Costa Rica 2012
Today the cloud was low on the hillside and we had very light rain for a few minutes, but this quickly disappeared as we drove down the mountain. A pleasant drive to the border where the formalities of crossing out of Panama into Costa Rica took some time. We were back down on the Pacific coast in time for lunch and then a short drive brought us to the Eco lodge in the middle of the rainforest, where we are now. It is very hot, humid and noisy here, but we are loving the change of scenery and have some great tours in the next two days. The birds and plant life are amazing – just spent some time watching an army of ants crossing the path, carrying massive pieces of leaves to their nest.
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Picnic in the Botanical Garden
Another early breakfast and a short bus run back to the coast to get a boat for an hour ride out to a botanical garden. On the way we saw macaws, toucans, but no dolphins. We had a guided tour of the garden and saw a wide variety of plants, not all of them native species, and we got to taste some of the fruit hot off the tree. We saw grapefruit trees, chocolate (cocoa) trees, nutmeg, cinnamon, many herbs and a lot of exotic and colourful flowers. We had a picnic lunch in the garden and then swam in the ocean for a short while – the water was so warm. Just waiting for dinner now, back at the Eco lodge, where we have just been out filming more leaf cutter ants which John says he can watch all day and have visited the cayman in his pool too. Tomorrow we have a tour of the rainforest here and then move northwards for a two night stay on the coast in the central region of Costa Rica. Food here has been wonderful.
Costa Rica – Moving On
After dinner last night we took a torch and went out frog hunting, small frogs no bigger than your thumbnail can make an awfully loud noise! This morning we also found that the bats that normally live in the main lodge move to a roost outside the front door of our cabin, which gave us a surprise when we got up this morning. After breakfast we had our tour of the rainforest (quite dry because it hasn’t rained there for at least a week). Although it is dry and sunny here, all our clothes are wet because of the heat and humidity. We saw lots of interesting trees and plants and more ants (this time the very tiny fire ants), but didn’t see any more frogs unfortunately. A short three hour drive has taken us northwards along the coast to the central region where we are staying in a large resort hotel – tomorrow will start with a trip to a very different rainforest, but more of that in the next blog.
Carrera
Breakfast this morning was fun – the capuchin monkeys come in from the forest to steal from the breakfast tables – their food of choice is the little sachets of sugar which they run off with in their mouths. Afterwards we did our forest tour which was different because it represented the boundary between wet and dry forests and so had features of both. We saw a few birds, but these are always difficult to photograph amongst the trees, some bats, some of which were curled up in a partly open leaf, and an iguana (sadly not one of the really brightly coloured ones we had seen elsewhere. After a quick lunch by the ocean, we went on our next tour which was a trip along the river, bird watching and crocodile watching – saw some wonderful birds and watched the crocodiles being fed with pieces of chicken. A lovely sunset at the spot where the river flowed into the ocean. Out for a meal in a few minutes and another early start tomorrow. Hope to get pictures of the monkeys then.
Rincon National Park
Currently sitting outside our cabin at 9:30pm, after dinner and cocktails. Temperature is still in the 30s during the day and never below 20 at night. Last night we were taken out to a nice seafood restaurant on the coast with lovely food, both for fish eaters and vegetarians.
This morning we were on the road again at 8am and heading northwards, but only after having breakfast with the monkeys. We were trying to get photos of them stealing our sugar, but they used a classic ploy to deceive us, one of them posing for a photograph, whilst his mate crept in from behind to steal. The successful thief ran off with his booty in his mouth and grinned at us from a safe distance as if to say “Gotcha”.
We arrived at our new hotel at midday and for some of us it was straight off to visit the national park at Rincon. This is a volcano, which hasn’t erupted since….. Well, last night actually. The Forest here is very different, dry and with some cactus, and was a fun walk over rough terrain, log bridges, wire bridges. We saw more capuchin monkeys as well as howler monkeys and a few bird species which we hadn’t seen before. The highlight was when we got to the volcanic area and saw the bubbling mud pools and thermal springs. On the way up we had also seen a geothermal power plant, where they pump water into the hot volcanic rocks and the water turns to steam to turn the power gearing turbines.
Tomorrow it’s off again and another border crossing into Nicaragua.
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