Yeah, no 6am birdwatching today as it not only rained, we were actually in the clouds and sight was limited.
But the view out of our balcony was stunnning nevertheless.
The La Tigra Rainforest Lodge is part of a conservation, education and local community project with the aim to bridge a gap between two large chunks of secondary rainforest areas and thusly (always wanted to use that word) to create a wildlife and ecological corridor.
Twenty years is enough to turn a cow pasture into a forest like you see in the picture above – an explosion of wildlife happened alongside.
27 people from the area are now employed by the project in activities related to tourism, but also teaching, research, and sponsoring and guiding micro-projects in the communities around.
This effort requires not only a lot of dedication and enthusiasm, but also a budget to buy land and invest into the re-planting of indigenous trees.
With all the negative news we get on a daily basis, it gave me hope that little and not so little things matter and make a difference. We are looking foward to contributing more than just the two trees above.
The last bird I saw in La Tigra was a Barred Antshrike, not only a particularly beautiful bird, also with an extraordinary German name, Bindenameisenwürger. This basically means, that this guy strangles ants (with his bare hands, I guess).
Our next stop, La Fortuna, lies at the foot of El Arenal, a mountain that some of my close friends (actually only one) deny exists. I guess it is similar to Bielefeld which suffers from a similar conspiracy.
Today, Wolfgang, I offer undeniable geo-located proof.
Arenal was dormant for several hundred years, before violently erupting in 1968 flattening three villages and killing some 80 people. Then it was continuously active until 2010 and is quiet since then. We walked up to the point from where the above picture was taken through forest that only had 40 years to grow.
Just to demonstrate this amazing power of nature to repopulate devastation, I post a picture I took 1988 at pretty much the same location. And yes, that is me.
Going back to our starting point we ran into some jungle fowl that sported impressive chins and hairstyles.
This post is about two examples of nature undoing damage, first deforestation caused by humans, then deforestation caused by the forces of the earth. First with a bit of human support, in the second example all by itself.
Reassuring to recognize that if humans would stop destroying nature there is a self-healing process up to a point.
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