On the walk up into the Cloud Forest Reserve in Monteverde, I spotted this palm pit viper hanging on a root only a few meters from the road. Sometimes some of the best encounters occur when we least expect them to. It broke my heart to find it again, one day later, deceased on the side of the road. Perhaps he starved, or maybe a predator — human or otherwise — removed it from its perch. A tragic reminder of the dance of life and death in the cloud forest.