Kendall Roberg & Shelley Stiles Travel to Central America

Kendall's & Shelley's Central America Trip

Day 4 - Monteverde, Costa Rica

September 6, 2007

I woke up early and went for a hike in the near by rainforest. Once Shelley woke up, we took a taxi to the Monteverde National Park. This cloud forest is absolutely amazing. Shelley and I hiked several trails for nearly 6 hours in the park. One trail lead to the continental divide, where water drains to the Pacific from one side and to the Caribbean to the other. Shelley is much better at spotting wildlife then me. In fact, she spotted nearly every single animal we saw today. As we were leaving the reserve we saw some rangers and people standing near the reserve’s administrative office. They were looking at a tarantula that was from leg to leg easily 8 inches. Near the end of our hike it started pouring (although under the canopy you don’t get very wet).

Next, we headed to the Frog Pond, a local frog reserve where guides point out frogs with flashlights. It was fantastic! Our guide could imitate frog calls perfectly and the frogs would even call back. Our ticket was good for all day so we returned at night to take some photos. The photos below were taken with Shelley holding the flashing light and myself holding the camera using slower shutter speeds. After the reserve, I felt inspired and headed back to the rainforest trail I hiked in the morning to look for frogs. After two frustrating hours of chasing insects the size of frogs, I returned to our hotel.