After several days at Bosque del Cabo on the Osa Peninsula, we traveled to Santa Elena in the Monteverde area. The Monteverde area is famous for the "cloud forests" that grow along the continental divide in the middle of the country. As moisture travels west from the Caribbean towards the Pacific, the mountains cause a nearly perpetual blanket of clouds and mist.
Our hotel seemed to be very near the edge of the cloud layer the entire time we we there. Being at the boundary between clear skies and clouds, we were treated with rainbows every morning and evening.
Because of the constant dampness of the cloud forest, epiphytes (plants that grow non-parasitically on other plants) are extremely common.
And of course, there were lots of different kinds of flowers.
A very colorful moth
Violet Sabrewing hummingbirds
Other hummingbirds
Returning to our hotel after dinner one night, the taxi driver spotted this very wet sloth slowly working its way across the road on the telephone line.
