I slept horribly last night. I woke up like 10 times with cramps in my stomach. I think I OD'd on dairy products yesterday. Between cheese empenadas for breakfast, a latte after our hike through the reserve, cheese on my panini at lunch, cheese samples on the cheese factory tour, ice cream after the tour, and a chocolate spoon after the bat tour, I was in bad shape. Not to mention the fact that I ate virtually nothing of nutritional value before dinner. Let's not talk about it anymore.
Yesterday morning a taxi came and picked us all up for our ridiculously full day. We started with a guided hike at the Monteverde Reserve at 8:30. There were 12 of us with Dean, Kathy, Jeff, the K/Carlas, and Cheesecake (Sarah 2), so we divided into two groups. Jeff, Dean, Kathy, Tia, Ann, and I went with Oscar. Oscar is a rockstar. The man knew how to make calls for every bird and monkey in the reserve. Like good enough that they would talk back to him. So cool. We ended up seeing a yellow-bellied trogon, a male quetzal, a female quetzal, 6 spider monkeys, and like 100 hummingbirds in the hummingbird garden. The quetzals were really cool because they are super rare and you could tell it was a big deal because Oscar was freaking out making sure all the guides brought their groups to see them. Plus they are gorgeous and the national bird of Guatemala, my love. We followed the spider monkeys for a while. We spent a lot of our time right beneath them and I just knew that if someone got crapped on, it was going to be me. No one got crapped on, though, so I was graciously spared. After 3 hours of hiking in the reserve, we ended up at the hummingbird garden slash fancy coffeehouse. I figured why not indulge when I can and ordered a latte. Too bad it was straight up milk with like coffee-esque flavoring towards the bottom. You can imagine my disappointment. Then we walked across the way to a restaurant for lunch. I got a panini. I was really sketched out ordering it because the meat looked vile, but I figured turkey was a safe choice, even if the display made me want to vomit. The panini ended up being delicious. Considering I had been hungry since like 10, anything probably would have been delicious but the lacking-rice-and-beans factor didn't hurt either.
After lunch our taxis took us over to the Monteverde Women's Co-Op. Whoever scheduled our day allotted an hour and a half for a small grocery-like store, an even smaller coffee shop, and a couple of rooms full of knick-knacks. No one was less thrilled than Dean. He just sat outside the coffee shop and muttered about how dumb it was that we had so much time there. He makes me laugh. We saw the cutest dog ever at the grocery-like store. It was so teensy and clumsy. I wanted to steal it. I had a much more satisfying cup of coffee at the coffee shop. After we pissed away an hour and a half, we walked over to the Monteverde Cheese Factory. I was PUMPED for the cheese tour, because I figured there would be samples (fatty). I was not disappointed. We tried monterico (their signature cheese that's like a mozzarella), a swiss, a smoked something that I didn't particularly care for, a super mild cheddar, and caramel. I was pissed because they didn't give us samples of choco-cheese, but Dean and Kathy bought a block so we can all try it at our next high tea. They think of everything. After the tour we all got ice cream. I tried choco chip. Deliciousness. Tia got a mint chocolate chip milkshake, and then let me eat the chocolate chips from the bottom. Love her forever. Abby pointed out the fat rat-tail fest that was going on at the cheese factory. There were maybe 10 other people in the whole place and 3 guys were rocking rat-tails. Ew.
Once we'd sufficiently stuffed our faces, we walked over to the bat jungle. It had started raining at this point, but I was prepared with my rain jacket and my umbrella-ella-ella-ae-ae-ae (download Marie Digby's version of the song asap). The bat jungle was pretty cool, and the rat-tail fest continued. Our guide had a fatty that was all wrapped in string and everything. Barf-o. He also had a funny accent and I really wanted him to say toot de fruit. I can't figure out where that's from, though. Charlie? I feel like you should know. There was this one part of the tour where you sit on a stool and "experience a bat's sense of hearing." So Tia was one of the first ones to sit down and we were all whispering stuff to see if she could hear, and Cayman and I heard Dean say, "Tia, I want your body." We were dying laughing, especially after Abby informed us that we had heard wrong. So then we went into the actually bat exhibit, where they have like a hundred fruit bats. It's this really dark room to simulate the night so the bats will be active. At one point, I heard Ann say, "Dean, did you just bite me?" Bahaha I did not mishear this time. Dean loves trying to freak us out. He told Ann, "Oh my gosh did you see that giant escaped bat on your shoulder?! I just saved your life!" Haha the man provides endless hours of entertainment. I am dreading him not being here in a couple of weeks.
Other fun facts about bats: there are more bats in Costa Rica than there are birds. Bats eat and poop continuously when they are flying. A fruit bat eating a papaya poops out pinkish organge guano. Bats hang upside down because they drop to start flying, whereas birds have to jump up. Bats are most closely related to monkeys, not mice/ rodents. A colony of bats can eat up to two tons of insects in any given night. Bats can be as small as a bee or up to 6 feet in wingspan. Bah!
Upstairs from the bat museum there was a gift shop, a super nice chocolate shop/ restaurant, and the Quaker museum. I didn't even go into the Quaker museum. Apparently it's this super ghetto display of papers tacked to the walls, and the back room is all blank walls. Not really my thing. Instead I bought a chocolate spoon and enjoyed myself. Very much my thing.
Then I went to my homestay familia. I was freaking exhausted before we even sat down to eat dinner. And not hungry at all. But mi madre made me a plate of food, so I felt obligated to eat some. I ate the chicken and the potatoes, but I couldn't force-feed myself rice. I felt really bad leaving a half of plate of rice, but I would have felt worse puking all over the dinner table so yeah. After dinner we watched TV. I have noticed that the same handful of people is on every single show we watch. Patito Feo is like an actual show with story lines, but the characters are also in music videos during commercials and in competitions with each other in different time slots. Then there is this one woman who does the celeb news and also judges competitions and hosts other random things. It's bizarre. But we were watching TV and mi padre was like Sarah, are you okay? You look so sad. I told him I was just tired, and then a few minutes later he called me out because I was having a really hard time keeping my eyes open. I caved, and excused myself for bed. Mi madre was like but I was going to teach you to dance tonight!, but I was so tired, so I told her rain check for Monday night. It was like 8:30, but I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow. Then came the aforementioned horrible sleep. Good times.
Life is so great.
peace love and guano.
