Friday, May 04, 2007

This was an absolutely amazing day! We woke up early and had breakfast. We were all dressed and ready to go on our guided hike through the biological station. This is such a cool place. We had the opportunity to stay the night there, but then we wouldn't have been able to do the rafting and horseback riding that we did. But it is a research station so as you are walking around you can see scientists doing their thing! Pretty cool.

Anyways, we load up the van and head over. As we are driving down the drive way to the park we see an agouti! We all look at it but have to continue on because we were on a schedule. We meet our guide, and start heading into the station. When you walk in there is a visitor center and then a bridge that connects to the research area. As we are heading over the bridge, we see a seven colored tanager! On the bridge, looking into the water, we saw a tarpon... then on the trees around the water we saw a squirrel cuckoo! I was so in love at this point! They were so cool, just doing what they do best! Then we walk off of the bridge and by the station. Around this area are the housing units, the research centers, the food area and a couple of other small buildings. And then all around these were collared peccaries and their young just wandering around. They have gotten used to people although are still somewhat skittish. We were all so impressed that they were so close that we took about 100 pictures between us of the same peccary! Then over around the edge we saw a coati weaving in and out of the forest! Our guide kept trying to tell us about the station, and we wanted to listen, the animals just kept interrupting. (He told us to interrupt him if we saw something, so it was okay...)

Anyways... So we get through the station area and onto the trail. Absolutely gorgeous! I think this is the part of rain forests that I love so much. When you look up and the trees are so high, it makes you feel so overwhelmed. Its like standing and looking at the ocean... just this unbelievable feeling that there is so much more to life. While walking through the park we saw so many things. One really cool part is when we saw the sloth. It was moving down a tree and that is the only way we spotted it... otherwise if it didn't move, we would have never known it was there. It blended right in, just makes you think what else we missed seeing!

As walking down the path and towards the exit, we were on a single person path so we were all in a row. The second to last person begins freaking out and starts rushing us forward. We all turn around and see this snake on the side of the path. It probably was 3 feet long (I honestly am bad as guessing measurements, so it could have been anywhere between a foot and 7 feet... who knows). But it was long and black and most of us walked right by it not even realizing it was there. Crazy! Then a little ways up, this lizard runs across the path, over someone's foot, and stops on the side of the trail. It was a cask-headed lizard. It was green but then turned into this brown color to try and match the leaves and ground! That was impressive.

So we continue on and as we are walking out we see some Chestnut-Mandible Toucan as we are crossing the bridge to exit. It was an absolutely amazing hike, we saw so many other animals not mentioned in this blog. It was a lot of fun and very educational! Our guide was terrific!

After the amazing morning hike, we headed back to the hotel and had lunch. Then we (except professor) decided to go horseback riding. This was nice but I wouldn't do it again. We went through cleared land, up and down hillsides and through a stream. It was pretty cool and we saw some neat scenery but we weren't able to stop and look at the birds that I kept seeing flying around.... oh well! It was a nice time.

That night we went and had a few more drinks at the bar! Yum, yum!

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