February 28 – A Walk in a Cloud Forest

We had another early morning departure today.  We are headed to the Selvatura Park for a Cloud Forest walk and visits to some of the park’s animal sanctuaries.

On the way up the mountain we saw a coyote.  The driver stopped so we could take some photos.  The coyote posed very nicely for us.

Also, on the way up, the driver hit a wet spot of dirt/gravel road and couldn’t make it to the top of the hill.  We were fairly close to the park so the sent down another van to take us the rest of the way up.  The delay wasn’t too long.

We will be here most of the day and our first outing is a walk through the cloud forest.  This walk has a number of bridges to cross. 

The bridges took us up above some of the trees and gave us wonderful views of the canopy.  The vegetation is lush and green and the walk was beautiful.  We could occasionally feel a slight mist from walking through a cloud but we didn’t get any rain…thank goodness.  

We had another very good guide and he was able to point out many interesting things to see along the walk.

Black Bym

FANTASTIC…Our first sighting of the Resplendent Quetzal, considered by some to be the most beautiful bird in the world.  Unfortunately, it was very far away and hidden in the trees but we managed some reasonable photos.  The guide took some photos through his telescope.  That always guaranteed a reasonable photo.

The world’s tiniest avocados.

Hot Lips…interesting flower

A cluster of mushrooms

A tree "monkey"

A big millipede

And a Spit Bug.

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Video of Green Hermit Hummingbird
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The end of the walk took us into a forest that was truly in the clouds. 

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More Cloud Forest Walk
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After lunch we started with the rest of our tour here.  First stop was the sloth house.  They 18 female sloths here.  All were orphaned, rescued and brough here to the refuge.  They were wonderful to watch.  When curled up they looked a little like very large Tribbles, from Star Trek.

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Video of sloth
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Then we visited the butterfly house.  One of the first things we saw there was a large scarlet macaw hanging around on a ladder near the ceiling of the building.

Lots of butterflies but they are vey difficult to photograph as they move so quickly.  When they alight on the ground the almost always close their wings so you can’t photograph the lovely top side of the wings. 

They butterfly feeders that usually had a number of butterflies feeding.

They also had small cases holding many cocoons. 

Some butterflies that we were able to get photographs of (and many we were able to identify with a lot of Googling).

Blue Morpho.  We got several shots of these but they were mostly a blue blur or the intricate, but all brown and beige, underside of the wing.

Amaryllis

Malachite (this one is reflected on the glass door of the cocoon case)

Orange Julia

Green and Black Malachite

Zebra Long Wing

Spotlight Catone.

As we were leaving one of the butterflies tried to hitchhike out. 

Next it was on the reptile house (that included amphibians as well).

Fer de Lance (a well-known, very venomous snake here in Costa Rica)

Central American Bushmaster

Masked Tree Frog

Jumping Pit Viper

Eyelash Palm Pit Viper (in two colors)

Hog-Nosed Pit Viper

Tropical Milk Snake

Costa Rican Coral Snake

Rat Snake

Central American Rainbow Boa

Brilliant Tree Frog

Dry Forest Leopard Frog

Red-Eyed Leaf Frog

Savages Thin-Toed Frog

Green Poison Dart Frog

Blue Jeans Poison Frog

Stiped Poison Dart Frog

Jesus Christ Lizard (because they can run on top of water).  We've seen this guy several times in the wild but this is by far the best view we have had of him.

Neotropical Rattlesnake

Boa Constrictor

Once back at the hotel we relaxed and Mary filled the outdoor giant tub and took a long soak.  It was very relaxing but the long time in the water aggravated her bug bites so she had to spend some time reapplying the anti-itch cream.

This evening we decided to go down to the Hotel’s tap for dinner.  Turns out there were a lot of stairs getting down to it and it had a pretty limited menu but it was good for a light dinner.  It is called the Tap because the hotel makes their own beer that they feature here.