Costa Rica with the family
Friday, December 26th, 2008
We’ve been in Costa Rica for a few days, celebrating mom and dad’s 30th wedding anniversary. Kinda weird to be in the tropics over Christmas…
Yesterday, we hiked in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve for a few hours, and saw quite a few birds, including the Quetzal! Pretty cool since it is rare, and I hadn’t seen one during my time here last year. We spotted a female, and waited for quite a while for a male since they are more colorful. Apparently the female sat on her branch for so long because she was digesting her avocado (a much smaller variety than the kind we humans eat), and if we waited long enough we might catch a glimpse of her spitting out the pit. Fascinating stuff…
We saw many varieties of hummingbirds, including this little guy in his nest…
This one was feeding
And this little warbler was mooching
Today, we went on a canopy tour, and man, it was awesome! (that’s me above) In addition to the zip lines—which were super long over the valley (some so long that we had to go two at a time to have enough weight to carry us all the way across)—there was a rappelling section, and then a “tarzan swing.”
That’s Adrian, my brother, bravely jumping off first. Then I had to go, and oh my god, I was so freaked out. I’ll pretty much do anything, but I do not like the sensation of falling—I feel my heart drop even in elevators—but the guide told me not to think about it, and that was that.
This is me falling off (I didn’t jump, the guide just let me go).
And this is me swinging back and forth; it was a huge drop the first couple times the rope swung back and forth…
and a close up because my expression is too good
I was happy I did it though! yay me.