Some not so furry friends...

We've had some funny little visitors the last few days at Cloudbridge, so I thought I'd share them with you...

A lichen katydid! This funny looking chap paid us a visit but tried to hide on a log...

This little guy was in our food drawer...we didn't want to share so we popped him outside...I wonder how long it will take him to come back!

After about a week of having to clear up mouse poo from the kitchen surface, we finally discovered the culprit...a giant mummy mouse had set up her nest under our bookshelf and was busy nursing 3 very cute pink babies. This also solved another mystery as Jen's missing latex gloves apparently make good nesting material and we found about 30 of them tucked up with the little ones! 

We decided not to take Frank's advice and feed them to the pig, and instead, Bro cobbled together a mouse box from scrap material (he's very clever!) and we took them a loooong way away from the classroom to start a new life outdoors. No photos of mouse babies as we tried to avoid disturbing them, but needless to say they were bloody cute!

Bro and his home-made mouse box!

This funny chap popped up through the new decking to say hello...not sure what species it is, but I've never seen anything like it before!

Another Country, another mountain! Hello Mount Chirripo!

After our awesome experience climbing Mount Kinabalu in Borneo with Clairey back in June, we were excited to discover that Cloudbridge Reserve (where we’re volunteering) backs onto Chirripo National Park which is home to the highest mountain in Costa Rica.

Soooo we decided to climb it.

Our view on the hill out of Cloudbridge...already pretty high by this point! 

And again...

Planning this was no small feat…we are living/working in the forest at the top of a massive hill. The office where you need to book is at the bottom of this massive hill. It takes about 45 minutes to walk to the office, and about an hour to walk back up. SO imagine our joy when we embarked on our first trip to the office on a Sunday (having been told it was open weekends), to find a rather grumpy Tico who spoke no English. Luckily David (our fellow volunteer) can speak passable Spanish, so we managed to derive from him that we would need to call up the following day to book. The following day we called and called and called, but no-one picked up. We had to climb the big hill behind the laundry room to get reception so this was no small feat when you’re also trying to build a house.

So….once again we made the 45 minute walk down to the office and this time we could book, but were told that to pay, we’d have to go to a bank in the main town (an hour and a half bus ride away), or convince a local hostel to book for us. As we weren’t staying in a local hostel, this sounded dubious, but luckily we managed to find a hostel who would pay for us.

Unfortunately, we were told we also had to come back the day before the trip to register, which meant another trip down the giant hill….another 2 and a half hour round trip when all you want to do is rest up before the climb.

Spot the Brodie!

Aaaaanyway, we finally reached the morning of the trip so we set off at 5am, Bro and I with little bags stuffed with some warm clothes, snacks and our cameras, David with his ENTIRE travelling backpack!!!

Let me tell you a little about David. David is 18, currently on his gap year before starting Uni, is from Bonn in Germany, and his English is AMAZING! When I say amazing, I mean probably better than mine. He also speaks passable Spanish and a little French (feeling inadequate yet?!. This boy is insanely switched on, absolutely hilarious and can cook like an absolute pro. However…rather than buy lovely hot cooked food up the mountain, David in his wisdom decided to cook and carry enough food for the whole two-day mountain hike. This included (among others)….

• Homemade flatbread
• Homemade hummus
• Homemade pancakes
• Homemade flapjacks
• An entire, filled baguette
• Oreo cookies
• Oatcakes
• 5 apples (yes 5!!)
• 3 full water bottles and some iced tea (despite the fact that we did point out that there are water stops at two points up the mountain).

So this might go some way in explaining why he was carrying The World’s Largest backpack to go on a 2 day hike up a mountain. It weighed an absolute tonne so Bro and I pleaded with him to leave it behind and buy food, but he refused and reassured us that “it’s a proper hiking backpack so it’s not that heavy”. Hmmmm.

So we set off at 5am on our exciting adventure up the mountain. We arrived at Base Camp mid-afternoon, tired, sore but exhilarated from the incredible walk we’d just endured. It was tough but it was also one of the most beautiful walks I’ve ever experienced. We marched (and sometimes shuffled) up through insanely atmospheric forest, dripping with epiphytes, sometimes shrouded in mist, sometimes with sneaky sun beams peaking through the branches. The bird life simply blew us away! At one point I snuck off to have a wee in the bush and came back to Brodie and David waving frantically at me and pointing into a tree-it was only a Resplendent Quetzal (why do the cool animal sightings always happen when I’m peeing?!), one of the most beautiful birds I’ve ever seen. No photos I’m afraid as we only had our wide-angle lenses as I wasn’t in a mood to lug my zoom up the mountain (something we both berated ourselves for the entire way up). It was just magical! There were points where we barely made any progress as we had to stop every 20 steps to watch another cool bird, or spy on an unassuming lizard!

After a quiet afternoon at basecamp, we all headed off to bed about 7pm, ready for our absurdly early start. At 2.30am, off went our alarm, we bundled ourselves into our walking gear (actually I’d slept in most of mine as it was so cold), and set off for the peak, head torches barely needed as the moon was full: I can’t describe how tranquil and precious it felt, just the three of us walking between the giant looming silhouettes of the nearby mountains under a sky of stars, without another soul around. It’s a 2 hour trek to the top-Most of the way is a relatively gentle incline, but the last half an hour is absolutely killer-an almost vertical scramble to the top! It wasn’t scary, just bloody exhausting, and we made it to the top just in time to see the first light creep onto the horizon! And then boy was it all worth it! A panoramic view from coast to coast across Costa Rica-what a sight! I can’t describe the euphoria you feel reaching the top, but needless to say we were pretty bloody happy to be up there and watching this beautiful country wake up!

I spy the moon!

And on the way back down...

I have to say, massive kudos to this man-he trudged all the way up that gigantic hill with his ridiclulously heavy backpack and never once complained, despite the fact that it was clearly killing him! He refused help, and refused to leave anything behind and my god he should be proud of himself. He actually confessed to us once we were back home that within 5 minutes of leaving home on the first morning he’d suddenly regretted it, and had no idea how on Earth he’d make it all the way up, but all the way up he did, and for that my friend, you get RESPECT!

Made it! Obligatory selfie! Good work Team Chirripo!

Some of Bro's photos below...

No gear and no idea! I walked up the mountain in my trainers that were taped together with masking tape as the soles had melted off in a hot car a few weeks before! Did the trick though! :)

...And Bro did it in his $2 rubber shoes from Laos...

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…