We woke up on Tuesday morning, not really knowing what to expect. We knew we were in for a day of adventure,
but I don’t think we knew just how insane it would be! We started the morning off with an awesome jungle tour with hanging bridges. Within a minute of the tour, our guide showed us a green viper snake that they found that morning. We were staring right at it without even realizing it was there because it blended so well with the leaves!!! 
We also saw some hummingbirds which I became somewhat obsessed with while I was here in Costa Rica. As we were crossing the first hanging bridge, we saw a family of coati’s, which are raccoon-like animals. There were so many gorgeous plants, flowers, creatures and animals that we saw throughout our tour! We saw beautiful blue butterflies, the “owl butterfly,” an owl, a sloth and much more. Ross and I were surprised at how much we learned throughout this 2 hour jungle tour. 
The trees. It was so crazy to see the variety of trees throughout the cloud forest. At the end of our tour, we got to climb up a hallow fig tree.
In some cases the host tree dies and decomposes leaving a hollow strangler fig tree. We also swung on roots that are dangling from the top of the tree (a little backwards) that could hold up to 900 pounds!!! 
The wasps. I found this article from the Internet that is pretty interesting.
“One of the most striking differences between the life cycles of eusocial and solitary wasps, aside from solitary wasps living and surviving as individuals rather than in a colony, is that while eusocial wasp larvae are nurtured in the nest by a caste of wasps, many solitary wasps are parasitic. Some solitary wasps have potent venom that rather than killing their prey, serves as an anesthesia of sorts, paralyzing their prey for as many as 4 months (Spider wasps, which often prey upon spiders as large as tarantulas, have been observed to paralyze their tarantula prey for up to 5 months while the spider remains alive and immobile).
“While the prey is immobilized by the venom, many solitary wasps inject their eggs into the still living prey (only female wasps can sting). After the venom is metabolized, the victim regains movement and continues to live until it is eaten alive by the developing wasp larvae inside it (depending on the solitary wasp species, the prey may die before the larvae actually develop or it may continue to live). Exhibiting their sophistication and intelligence, many solitary wasps sting their victims (especially the more menacing ones like spiders) in their mouth and leg parts first, rendering the victim unable to fight back while the wasp administers several more precisely placed stings into the nerve centers of the future egg host. The predation upon many different insects by wasps plays a large part in the control of many insect populations within the neotropics. Also, another striking difference between social and solitary wasps is that while social wasps build conspicuous nests, solitary wasp nests are much harder to locate, often in a small underground burrow or attached to the underside of a leaf or branch.” Our guide showed us wasp larvae that were inside of a plant leaf. Also, that night we saw a tarantula that had (most likely) been stung and paralyzed by a wasp. The food chain is so cool!
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