Monteverde, Costa Rica

Please see the first post on Costa Rica for important details about this post.

Our next stop was Monteverde - home of cloud forests. We had wanted to go to two places - the Monteverde Cloud Forest and the Skywalk - a tour along suspended platforms through the canopy levels. On our first day there, we decided to go the cloud forest, but got lost and ended up hiking through the Eternal Children's Forest - a forest that was bought using funds donated by children from around the world. The forest is slighly below cloud forest level, but it was still nice to go through there:

We did stop by the actual cloud forest, but only near the entrance as it was already late in the day. Still, there were several hummingbird feeders there attracting a large number of hummingbirds:

The next day we went on the Skywalk. The Skywalk is part of a larger facility that also offers things like zip lines - essentially an amusement park-like ride where one is suspended on a wire and goes from platform to platform through the top of the forest. You apparently don't get to see much, but I've heard its fun. The Skywalk, on the other hand, is a series of over 10 bridges through different parts of the forest canopy and is actually quite interesting.

One of the reasons many people come to Monteverde is to see the Resplendent Quetzal, an amazingly beautiful bird only found in certain areas. Unfortunately for bird watchers, the quetzal is mostly green and thus not always easy to spot among the leaves. On our trip though, I managed to spot one, talked to the tour guide leading a group just ahead of us, who was extraordinarily thankful when we pointed it out to him and it gave everyone in the group a chance to see the quetzal (though not a great view). The one I had spotted was a female and the tour guide was able to spot the male, who was even more carefully hidden than the female. Unfortunately I couldn't really get any decent photographs of him, though this was remedied somewhat later in the trip.