Friday December 9: La Fortuna
Suspension Bridges
In the middle of the night there was a torrential downpour,
from the sound of things. I was wondering what we would do if it did that when
we were supposed to be doing something, but when we got up, it was
dry.
The top of the volcano, however, was in the clouds.
Breakfast was your typical good buffet, with some omelet
stations, which I took advantage of.
We met our guide at 8 and then drove up to the volcano
station, partway up the mountain. We then took a hike, which was really more of
a meandering stroll, looking for interesting plants, birds, and other wildlife.
We visited the "nest", which was a
very tall, scaffolding type tower.
I was only a little nervous on it, particularly when it
swayed in the wind.
A bit later, it started raining lightly, and some of us took
out umbrellas. But shortly after that, we had a major stop and did a lot of
hummingbird
viewing. We basically just tossed the umbrellas aside to get
pictures and binoculars on the birds. At that point, however, the rain was essentially
over.
At one point, there were some
Great Curassow
next to the trail. That led to a whole
lot of picture taking.
We came to a place that had a restaurant and viewing area.
The rain started up again, so we went inside. It rained heavily for a short
while. The guide went to get the van and bring it nearby, so we wouldn't get
too wet, but by the time he arrived, the rain was over again.
We had been thinking of eating at that place, but it was a
bit early (11:00), and they didn't start lunch until 11:30. As a result, we
went to a place towards town.
On the way there, we stopped to photograph a
coati.
A bit
later we photographed a
second one.
Yet further along, we were stopped by a
whole flock of them crossing the road.
It was almost humorous watching them
keep
coming out of the woods and across the road.
We guessed that there were
50-75 of them in the pack.
After lunch, we went to a place with suspended bridges. I
was expecting walkways hung through the canopy, but it was more a walkway that
cross a bunch of ravines over normal bridges and then a number of higher/longer
suspension bridges.
Those bridges would sway uncomfortably as we walked. It felt really
weird to be walking on something that was moving.
We saw lots of birds, and for the first and probably only
time on the trip, I saw one bird before anyone else did.
Near the end, Sam and I went down a side trail to
get a view of a
small waterfall.
On the last bridge on the way out, we ran into a family of
howler monkeys.
Crossing one of the bridges, we got a
good view of the volcano without a cloud cover.
By the time we reached the end, however, the top
was obscured again.
We got back to the resort a bit late: 5:00 to 5:30. Sam
wanted more time in the pools, so we scheduled dinner for 7:30. Amy stayed at
the cottage while Sam and I went down to the pools. I don't think it was as
neat as the previous day, probably because it wasn't new and different.
Dinner was a bit strange. It looked like they gave us a
lunch menu. We asked about it, and we were told that this was the appropriate menu
for us. We could pick an appetizer, a main course, and then desert. It was a
very different experience than the previous night. We didn't know if we had
been given the wrong menu the previous night, or if we blew the budget, and
this was trying to get us back on course.
On the other hand, this reduced menu was probably about the
right amount of food for us.
Tomorrow we have to pack everything up, as we will be
heading out to our next lodging.
Amy is feeling fairly bad. Hopefully it is nothing serious
and more a reaction to overexerting herself today.
