The Great Quetzal Quest


We headed out this morning for the Quetzal sanctuary across the valley we were in and over the mountain. The road was good but lots of up and down and around with spectacular drops. We stopped at one hotel before the sanctuary which had room in their lot for us but the girl at the desk was rather vague about whether we could stay or not. She also had extremely red eyes and looked to have been crying a lot recently.

(entrance to Quetzal sanctuary)

We went on and had to pass right by the sanctuary as there was no way we could pull over or get in their small driveway. The same for the other hotel just past it. We got into the next town where I flagged down some cops and talked to them. They told me about another hotel farther on with a lot of room. I don't know what it is down here but people just don't understand what kind of room we need even when they are looking right at the rigs. We passed that hotel too as there didn't appear to be enough room to even pull into it. At a gas station farther on, they offered us a spot next to the pumps - with 24 hour armed security of course - and we said we might be back.

We returned to the first place and I convinced the desk girl that we should park in front of their hotel and eat at their restaurant. She finally agreed although to tell the truth she had never said we couldn't she was just so vague and indecisive that I couldn't tell if it would be all right or not. I finally kind of outlined what we were going to do and then said something like 'that's OK right?' and she kind of smiled and I stuck my hand out, shook her hand and thanked her. So, tomorrow at 5:15 AM we are going to get up !! and go down the road to look for this elusive bird.

On the way back to the first hotel, we stopped at a pulloff near the entrance to the sanctuary to check on whether they had seen any of the birds lately. Bobby went down and walked up above the nearby restaurant with a young guy who said they had been seeing some very early in the morning. While he was gone, I took this pic of an interesting palm. There are a lot of these here as well as azaelas and rhododendrons. The developed countryside is full of tented fields that the cops told me have ornamental plants inside for export to the US and Canada. Most of them looked like ferns as we drove by but there are also a lot of blooming orchids under cultivation.

I kind of insisted that I needed an internet fix so we set the dish up too here in the parking lot. I'm actually caught up on the blog now and will try and answer some email. It's getting late though and I have an early date with an endangered bird.