Canopy or Cathedral ?

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Geo: 9.66303, -85.0671

On this trip to Montezuma, we discovered a new place to get our exercise and enjoy the process.

Instead of walking on the beach in the sun, hiking to the waterfall with many other people, we found a road that we can walk on, watch the birds and enjoy a respite at a stream coming down the hillside.

We discovered this road when we turned left leaving Luna Llena instead of right down into town. There was a road that did not have any signs saying it was private so we headed up the hill.

There are quite a few large trees along the road but you can also see signs of possible development, ie, telephone poles placed in the ground.

We always go out in the early morning and as you get to the turnoff for this road, there is an incredibly cool breeze blowing off the stream that is at the bottom on the road once you turn onto it.

The road then goes uphill for quite a distance and you begin to look for the birds you hear in the trees.

Over the days of walking on this road, some of the trees have been good birding trees where we most every time see at least one or two species of birds.

As you reach the top of the ridge, you can see the ocean in the distance and the far side of the hill in the other direction.

Many of the trees have begun blooming while we have been here and so that adds to the beauty of this place. Parrots are constantly flying overhead making quite the racket to alert us to their presence.

Male hummingbirds are lekking in the understory and other birds are calling as well.

The road makes a final turn to the right and drops down to the stream at the bottom.

This is the cathedral where we stop for a break, snack and some yoga. It is such a tranquil spot and we have greatly enjoyed it. We did cross the stream and head up a path to see where it went.

We stopped when we were far enough on top to be able to see the ocean and look down into the canopy on a troop of mantled howler monkeys hanging by their tails and eating flowers from a tree. Awesome !

The trail did not go far before it petered out but we were able to look down on the canopy of trees and think how lucky we were to have discovered this place.

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Photos

Oriole ! really in the clear here
When we see an unknown bird, we get as many pictures as possible, and look at the identifiers...beak, eye color, and other distinguishing characteristics and then back to the book for the final analysis

the lovely stream where we enjoyed our rest
This was at the bottom of the hill on our walk. It was surrounded by large trees, ferns and was a great place to rest, have a snack, do some yoga before carrying on on our journey