We had breakfast early and then started off to hike the trail up to the top of te TFI property. The main hub of TFI is located in a valley. The ridge-line is about 3,500 feet, and the trail is probably 2 miles long, so you can imagine how uphill it is. lol. Because it is the rainy season here, we hiked in rubber boots (like rain boots)The trail starts in what they call the tree plantation. This is an area that has been reforested with lots of native, tropical, sun loving trees. They were all planted at the same time, which makes it an even-aged stand and is the reasoning for the plantation name. you spend about 15 minutes walking through the plantation. It used to be cow pasture. It is much cooler than pasture, but still hot and humid. I saw a Blue Morpho butterfly, which is something I have always wanted to see. The trail is narrow, very slick (wet, red clay) and steep. There are roots, water bars and TONS of ant highways (leaf cutter ants- also very cool)
Eventually, you reach the primary forest, an older, un-even aged stand. Here are taller canopy trees that like shade. There are trees with buttressing roots, a really cool tree called the walking palm and trees that have spines that are literally hypodermic needles. If you trip and fall, we are told its better to just fall than to try to reach out and grab at something to catch yourself, because you might get a handful of those. It is much much cooler in the primary forest, and darker because of the higher shade. There are poison dart frogs in the primary forest, which is pretty cool. There are also more hanging vines, climbing vines and bromeliads, so it looks more rainforest-y. The hike through the primary forest is shorter than the plantation. When you exit the primary forest, you enter a neighbor farmer`s land. He has cows in pasture. There are a few fruit trees and we picked some fruit to sample, including guava and acid oranges (really really sour oranges) There is a little peak here where you can see a really long way, to the Pacific Ocean. We took a group photo there, which you will see later. We hike up through his pasture (the cows stared at us the whole time) and up onto another ridge, where you see even farther. The view there is even better. don`t worry, I took photos there too. Then we entered another forest area, which is a mix of forest they just let go, forest that has been managed and some primary forest. There is an Indian Burial site that a local Tico is illegally digging. We hit a rough spot where a very large tree fell and took out several other trees with it (a domino effect) and brought several large trees, small trees and brush across the trail. We had to hack through the brush and go up (steep) and over the blockage. We continued on the trail, through mixes of stages of forest to finally arrive at a guy named Arno`s house. He is one of the members of the board of directors of TFI. He has a very nice, open air house with a guest house and a swimming pool, which of course we took advantage of. He also has a really nice view of the pacific ocean. I have photos of that too. We had a lunch of crackers and peanut butter (LAMO) and walked back down to TFI. The rest of the day was pretty chill, and we all hit up the AWESOME swimming hole. Its really awesome, and`ll post photos later. There is a little mini waterfall that you can sit in and when you do, you can sit behind the water fall. its pretty awesome.
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