Visitors and Fungi!

Well, what a first two weeks we’ve had.

Things have gone pretty smoothly so far, touch wood (plenty of it around here) and we’ve eased into life on the reserve. The walk in from Via Cascadas seems to be getting shorter and shorter, partly because we are getting more sure-footed at negotiating Sendero Principal but largely because we are learning to eat lighter food! We bought a large cabbage in the first week. What were we thinking!? 2 kilos of pain!

We’ve had a steady stream of visitors in our first two weeks at the reserve – some in wellies, some in converse trainers and some in socks and sandals! I’ve taken a look at the guestbook, where visitors are invited to leave contact details and thoughts and observations about the place, and have pulled out some figures to give you an idea of who comes here and where they come from.

So far in 2013 we’ve had 49 people visit the reserve from 12 different countries. Over a third of our visitors this year have come from the USA (16). Ecuador, France and Denmark have yielded 5 visitors each and Holland 4 (2 of which were our first guests, Eric and Susie!).

We have had 2 guests from each of Switzerland, Canada, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Australia and, most recently, Estonia.

Everyone loves a list of countries don’t they? Maybe not, but what we found most interesting about all of of our visitors was despite differences in culture language and country of birth they all had something brilliant in common! Everyone who has visited the reserve has been passionately interested in what Las Tangaras has to offer, they have looked for the small things as well as the big and they have all wanted to get ‘off the beaten track’. I suppose anyone who is willing to follow a small sign saying ‘Las Tangaras 2km’ pointing into the jungle and follow it up, down and around valley will all have a certain sense of adventure in them. We look forward to meeting our future guests and for now we will leave you with some of the smaller things we find on Reserva Las Tangaras, which are easy to photograph as they do not run, fly or crawl away.

Next time, we’ll update you on the Las Tangaras Camera Trap Project!