The next morning when we arrived at the bridge it had planks. Appreciation is shown in different ways, in this case hugs from Jenna and handshakes from Fred. I’m not going to venture whose gesture was more preferred 🙂

Two new introductions: sugar cane, and the MacLeod.

As we started trail work, Marco brought out segments of something, stripped them down to white stalk and gave us each a pulpy piece. Sugar cane! I wasn’t sure how to eat it (I’m still not), I gather you tear off a chunk and suck the yummy juice out of it and leave the fiber behind, and repeat until it’s gone. Unless your diet is short on fiber, which ours definitely wasn’t. It lasted me two switchbacks before I restored full focus to the new toy bestowed upon me, a MacLeod.

Something about its name wanted me to hold it over my head and shout “There can be only one!” It has a sharp/wide hoe-like implement on one end, great for cutting roots (if sharpened as nicely as it was) and side-hilling, and a rake of sorts on the other.

When we crossed back over the stream at the end of the day, the bridge had a final finishing touch, a railing.

Back up and over the hand poured road on our way to the Children’s Eternal Rainforest, all the Verizon employees called for a picture stop. There was pole maintenance to the left, and without proper safety cones. Oh, boy.

We pulled into the outskirts of the tiny town of Monte Verde, and stopped at an ice cream and cheese place that sold products the migrant Quakers had perfected over the last half century. I bought some of their famous Monte Rico cheese for later. (What better complement is there to beans and rice!)

We left in two waves and walked a short way into the town square. Most of the crew got sidetracked at the market so for me it became a peaceful respite with Bill, Brendan, brownies, and birds (and carrot cake, but that wrecks the alliteration). I was sitting in a hot-tub sized coffee cup sculpture that hid an ugly drain when I noticed Jenna cuddle a local dog and ask it if it was okay if she took a selfy with it. It licked her nose in affirmative. I’m not sure what the world makes of us, but then I’m not sure I care either. We have fun.

A short walk later and we were at the Children’s Eternal Rain Forest for our night hike.

This wildlife reserve originally started off as a small chunk of land, but then grew as children and adults around the world donated money to enable its expansion. It’s now the largest private reserve in Costa Rica.

We looked out over miles of uninterrupted canopy and enjoyed a beautiful sunset.

We all had headlamps. Jenna had hers set on the less intrusive darkroom red, but most of the time it hung around her neck pointed at her cleavage. It’s fortunate for her it didn’t have the same effect on mosquitoes as it does on men. I would guess this could be a mate-attracting strategy unique to the “Human Animal” (and I can only imagine how that series would be different with Snoop Dogg narrating it).

Digital photography has come a long way but it’s still difficult to get pictures of animals and insects by moonlight, and shining a headlamp on them just isn’t the same. A click beetle with glowering fake eyes is much more impressive when observed by its own bioluminescent light source. And a female tarantula lured out of her den in the same way you taunt a cat loses all her character as a still frame. Birds–just looked like perched loaded tennis balls. It was a fun tour, but I didn’t get good pics.