Costa Rica Day 5

I got up early in the morning and went Birding with Dr. Kanter, a few students and a famous Costa Rican Naturalist, Mark Wainwright. He was very knowledgeable about the animals in the area. We saw Toucans, and a whole lot of Humming Birds. It was an excellent outing. We had breakfast at the cabin, pancakes and fruit. 
We took the bus to the Cloud Forest, a strip of forest high in the mountains. Most of the year, the forest is completely immersed in mist. Not today though. It was bright and sunny and very pleasant the entire time. We were seperated into a group and guided around the forest with a naturalist. We stopped first in the humming bird gallery. The gallery was a little patio with a half dozen bird feeders and TONS of humming birds. The birds were really tame. As soon as they got used to our presence, they were everywhere. They even would perch on fingers to get to the sugar water. We were followed by a Coati, a raccoon like animal, which climbed a tree and drank all the sugar water out of some of the feeders. It was quite funny. 
We walked through the forest. Our guide knew I was studying edible plants so she pointed out loads of species to us. We say edible ferns, and bean pods that are used in parkinson's medication, and black pepper and a whole variety of orchids. There really are a lot of orchids in this area. During the hike we also saw many birds and insects, and we got extremely close to a hawk. 
We then went to the Monteverde Institute. The Monteverde Institute would be our home for the next few days. We had lunch there (chicken, beans and rice, plantains), then a lecture, a small hike around the grounds and another lecture. We had a hike into the Childrens Eternal Rainforest. The Children's Eternal Rainforest, which is terrifyingly named, is really a swatch of rainforest that was purchased using money that children from all over the world had raised. We took a night hike through the forest with a local guide. It got dark quickly and we were using flashlights to navigate. We saw a few sleeping birds, a tarantula in her home and some really scary spiders. We had dinner at the hotel. I tried to take photos of the starry sky with my camera and ended up dropping it. It wouldn't take photos correctly after that and I was very worried until I realized I had messed with the settings before taking the photo and then had forgotten to set them back. We got a beer at a local restaurant and watched a soccer game, but mostly just hungout.
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