Monteverde habitats
Anna:
Can you imagine spending
eight hours drawing plants within a day's walking distance of your
home? Then repeating the endeavor every day for four
months? That's what we did in the spring of 2001, and I seldom
felt a hint of boredom.
I had chosen Monteverde
carefully...and not just for the expatriate American Quaker community
that meant I could get by with limited
Spanish.
Costa Rica is basically a chain of mountains, wet on the Caribbean
side, dry on the Pacific side, and topped by cloud forests on the
highest ridges. Since Monteverde sits near the peak of the
Cordillera de Tilaran, we could easily walk to four completely
different habitats and explore all of the niches in between. I
quickly discovered that rainfall was the most important factor in
determining which plants and animals we would find on our journeys.
The
Atlantic slope of
the Cordillera de Tilaran is nearly aseasonal in its rainfall pattern,
with storms from the Caribbean dropping water here year round.
The average annual rainfall in 
this
area is staggering, reaching 23 feet in certain areas, and the wetness
leads to lush plant growth. The result is called the Atlantic
slope rain forest
and is the only true rain forest we experienced during our stay.
We would visit this area only once, so you'll have to wait for this
adventure.
At
the top of the
mountain (above about 4900 feet in elevation) lies the cloud
forest.
Although the cloud forest has less rainfall than on the Atlantic slope
(a mere 10 feet on average per year), frequent mists from low-lying
clouds keep the cloud forest in a constant state of damp. You'll
notice that several pages of my sketchbook (like the one at the top of
the page) are wrinkled or smudged from the damp conditions, even during
the "dry season." We often made a trek up to the cloud forest to
explore the epiphytes and other unique features of this diverse forest.
But
the easiest habitat
to reach was right outside our door --- the Pacific
slope seasonal 
forest.
The town of Monteverde lies in the mountain's rain shadow and has a
notable dry season from November to May. Even though the total
annual rainfall in the Pacific slope seasonal forest (around 7.5 feet)
is nothing to sneeze at, six months without rain does away with some of
the jungle-like features seen in cloud forests and Atlantic slope rain
forests. In fact, as you descend the west side of the Cordillera
de Tilaran, conditions become drier and drier until you reach patches
of forest that lose their leaves for the dry season. We took
several walks down the side of the mountain to explore this much drier
forest, which I consider a fourth habitat type.
Maggie:
3-3-01
After the thrill of my
life, I am lounging back in the hotel before supper. The thrill
occurred while Anna was drawing and I decided to explore the
paths....
Eventually our accumulated dogs and I came to the road which we
followed
briefly before coming to another side path. It looked like the
place
to be. So I followed it to a few buildings which I found to be
the
library, Friends meeting house/(church), and Friends’ school.
I
was ecstatic as I explored the library. It was empty, even of
librarians. In fact, it runs on the honors system. I rushed
back to
tell Anna and to bring her to my magnificent find. I am excited to attend the
Friends meeting tomorrow
since I imagine we will meet many local Quakers.
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