Jeans anyone?

I spent a wonderfull few days up in the cloud forests in Costa Rica. In an area called MonteVerde. They are not quite rain forests but as the name suggests are still pretty damp places. You could explore the canopies across suspension bridges.

You could also Zip-Line through them at high speed. I´m waiting on a fellow traveller to e-mail me a photo of me in action, but often the promises of e-mails don´t come through.

Each of the countries I´ve been in have had their own unique pull and resounding feature and Costa Rica for me, has been it´s fauna. So much wildlife. On a walk at night, I got to see these little critters. Sorry the photos are a little blurry, but I´m not so good at night shots:

This is either a Blue Jeans Frog or a Poisonous Dart Frog. I don´t know which because we couldn´t see if it was wearing jeans. But it is tiny, about 2cm small:

I don´t know what this one is, at all:

Also in the cloud forests, there are lots of vines, like you´d see Tarzen swinging from. The Fig Strangling Vine grows up and down and up and down the length of a tree, wrapping itself around the trunk till it strangles the origional tree, which dies and decomposes, leaving just the ring of vines. Also making it a fun natural ladder to climb:

After MonteVerde, I moved on to a big town called Alajuala, out side the capital San Jose. Today i wnet to see yet another volcanoe. The crator was filled with rain water and sulfur gasses. Unfortunitly, for safety reasons, we weren´t allowed get too closs. If it was Guatamala I could have probably swam in the highly acidic water?!. It was a beautiful sight, but smelt very strungly of rotten eggs (sulfer).

One of the crator:

And one of me (taken by me):

That brings me to the end of my Central American trip. It has just been fantastic. I loved each country. None of them need to be avoided. The people, both travelers and locals have been so open and welcoming. I´m flying to Equador tommorow. Woohoo, roll on South America.....