Best Day Yet

What an amazing day in the rainforest! Is spite of the fact the lodge has no AC, it was actually quite pleasant overnight and I slept well. I got up shortly after 6a and headed out for a morning walk at 6:45. I took the suspension bridge over the river before coming back across to follow the self guided trail. I passed a few howler monkeys eating and a large iguana before I even got to the trail. Almost immediately I found several green and black poison dart frogs. Didn't see much else except a couple of squirrels, but the flora was beautiful in the morning sun.

After an hour and 20 minutes of walking I got breakfast. By about 9 we were headed of for our day of adventure. My group started with zip lines while some others went horseback riding. For my first zip lime experience it was great. We took 9 lines through the tree canopy. We were high up with beautiful scenery - unfortunately it all happened too quickly. The 8th line was a lot of fun. It was a long one where the guides bounded the cables up and down. The 9th line was the best - it was the longest and took us across the river back to where we started.

We barely had time to rest from that when we took off whitewater rafting. Everyone who went seemed to think this was the highlight of the trip. It was better than I anticipated - a long trip (10-12 km) with great scenery, fun rapids, bird sightings, and swimming. Midway through, we stopped at a swimming hole where we could jump in from the bank about 10 feet above the water. That's also when we had our snack of fresh-cut pineapple. Our guides were really good an a lot of fun, too, making for a great afternoon.

After the rafting, we had lunch at the restaurant is overlooking the river before returning to the hotel for some free time. I walked around to see if I could find a sloth, but had no luck, even with the help of Ivan the conservationist at the hotel. I ran across an active group of monkeys and spent a long time taking way too many pictures. I then walked across the suspension bridge one more time to look for toucans and I saw two in the distance. Finally I took a dip in the pool while chatting with students and our excellent guide Jorge. Now I am laying in the hammock in the rain forest writing a blog post.

We've got our closing dinner in a while, then tomorrow morning at 7:30 we head back to the airport. It will be a long travel day. No one wants to leave.