We woke up around 6am, then snuggled until 7 when we got up and got showered. We headed to Dan and Assana's room and then the four of us walked up the road to the restaurant for breakfast, which of course included rice and beans. On our way back we were looking down at the ground and noticed some leaves walking by... it was a convoy of leaf-cutter ants! We spent some time watching them and found the bushes they were cutting up, followed the trail they had worn into the dirt for more than 50 feet back to their home, and then saw them digging dirt out of the ground and making large mounds of it. It was really amazing to watch.

Leaf cutter ants

At 9am we went to the front desk and met Antonio, who took us on a two and a half hour horseback ride. We started out on the road, then made our way through some fields, up and down hills, over a stream, and through a muddy ravine. A bit exciting in places, it was lots of fun. Amazingly our horse's personalities seemed to match the riders'. We were all joking and laughing the whole time. Antonio didn't speak any English, so Randy did his best to translate for the group. Once we got off the horses we needed to stretch a bit to get our legs to work properly again.

Canopy Zip Lines
Lunch once again included rice and beans, this time with some chicken. Afterwards we headed to the rooms for a rest, then back to the lobby for our 1:30pm canopy tour. This was similar to the one we did in Honduras, but with a larger group. They suited us up with gear (gloves, helmet, carabineer, and harness), then we walked for a bit to the first tree. We had all walked quickly, which put us at the beginning of the group. We climbed up some stairs, then got hooked on and jumped out, held up by a steel cable. There were six cables in all, with platforms in the trees as way stations, most around 80 feet in the air. Everything was amazingly green and covered in moss, and then the moss had moss on it! At one of the stations we even saw a howler monkey that was feasting on some leaves. It was lots of fun and we got some great pictures. Afterwards we walked back, turned in our gear, and headed to the rooms for some relaxing and washing up for dinner, which of course included rice and beans.

While the weather had cooperated nicely during the day for our activities, we definitely saw why they called this area the Los Angeles Cloud Forest. The clouds were pretty much present the whole day, with fog and mist everywhere. It made everything a bit moist, we were pretty sure that nothing really ever dries out completely! (Though Dan and Assana tried, and when they ran out of wood, Dan came over to our room to get some of our wood).