An adventure in Cloudbridge

Weekends are free-time for the volunteers at Cloudbridge, and being a bunch of wildlife lovers, 6 of us decided we’d spend our Saturday doing one of the longest treks in the park. This is about a 6 hour round-trip hike so we set off at 7am in an attempt to avoid the afternoon rain.

Barbara, Jenn, Bro and David at the lookout bench, with breath-taking views over the valley

The hike was great…it took us up steep hills, through gorgeous forest, over streams, and through rivers (and when I mean through, I mean through streams deeps enough that Frank stripped down to his pants to avoid getting his trousers wet…and still managed to get his pants wet).

Bro on a bridge (the most rickety I've ever set foot on!!)

We also decided in our wisdom that we’d take the route which had recently had a small landslide…only when we got there we found that the small landslide was now a HUGE landslide, with no way past. To turn back would have been to retrace 5 hours-worth of hiking, and to head back through the pants-high river, so instead we embraced the challenge and decided to go OVER the landslide. This took the form of a kind of team-building-esque exercise whereby Frank had to scramble up the sheer face by digging his own foot holes in the mud and doing a hell-of-a lot of scrambling, then taking off his belt, and pulling us one-by-one up the vertical cliff. 20 minutes later and we were all a covered in mud, but safely deposited on the far side.  

And probably the best part of our day?...stumbling across these two snakes having a little rumble on the path….absolutely awesome to watch! Bro and I watched them for about half an hour, and you get the highlights!...

How cool is that?!! The orange one we believe is Tantilla ruficeps, but between all of us biologically-inclined folk, and a plethora of Costa Rica reptile books, we can't identify the other so a mystery it will remain!

Cloudbridge

These little chaps are always flitting about the classroom and down by Anna and Alan's house...not bad company!

After leaving Soph and Rob in San Isidro, we arrived by bus in San Gerardo de Rivas in the middle of a rainstorm, and were met by a smiling, very hairy, umbrella-wielding Frank, our new team leader for our next volunteer project. Within minutes of arriving we had been flanked by 6 more super-smiley faces of our new co-volunteers who were all down in the village on the weekly supply run. Never before have I met a group of such welcoming people who have made such a positive impression within seconds of meeting them. After a hasty shop, we were bundled into the back of the van, and hurtled up the dirt track road to our home for the next 5 weeks…and so began our next adventure at Cloudbridge Nature Reserve, in the incredible Cloud Forest of Costa Rica.

Cloudbridge is an incredible place to find yourself. It is a private nature reserve, but unlike most of the other reserves in CR, it does not charge you to enter, and its main purpose is to preserve existing forest, reforest damaged land and educate both local people and tourists about the plight of our forests, and the need to conserve our precious forests.

How's this for an office?

Cloud forest is characterised by being highland forest (Cloudbridge is at just over 1500m in altitude) which maintains nearly 100% humidity year round. Typically you will find them to have clear mornings, with cloud and thick mists rolling in around lunchtime, and then extensive rain-showers in the afternoon. Cloud forests are essential for capturing, storing and filtering water that then feeds the communities downstream, so it is crucial that these forests are preserved.

Cloudbridge was once mainly used for arable farming, and as a result much of the forest was cleared. The team at Cloudbridge have now spent many years reforesting the land by either planting new trees or by allowing the previously farmed land to naturally regenerate, so that now the entire area is forested again. Bro and I are so excited to be part of this.

Our day-to-day life starts by getting up 6am, then after a quick breakfast we work throughout the morning until about 1pm, in time (usually!) to get everything away before the rain sets in. Then the afternoons are free for us to do as we please…mainly playing cards, reading, baking, cooking or on those rare occasions when there’s no rain…explore the wonderful forest trails around the reserve.

At the moment our major project is building a new dorm for the centre so that it can host school groups of students and educate them about the forest. In the last two weeks, I’ve learnt how to use a table saw, a chop saw, an electric drill, a tri-square and a spirit level, I’ve learnt how to block, how to hammer without bending the nail (usually), and how to build a roof. I’ve sweated, I’ve hammered until my arm is sore and I’ve covered myself (and everyone else) in sawdust from head to toe! And I’ve loved it!

Alan drilling the doorframe

Brodie swinging in the doorframe

David pretending to do stuff!

It's looking more like a building at least! (Spot the Brodie!)

I’ve also gone ‘frogging’ with resident researcher Jenn, where we’ve traced transects through the forest in search of frogs, and I’ve helped her identify those we catch…just Emma’s cup of tea!

We also of course do some tree-loving: Clearing the vines to free-up the newly (or relatively-newly) planted reforestation trees. Always a warm-fuzzy activity (even when you have a half hour walk up a hill to get there!) :)

So I think you might say, we’ve landed on our feet… 

Costa Ricaaaaa baby!

