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One can imagine that Robert Frost was talking about the rainforest
when he wrote about the road less traveled. We trekked over an hour
by car from the main road, and later an hour and a half on foot to
reach the home of Don Carlos and his family. The simple wooden house
stood above a rushing river and was surrounded by the towering trees
of the rainforest.
Our host, Don Carlos, proved to be a very valuable guide, and shared
some secrets of the rainforest with us. On our night hike, we found
colonies of social spiders and a line of leaf-cutter ants. In the
middle of the hike, we stopped with our flashlights off and just
listened to the sounds of the forest. Monkeys cooed somewhere in the
distance above the cacophony of the insects. Don Carlos pointed out
fluorescent fungi, and we all marveled at the complete darkness that
enveloped us.
Just after dawn, we hiked briskly to a high point overlooking the
river to view parrots as they perched in the top of trees below.
Hundreds of parrots (at least 4 different species) get minerals from
exposed rocks in this place each morning to neutralize the acid in
their stomachs. It felt like we were intruding on nature, and we
couldn’t help but wonder how few people had ever witnessed that
sight. In the afternoon, our last hike took us through a large
portion of the surrounding forest and to a refreshing waterfall
where we took a break. After a long day of hiking, we returned to
Don Carlos’ for another fine meal on the covered porch.
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