At our new home
It is 7:00 pm and we are now in our second night in our new house in Monteverde. I just came back upstairs after Michael called me outside to show me a "toad the size of a rabbit." And yes, there was indeed a very large toad out there.
This is not a surprising development. We are living as close as one can get to the jungle without living in the protected rain forest itself. Our new home is in a different ecosystem than the house we were staying in the first two days; here it is tropical cloud forest, jungle-like, with vegetation unlike anything else, with birds unlike anywhere else, with insects that you have to see to believe. The Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve proper is just a few steps away in our backyard.
Our view and the house are unbelievable. In is hard to describe, and my pictures are not uploading onto blogspot, so I will do my best with words. Our house is covered in windows; the house is octagonally shaped with windows on most sides of the octagon. Our bedroom is windows all around. When we wake up, we look out onto the treetops and out to the Gulf. The particular plant life around us is quite varied-- there are banana trees and cecropia trees and bushes and vines and flowers and grasses and aloe plants-- it is, in essence, a sea of vegetation. There is also a hummingbird feeder that is surrounded by hummingbirds at all hours. Behind our house there are hiking paths through the corner of the cloud forest. The paths are skinny and overgrown and teaming with life everywhere.
Then there are the sounds. The sounds! Every moment there are the songs of birds and insects and tree frogs. This morning, we heard the distant howl of the howler monkey. Tonight, the squeek and whistle of frogs with a backdrop of cricket and buzzing moth wing.
We have a wood burning stove in our house that we already love dearly. We've built several fires in it so far to warm the chill at night and in the morning. The house is also a bit damp due to the rain and proximity to the forest, so the fire helps dry the air a bit.
Last night I found a scorpion crawling near the bed. It was a bit hard to fall asleep after that, admittedly.
Our neighbors (who also own this house) are so wonderful. They own the farm we are living in and are two of the original founders of the Quaker community. Our first night, they brought us a cassarole, fresh baked bread, homemade jam and granola, and a container of goats milk (milked from the goats on this very farm).
This is not a surprising development. We are living as close as one can get to the jungle without living in the protected rain forest itself. Our new home is in a different ecosystem than the house we were staying in the first two days; here it is tropical cloud forest, jungle-like, with vegetation unlike anything else, with birds unlike anywhere else, with insects that you have to see to believe. The Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve proper is just a few steps away in our backyard.
Our view and the house are unbelievable. In is hard to describe, and my pictures are not uploading onto blogspot, so I will do my best with words. Our house is covered in windows; the house is octagonally shaped with windows on most sides of the octagon. Our bedroom is windows all around. When we wake up, we look out onto the treetops and out to the Gulf. The particular plant life around us is quite varied-- there are banana trees and cecropia trees and bushes and vines and flowers and grasses and aloe plants-- it is, in essence, a sea of vegetation. There is also a hummingbird feeder that is surrounded by hummingbirds at all hours. Behind our house there are hiking paths through the corner of the cloud forest. The paths are skinny and overgrown and teaming with life everywhere.
Then there are the sounds. The sounds! Every moment there are the songs of birds and insects and tree frogs. This morning, we heard the distant howl of the howler monkey. Tonight, the squeek and whistle of frogs with a backdrop of cricket and buzzing moth wing.
We have a wood burning stove in our house that we already love dearly. We've built several fires in it so far to warm the chill at night and in the morning. The house is also a bit damp due to the rain and proximity to the forest, so the fire helps dry the air a bit.
Last night I found a scorpion crawling near the bed. It was a bit hard to fall asleep after that, admittedly.
Our neighbors (who also own this house) are so wonderful. They own the farm we are living in and are two of the original founders of the Quaker community. Our first night, they brought us a cassarole, fresh baked bread, homemade jam and granola, and a container of goats milk (milked from the goats on this very farm).
posted by Rebekah at 7:04 PM
1 Comments:
Wow, I could almost picture it...and almost hear it. Great description! It sounds really amazing. I'm gonna start researching plane tickets online...
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