Beaches = 6

National Parks = 4

Getting told off for skinny dipping = x2

Sloths = 3

4-Wheeled Drive Dream Machine= 1

Episodes of sunburn = 40 (of which Sophie = 3 and Rob = 37)

The result of spending twelve glorious days with these two marvellous human beings is that I am now twelve days behind on writing my blog. So here goes summarising two weeks of awesomeness…I’ll try and let the photos do the talking for the bits I had my camera…

Monteverde, Volcan Arenal

And so began our adventure in Costa Rica. As our flight had been delayed by a day, Soph and Rob had already picked up the 4WD and had a full Costa Rican low down from a very helpful guy called Jose (of course he was) who’s impressively extensive advice served us swimmingly throughout our trip, in a kind of “What would Jose do?” way. Thanks Jose!

We first headed up into the mountains where we spent two nights in the very beautiful El Castillo, which we used as a base to visit the spectacular Volcan Arenal, a still active volcano surrounded by beautiful forest. We swam in the crater of an extinct volcano, we swam in hot springs (basically a boiling hot stream!), and we caught up on 8 months of gossip as we did it! Maravilloso!

From here we drove along the incredibly scenic and incredibly bumpy route to Santa Elena where we stayed in probably the best Air BnB I’ve ever come across (wooden cabin in the forest, with incredible breakfast and the world’s most friendly host, one of whom was an 18 year old Tico girl who we all fancied more than a little bit, and put us to shame with her outstanding English skills - https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/3237481?guests=4&s=ofGwvlza  ). We spent a few days here exploring the National Parks (which simply blow your mind with their beauty), eating delicious cakes and drinking velvety coffee in quaint little coffee shops and just exploring the area. You’d think we’d seen enough forests by now, but each one is unique, and I have to say that Monteverde was one of the most beautiful I’ve seen-trees dripping with epiphytes and moss, and wonderfully atmospheric clouds curling through the trees. Beautiful!

It was a looong way off but finally we saw one-a Resplendent Quetzel!

The Pacific Coast

Our first stop was Samara…think quaint little beach town, rolling waves, palm-fringed sand and chilled-out atmosphere! We spent a great couple of days here hopping between the sea, cafes and bars, and hiding from rain-showers. We even took to the waves and dusted off our (rather basic!) surfing skills…it’s funny how you get back into the swing of it quite quickly and we all spent many happy/salty/splashy hours clambering up on our boards and flopping off again in those feisty Pacific waves! Absolutely loved it!

 

From Samara, we tootled up the coast in our 4x4 to a little town called Santa Theresa. I say up the coast, but as its rainy season and it’s, well, been raining lots, large sections of the coastal road aren’t passable as they’re currently rivers, so we had to cut inland by about 5 hours. You can’t complain when you’re driving somewhere as beautiful as Costa Rica though!

Santa Theresa was a fab place to visit. By a stroke of luck (and the fact that the guys in charge of our hostel were useless stoners who could barely focus, let alone fix a broken AC machine) we inherited a giant apartment with its own balcony, right by the beach. We loved Santa Theresa-more incredible, palm-fringed beaches (I know I sound like a broken record!), more awesome surfing (and more scary waves), and this time no rain, great cocktails and incredible food thrown in to boot! We discovered not only a sweet little bar on the beach which made ludicrously strong cocktails, but a wicked little French creperie selling insanely good, well, crepes, we stumbled across an Italian bakery where we indulged in mouth-wateringly good feasts of Italian goodness, and we had some bloody good burritos from a little street soda bar.

From Santa Theresa, we scooched over the hill to the very lovely town of Montezuma. We’d only intended on staying one night here, but we made the quick decision to spend two nights as, well it was just bloody good! Montezuma is a cute little town with loads of little surf shacks, bars and cafes, and endless gorgeous little coves to explore. It also has a pretty awesome waterfall which you can walk (/scramble) to and we spent a bloody marvellous day taking a speed boat to Tortuga Island, snorkelling, drinking beer and soaking up the sunshine on a tropical beach. Lots of giggles, lots of fun and lots of toasting love, life and friendship!

White faced capuchin

White throated magpie jay

Turquoise-browed Motmot

A very shy hermit crab!

Last stop on the Tour de CR was Quepos, a rather non-descript town, but a cool little base for our final destination- Manuel Antonio National Park. This is the smallest and busiest of Costa Rica’s National Parks, and as a result, there are tonnes of people everywhere. Whereas this does not tick my boxes for a relaxing, back-to-nature experience, it does mean that wildlife is easier to spot as they’re so used to humans, and you can earwig onto other people’s guides without having to pay a penny, hurrah! It also has some marvellous little walks and some simply stunning beaches, so all-in-all a pretty cool day. And we saw THREE sloths!!

Finally-we found a cinema in Jaco showing Bond!...and had the whole cinema to ourselves!!

Birds eye view of a croc from a road bridge on our way to Quepos

Cheeky Racoon!

Three-toed sloth!

Iguana

So it was with heavy hearts that we made our final journey together in our trusty 4WD to San Isidro, (a slightly shifty town full of barbed-wire infringed buildings and locked gates) and said a sad goodbye to these crazy kids!

To the next adventure!