Beauty pervades: dramatic landscapes down to fascinating microscopic details. Birds flurry around this flowered tropical paradise. Mystic clouds envelope the volcano that we climb. We reach the top and begin a steep, muddy decent into the crater. We arrive at a lake in the center -- the scene feels so eery with the this fog all around. Though the water is cold, we strip and take a swim. Justin and I swim out to the center of the lake, about 50m, to where we see nothing but fog and water and each other. A very strange feeling to experience such emptiness of space! We continue in a line (as straight as we were able), reaching the other side. Hiking back, we hear voices, and being naked, were a little nervous about how to maneuver. It doesn't take long though before we realize that we have reached the place where we had started! Good laughs, yummy lunch. The fog lifts very suddenly, and our mysterious lake is unveiled.
On the return, we happen on some ants carrying leaves many times larger than their bodies. There are many thousands of them, each with a piece of leaf that (he? she?) cut, and have in fact fashioned their own highways. Their collective behaviors remind me of bees -- they are a superorganism: no ant is capable of surviving on their own, and their joint effort produces an incredible accomplishment. Different size ants have different roles -- the big daddy ones (around 3x in size, about 1cm long) are the slave drivers; they are exempt from carrying leaves themselves. We weren't sure what the ants actually do with all the leaves once they bring them into their underground lair. Some leaf-cutting ants use the bacteria and fungi that grow on the leaves, according to my biologist companions. So incredible to observe all of the complex patterns of these ants, and to wonder at how many other processes are happening unnoticed everyday. Solid motivation to keep my eyes and ears open.
Today we will explore the forests on zip lines and maybe enjoy some hot springs! I am so happy right now to be traveling with two wonderful people and to be having an experience that cracks my senses wide open and brings a constant smile to my face as I am delighted by this colorful paradise.
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