A Rainforest Night Tour

Quick update before the night tour adventure.  I am flying back to the states today.  I realize that I'm behind on my blogging and have 2 more adventures to share with you and.....that I'm behind on my green challenges.  Once I get back to a normal schedule I will be better about being on track!

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While in Monteverde, after our adventure of flying through the skies Max, a classmate of our decided that we should go on a night tour, to see as many nocturnal animals as we could!  I was a little nervous, seeing as I'm not really an insect loving person and....when you see a cockroach this big sitting in the office of the night tour place it doesn't make one feel any more secure.

I wanted to see some cool bugs, but....this may be a little bit too large for my liking!

Armed with a flashlight and we were off!  The rainforest comes alive at night.  There are tons of insects that wake up at night, singing their little songs.  Dancing lights of insects similar to fireflies fill the sky early in the evening.  Moths are occasionally attracted to our flashlights and well it is sort of nerve racking to be surrounded by darkness and completely new sounds.   I'm not going to lie it was a scary fun feeling to be in the rainforest at night.

Below is a brief video of the sounds at night.  It doesn't do the rainforest justice, but gives you an idea.

  

In terms of seeing mammals we lucked out.  At dusk we saw a Coati (relative of the raccoon), squirrel and an agouti (very similar to a large brown rat).  Later while flashing our lights around we happened upon 3 raccoons, and a porcupine.

The insects we saw were pretty cool.

We saw some spiders that were a little to large for my liking.

There were some that disguised themselves as leaves.  It's crazy, because you can even see the veins of the leaf on this guys back.

We saw a lizard or two.  Can you see him sleeping on the leaf back there?

The stick bug was Sief's favorite.

The highlight of the evening was the search for a tarantula.  During our day walk we happened upon many holes that could be housing tarantulas.  Max was very excited to see a trantula.  Sief who is not a fan of spiders was ok with not seeing a taruntula.  Everytime our guide said "I found something" or got a call from his buddy over their walkie-talkies - I was nervous/excited/scared that it might actually be a tarantula. 
Finally the moment arrived.  Our guide told us to stop in our tracks.  He said walk over on this side of the path point your flashlights away from this bank (where tarantula holes often are) and to walk as slowly and quietly as possible.  Ok....so we did.  I was waiting for us to turn around and have a giant tarantula sitting on the trail.

That's not exactly what happened.  We turned around and there was a hole.  He let each of us bend down to peak our heads in and catcha glimpse of the giant spider.

Now the fun begins.  We all stand still and our guide informs us that he is going to try and coax the tarantula out of it's hole, by scratching the ground with a stick.  This is to mimic a bug or something the spider might eat.  Tarantula's are not deadly to humans, but they do carry a very nasty bite that HURTS!

Below is the video of the tarantula being coaxed out.

Ok gotta run, time to catch my flight!

Back from another fun weekend!

We made it back from another fun weekend.  Less adventure than last weekend, but no less fun!  Again, it's late and I'm tried - it's bedtime.  But I wanted to post to let you know that I think I fixed the videos below, so you should be able to watch them now.  If not, my Dad will let me know and I will work on them some more.

Also, I want to warn you that I may not be blogging until next Sunday once I get back to the States.  We are leaving for another rainforest adventure with the program for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week.  Friday we have school and then I head back to the states on Saturday.

So no worries, I promise to finish sharing all the rest of my Costa Rican adventures with you!

Canopy Tour Anyone?!

Let's go on a canopy.  It may be a quick one because we are about to go on another adventure to a VOLCANO!!!  But first lets not down play the amaziness of the canopy tour.
Strap on some adventure boots and lets head out!

So first we got on all our gear to go zip lining through the rain forest canopy!  Zip lining is when you get strapped to a cable between two trees and FLY!!!  It was so much fun.

Can you see Sief on this cable coming towards me?

Maybe now?!

You can't see any animals flying through the trees, but it does make you feel like a bird.  The tour we went with had a couple of other adventure things, such as the Tarzan Swing.  Which sounds cool, right?  WRONG! Haha no it was cool, but it freaked me out.  They put you at the top of a platform clip you in at your waist, hand you the rope and shove you off the platform.  There is a free fall before the rope catches you and you swing out.  I was totally freaked out by this one and was big time scared.  Hopefully the video below works!

And the grande finale of the day was SUPERMAN!!  We got to fly like superman for a kilometer over the rainforest.  It was the coolest thing ever.  I could look down and see my tiny shadow floating across the canopy below.  One of our friends took a video while flying.  When I get it I'll be sure to post more pictures.



I have more cool pics to post, but I have to run, Sief is telling me I'm going to make us late for our next adventure!!!  byeeeeee

Green Challenge #7 and Monteverde Part 1

Green Challenge #7:  No more gum in those plastic packages! 
Ok, so this is sort of a wussy challenge, but I've been busy and some changes I plan to make can't happen while in Costa Rica.  So.....for now here's a relatively easy one.  You know those packages like Eclipse that have the flat cardboard with plastic inside, I'm giving up that kind of gum.  It's just more plastic and ends up in the landfills and eventually scattered all over the world!  I'll explain more on that later once I'm back in the states!

