Sunday, August 3rd, was very rainy. In the morning, Lilach and I hiked in the cloud forest reserve. We started the trail in a light rain and ended it in a light rain, with a couple of hours of moderate to heavy rain in between. We didn’t dare take our binoculars or camera out of our pockets, and there were no exceptional photo opportunities anyway. We occasionally saw silhouettes of birds against the mist, but it was quite dark despite it being morning, and we couldn’t even make out the birds’ colors. The forest itself, however, was very beautiful. We spent the rest of the day in the cabin and in town, and Tamar got a great new raincoat.
On Monday morning we packed our belongings, including a large cardboard box full of vegetables, fruits, and other food items, and left the nice farm and beautiful cabin in Monteverde. As a farewell to the cloud forest area, we decided to make a short stop at the “Colibri Cafe” at the entrance to the Monteverde reserve. The place met our expectations precisely. On the porch, there were several hummingbird feeders, and the little birds filled the place, zipping and buzzing near the visitors’ ears. On one of the bushes around the porch, a special surprise was waiting—a green palm pitviper (Botriechis lateralis), which attracted not only our attention but also that of the birds. The hummingbirds “mobbed” around it and flew just a few centimeters from its head, apparently trying to drive it away. It, in any case, was not impressed. During our entire stay there, it moved only a few centimeters, if at all.
After the short visit to the cafe, which lasted about two hours (I didn’t have a chance to drink coffee and even forgot to go to the bathroom), we headed south toward Manuel Antonio Park on the Pacific coast. On the way, we stopped at Carara National Park, further north along the coast, which is considered one of the best places to see Scarlet Macaws. We didn’t see the large and impressive parrots there, though we heard them from the top of a very tall tree. But later, when we sat down for an afternoon meal at a restaurant overlooking the park, a pair of macaws headed into the park flew right above us…
Its wings seem to have been nibbed at by birds but are still beautiful
Family Trips 