It doesn’t matter what time you set your alarm to – the forest wakes up at 5.
The majority of today was dedicated to the Santa Elena Cloud Forest, located above the main town at about 5-6 thousand feet in elevation. We followed Mario along one of the trails as he pointed out the huge array of plants and animals – his depth of knowledge is incredible, given the biodiversity of such an area.
The rest of the day was spent in town for about an hour of free time, and then we headed back to the hotel to relax until dinner. I took the opportunity to go for a run along the main road and stretch my legs after spending so much time on the bus the past few days. We had a night hike around 5:30 before dinner, since it starts to get dark around then. We looked for animals along a trail with our flash lights, finding a few tarantulas, many other bugs, one frog, and a short glimpse of an olingo – a mammal that lives in the canopy. Tomorrow we head for Jaco.