Now on to the fun stuff:
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Monteverde

This past weekend, we made a trip to the rainforest and had one of the BEST weekends of my entire life.  Please, come take the trip with me.
We started the trip with a walk and tour at the floor of the rainforest.  We went on a hunt for animals and just to take in the beauty of the trees and vegetation!  It was absolutely amazing!  The clean air and the wind would make all of the leaves dance in unison.  The sounds were so calming.
We saw an agouti which is in the rat family, a few squirrels, a salamander, and a couple of birds on our walk through the rainforest.

The trees were almost always covered in vines and the branches were like window sill pots lined with plants.  The plants that grow on the branches of the trees are called epiphytes.  Epiphytes are a type of plant that grown on another plan non-parasitcially.  These plants derive their nutrients from the air, rain, and sometimes from debris that accumulate around or in them.

Nature's swing set!

 Much of the tour was spent on hanging bridges, high above the ground.  This offered us a view from above to better see birds and look down at some of the animals below.

One of my favorite views of the day!

This tree is hundreds of years in the making!  Can you see the weird lattice type work that appears in the trunk above?  This tree is actually hollow in the middle!  Wait? What?  How does that happen?  Well many many years ago a monkey was sitting on a tree eating or something when it pooped or a bird.  This poop fell down and landed on a branch.  Within the monkey's feces was a seed of a plant called a strangling fig.  This strangling fig germinated and started growing.  The fig sent down roots from the branch.  Those roots eventually hit the ground and took hold.  Over hundreds of years those roots solidifed and grew together and formed the tree you see above.  The strangling fig eventually cuts off nutrients to the tree upon which it started it's life and the original tree eventually decomposes and leaves a hollow tree!

                                               

And what better thing to do with a hollow tree than to climb it!  It's helps when guides before us have placed nice rope steps within the tree.

Peek-a-Boo!

Coming up next on our Monteverde adventure is a Canopy Tour!!!!!!!!

A Day Late Again!

I think my green challenges should be posted on Monday's while I'm in Costa Rica.  I will get back to my Sunday schedule once I'm back in the states.  I just got back to San Jose after a 5 hour bus ride from Monteverde.  To say the least, I'm a bit exhausted.  Sief and I along with a few of our classmates had an AWESOME!!! weekend.  I cannot wait to share it with you, but....you'll have to wait until tomorrow.  There is so much to share I'll most likely give you pieces of my weekend day by day.  I look forward to choosing amongst my 240 something pictures I took this weekend to post on my blog.  I promise it will be worth the wait!

Green Challenge #6 and Puerto Viejo

Green Challenge #6:  Eating only local fruits and vegetables!

I think this is going to be one of the hardest changes I am going to make.  While in Costa Rica this change will be easy, because I am surrounded by wonderfully delicious fruit and fresh fruit juice.  Pinapples, watermeleon, cantelope, pineapples, bananas, plantains, mangos, etc.  I am going to have to learn to hit up the local farmer's market weekly and can or freeze fruits when they are in season, so I can have them all year long. 

I have not had time to do the appropriate research to tell you exactly how this is eco-friendly, but...I do know that rainforests have been cut down to make way for banana plantations.  Where do you think those bananas go?  Some to the USA I'm sure, and they end up in my cereal bowl.  So no more banana's when I get back to the states.  Also, local fruits and veggies means less trucking/shipping, packaging, etc which all equals more green house gases.  Buying locally ensures that the food is fresh, not shipped across the country or flown over continents to reach me.  Right now my definition of local will be within the same state, yes I know some states are huge - I may narrow my range once I get better at buying locally and figuring out this next challenge. 


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This weekend we traveled to Puerto Viejo- a Caribbean beach in Costa Rica.  It was not nearly as beautiful as we expected it to be.  The town was run down, dirty, and rampant with stray dogs.  We unfortunately were unable to snorkel because the rain that came when we got there caused rivers flowing into the ocean to bring sediment and the water was turbid and too hard to see.  Instead we hung out on the beach - which was a black sand beach, they say it's from the lava from nearby volcanos.  We swam in the ocean and enjoyed the warm water.  Sief managed to get his first really bad sunburn - shoulders and back.  I have a mini sunburn on my left shoulder and at my hairline.  The sun is so much stronger here and really takes a hit to our winter skin.

Below are some pictures from the trip!  Enjoy!

Black sand beach! 

Relaxing in hammocks at our hotel!

The HIGHLIGHT of the entire weekend - a wild sloth in a bar at night!  Doesn't it look like a small hairy child.  It was soooooo awesome and moved slowly.  I did some sloth research, but it's late and I have to get to bed, so I will have to fill you in on my sloth knowledge in another post!

Tomorrow

I know that it's Sunday which means I need to post a green challenge and more importantly fill you in on my weekend trip to the beach!  But...it's a little bit late and I have some photos to download, so you will have to wait until tomorrow!  Just wanted you to know that I hadn't forgotten!  Hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend.