COSTA RICA Sierpe River

Readers may wonder what else we did while staying at Uvita.  One morning we rose at 4:30 to drive south to Sierpe for a 6:30am tour upriver.  The trip was mainly on the Pan-American Highway, then right after a bridge at Palmar Norte for the Sierpe road.  To our surprise and delight, all the roads were good and we arrived by 6am after failing to cross the bridge and getting lost.

The company offering this tour and many other options is a thriving group called La Perla del Sur.  They operate a lodge nearby which would be a good choice if you want to spend more time at Corcovado.  www.perladelsur.net

Our captain and guide was Jose whose enthusiasm for the animals was unbounded.  He was expert at manouevring the boat into the best position for viewing and photographing.  There were 2 other tourists on this trip, pleasant French people with their own guide.  Above, Jose is tempting a capuchin with fruit juice.

Mother and baby ended up on his shoulder sipping juice

Jose was also interested in these grasshoppers, which are migratory.  He made sure we appreciated the wings.

We saw many interesting birds, including this Green Heron ...

a Southern Lapwing ...

Purple Gallinule

Bare-throated Tiger-heron

Jose was really excited when he spotted (without binoculars) another Bare-throated Tiger-heron with baby in nest.

David noticed this Common/Mangrove Black Hawk (juvenile).




We liked seeing the Orange-chinned Parrot but were ecstatic over a tree full of Scarlet Macaws.

There were also many reptiles.

Jose tried hard to find a position where we could see the head of this tree boa.

Jesus basilisks were fairly common.  This one was about 30 cm.

Caiman, 2m

A fairly long American crocodile

Not many mammals but we liked the long-nosed bats seen at the boatshed and under a bridge.

And we had fun with the howler monkey, both guides imitating the call to provoke a response.

COSTA RICA. Tarcoles

Tarcoles is a small village on the Pacific coast, famous for crocodiles.  We stayed overnight at a nice place, www.cerrolodge.net
 Walking through a nearby national park, we saw spider monkeys and Muscovy ducks.

 We didn`t pay for a croc tour, just looked down from a bridge, but only found a large dragon.

Ctenosaura similis

Back at the lodge we swam, had a beer by the pool, saw a Rufous-naped Wren and after dinner, 2 resident Black and white owls.

COSTA RICA Monteverde

2-toed sloth with baby

Orange-kneed tarantula

Our next adventure involved a trip of 100km, taking over 4 hours because of rocky, potholed roads, not dangerous but tiring.  Supposed to be scenic - the easy early stage around Lake Arenal was pleasant; the mountainous ascent was through farming country with steep hills and gullies.  Nowhere to park and enjoy the views.  We stayed in Santa Elena at Monteverde Villa Lodge (nice place, just near the cemetery) and never actually went into Monteverde itself.  The road became so tedious and we did not want to pay $68 for a 2 hour guided tour with no guarantee of seeing anything interesting.  Instead, we paid $44 for a night tour at Santa Maria, pickup & deliver back to our lodge.  We were the only people over 45; there were 6 groups of 8, mostly American students.  No problems for us in dealing with rough terrain or with creepy crawlies such as giant tarantulas in holes.

 We also saw many lovely birds, lizards, etc but photos are not good.

 Next day we went for a 7am birdwatching walk at Curi-Cancha, which promises 2 very special birds, Three-wattled Bellbird and Resplendent Quetzal.The first animal we saw was an agouti.

The bellbird makes a really loud  noise, nothing like our tinny birds.  I captured it in a movie which won`t load here.

Male bellbird

Tail down

  We kept searching for the quetzal and David found one.  Books show the feathers as green - we saw blue.  Our guide had a feather which was  blue one way and green upside down.

tail up

Two nice girls from Germany were on our walk with Greiner.

We had a good Japanese dinner that night (having had a not so nice Tico meal yesterday).

We went up here - not for oldies

Main street of Santa Elena