Sunday 6 January: Monteverde

Monteverde/ Santa Elena N 10° 18.9' W 084° 49.4' 1345m
At 8am we took a guided walk in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. Our guide Maria pointed out lots of interesting stuff. The highlight was the sighting of a number of Quetzal birds. This is the national bird of Guatemala. The male has a splendid long tail. By putting the lens of the digital camera to the telescope we managed to get some reasonable photos.

Dan and I saw a male bird swoop down from one tree to another, the girls having lost interest, it was also rather chilly (its not called a cloud forest for nothing). We heard again about the fig tree where the seeds are deposited high in an existing tree. There is soil there from dust in the air; analysis of this dust reveals the presence of sand from the Utah desert even. The young plant sends shoots down to the ground where they take root. Over time these thicken and surround the original tree trunk until the host tree is suffocated. Eventually the host tree rots and disappears leaving the fig tree with a hollow core. Some fig trees live to 300+ years old.

A number of very large trees had come down during the recent high winds. They don't have rings as you might expect because effectively there are only two seasons. Many of the smaller birds of different species flock together for protection. We saw many example of a red flower with a curved portion. Many plants have different shapes, each attracting a different species of hummingbird. The guide, Maria, picked a small pod, a little like a rosehip or coffee bean. It turned out to be a species of avocado. There are many varieties in the cloud forest. Many of the birds are migrants overwintering in Costa Rica. As we left the reserve there was a lone Coati he wasn’t too disturbed by the people.

Nearby was a place with sugar solution dispensers which were attracting a variety of hummingbirds, different sizes and colours.

After lunch at Stella's bakery we went to Don Juan's coffee plantation. They are only allowed to cultivate the arabica variety in Costa Rica. It is of higher quality and suited to the higher altitude (900-1700m). The coffee bean has a soft outer skin with normally two beans inside. The outer skin is composted using imported worms from US. The mulch is used to cultivate the new seedlings. The coffee beans ripen at different times on a given branch. The picking is very labour intensive and migrant workers are used who move on to different crops once coffee has been picked. The outer skin is removed and the beans are soaked in water. The water is changed five times until it remains clear. The ripe beans fall to the bottom. The under and over ripe beans float to the surface and are removed and used for poor grade coffee. The beans are spread out to dry in the sun for a week. The UV kills off any bacteria. The beans are then put in trays and transferred to the drying shed for a further three weeks. After storage for 6 months the husk is removed using a large pestle and mortar.
Don Juan himself appeared at the end of the tour. While we sampled his coffee he pulled out his collection of bank notes from around the world. Although we spoke little Spanish and he little English he was very welcoming and obviously pleased still to be involved in the coffee plantation though he must have been in his seventies.

At 5.30 we went for a night hike. We saw a large herd of coati, a porcupine inside a fig tree, 2 pit vipers, a thrush sleeping on a wind blown twig, tarantulas and thorn-like insects amongst other things.