseries, locals collect the cocoons and bring them in to the butterfly centre where they are protected and hatched.

Now for the tough part of the tour. The bridge walk. Actually the zip line looked easier but even scarier. As I stepped onto each of the bridges (there were 8 ) I thought of Jean. I could have chosen not to cross the bridge but that would have meant turning around. The walk was through the tree tops – hence the bridges. There were 8 bridges, #4 was the longest and scariest but I only froze once.

 Once again, I reminded Gary how lucky he is. 

I thought the trek would be reasonable as the literature said the walk was level. However, once again terminology is misleading. I thought that meant it would be level – very little ups and downs. But no, it means the pathway is man made, not dirt or gravel with holes. I was thankful for that but not for the significant climbs and descents – hard on the knees and the breathing. Athletes that we both are, we managed despite the altitude fighting to keep us down! We saw lots of flora – mainly green rain forest stuff, but very little fauna – just a few parakeets. Here are some pictures.

   
    
    
    
    
    
So happy to see this sign

  
Tomorrow an easier day. A tour of a local coffee farm. This area was settled by the Quakers and they were dairy farmers at the start. Hopefully get more history.