Orchid Garden

This past weekend at Monte Verde I went to an Orchid Garden right in town. This garden holds supposedly 500 or so breeds of orchids, plus a few other flowers and plants as well. I of course had a wonderful time on the tour and of course also stayed after in order to take a few photos. Unfortunately, due to how tiny many of these were, and also the low lighting, I didn't get photos of all that I wanted. I'm sure that's for the best though.


This was is the Butterfly Orchid.
I forgot the name of this one because it was something in spanish, but it's name meant a particular type of dancing woman because it looks a bit like one. Imagine the largest yellow part is the skirt.
My guide told me that this one is found in the states as well, but is extremely rare and endangered. What I thought was cool was that this past spring when Rose, Tebbs, Zack and I went hiking we ran into one of these guys growing naturally in Arkansas. I think there called something to do with a ballet slipper or something.

They nicknamed this one Gingerbread Man, not sure though if that's it's real name or not though.


This ones nickname is cherries and cream, for obvious reasons.

Smallest recorded breed of orchid.
Cute little pet parrot that lived there.


This orchid has a stem that growns inside of the leaf, I think, that keeps it stabilized in windy conditions.

On the way back to the hotel we ended up finding this trail through the woods that turned out to just be the coolest sidewalk I've ever been on. Also on the way back though, something rather unexpected happend. We passed by a Quaker community and decided to stop by and see when their meeting time was on Sunday, because we were curious about it and had heard that it was open to the community. But as we were walking up the drive I saw some people running in what looked like their open back yard, and yes, they were in fact playing Ultimate. I became rather exited and ended up getting to join their game for a few minutes before heading back for lunch.
On a bridge.
We stopped by a coffee farm on the way back and got to sample delicious fresh grown, roasted and brewed coffee. Hhhhmmmmmmmm...

The Cheese Factory

They had dang good ice-cream too.

Sorry about all of the sunset picures, but they all just have their own appeal. Before dinner we all enjoyed the sunset and then played pool for a while. Then during dinner a fellow came and played guitar for us and it was wonderful. It was funny to me that he started with Classical Gas, even though I loved it. I think that was my favorite song when I was in 9th grade or so.

Kate dominating.

Then, after dinner 6 of us decided we wanted to head over to a sports bar we had seen earlier to watch the Texas vs. KU game. Turned out that they didn't get the station much to the dissappointmet of Kate, who's from KU, and Brady and Adria who are from Texas. So after a few minutes of hanging out in the small empty sports bar, we looked around and noticed that this particular sports bar in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Monte Verde had some sports equiptment hanging out on the walls and stuff. We then proceeded to notice a ping pong table that was out of commission. But we knew what that meant. There had to be ping pong balls somewhere too. So yes, we did in fact get two ping pong balls, and 14 cups and played beer pong. I have to admit though that Saturday night was one of the best times I've had since I've been here.

The Rainforest

On Sunday, our last day, we all hiked less than a kilometer to the Monte Verde National Park where we scaled the mountain. It was one of the most beautiful hikes I've ever experienced, but because it was so dim I didn't get all the pictures I wanted(like I really need more), but am happy with a few I got.

Kind of an interesting plant with goo stuff seeping out of it. It was rather large too. That clump of goobidy is larger than the size of my fist.

Us in front of a strangler tree.

Beautifull path with a twisted tree to the left of it.

This itty bitty leafed moss felt like nothing. When you brushed your finger up against it, it was so soft you thought it was just a breeze passing over your hand.
Beautiful path through the jungle. It was hard though to get a steady picture without a tripod. It was too dark and so I had to lean my camera up against things such as trees, hence the moss in this photo. Sometimes I liked the effect though. A beautiful rubbery feeling flower on the ground.

Crawled inside a tree and took a photo looking up into it.

Looking down into the depths a tree.

Once we finally got to the top this was the view. We were standing directly on the continental devide, and the view was amazing. Unfortunately of course, no photo can express the beauty of an experience, but I tried a bit. The wind was incredible on one side, and on the other side there was hardly a breeze. I think the sign had said that the high wind times were between December and March, and it can get up to 150/km an hour. The clouds were also quite spectacular. I have never seen them move at such speeds and so clear and defined. One second you couldn't see more than 20 meters ahead of you, and the next you were able to see what is in the following photo.
From the windy side.
Windy side again.
Kate and Nicole feeling the 50+/km an hour winds push us around. It was almost like going through one of those car wash dryer things with the windows down. And I know that a few of you guys know what that's like.
On the non-windy side.
On the way up there.

Would have been more fun if I had actaully been naked...with tennis shoes on.

Me experiencing pure bliss from the view.