Feb 27 -- oak forest

Last day in Cuerici. It was a great day; we had FLP presentations in the morning and then time for writing, but I had somehow managed to not have anything to work on. So I walked down the hill for a couple of hours in the morning, and then in the afternoon Becky and I walked up to the old-growth oak forest and back down, the loop. We took our time, looking at birds and plants. It is such a beautiful place! The oaks are evergreen and enormous. They are covered in moss and other epiphytes; lots of bromeliads. And there are hummingbird-pollinated plants everywhere. I think it’s probably too cold for very many insects up there, so the plants do better with bird pollination. The clouds lifted while we hiked up, so we saw both the mist in the trees and then the long view from the platform on the ridge.

For dinner we had some Cuerici-farmed trout, which tasted amazing. We’re having a party tonight, there will be guitar-playing, latin dancing, and beer pong (I won’t be participating in that last one.) Tomorrow morning early we leave. I’m definitely going to miss the cold and dry – as soon as we come down from the mountains I’ll start sweating and probably won’t stop for 2 weeks.