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

COSTA RICA La Fortuna and Arenal

Hotel Bijagua at La Fortuna was a good choice for us, very nice room and garden, supermarket next door and an excellent meal from soda y restaurante across the road.

Tablito tipica for 2

Seen just outside our room

Blue-crowned Motmot

Baltimore Oriole

National bird - Clay-coloured Robin (Thrush)

White-winged Dove

Ruddy Ground-dove

 We drove west past Lake Arenal to Arenal Volcano.  This is as close as we could get.  A bit further down the road we walked one trail, seeing only this Emerald Basilisk until rain sent us back.

The weather improved so we walked a shorter trail.

We saw many heliconias and several big birds, Gray-headed Chachalacas.

Heliconia lathispata

COSTA RICA La Selva Biological Station

This conservation area is one of the two most important tropical research institutions in the world.  We stayed here for 3 nights, went on 3 guided walks and felt privileged to contribute our tourist dollars to the enterprise.  Because it covers such a large area and so many diverse habitats, the species list for everything from birds to bats to fish is extensive.

Collared peccaries were often seen

Agouti below our balcony

Male howler monkeys have very loud voices.

3-toed sloth waking up

Another 3-toed sloth peeing

By chance, we had the same guide for each walk, Geiner.  He was great - enthusiastic and happy to search for all creatures.

Two ocelots were seen from this bridge while we stayed here.

Everyone crossing the bridge into the jungle had to wear boots because of venomous snakes.  They gave me rubber boots since my boots had been stolen in Quito.



We saw 2 snakes, each less than 1 m and so deadly that the guide used my camera for the first one.

Hog-nosed viper

Eyelash viper

Other reptiles seen were iguanas, turtles, skinks and anoles.

Green Iguanas sat on top of trees near the river.

Rarely seen Helmeted Iguana

Brown wood turtle

Of course, there were many other animals.

Crested guan

Blue-gray tanager

Passerini`s tanager

Female curassow

Bullfrog

Bullant, feared by all

Poison dart frog aka Blue Jeans, seen everywhere

Mating millipedes

wasps

Golden orb weaver

Invading ants drove these bats out of a post.

White tent-making bats under their leaf shelter

COSTA RICA Alajuela

Alajuela is a town near the airport for San Jose.

We stayed there for 2 nights at Hotel Pura Vida which had a lovely garden.  After  getting colones (money) and a SIM we took a cab to Grecia, a supposedly attractive town. We didn't realise it was so far away, $32 fare.  The town had nothing to offer but ordinary shops.  I asked 5 people as we wandered about a bus to Sarchi, another tourist destination nearby.  The bus cost $2.  A policeman told us where to find the House of the Painted Ox Cart.  Here David was happy, as he wandered through this old carpentry shop driven by a water wheel.  I liked the end product and the good souvenir shop.
We got a bus back to Alajuela and alighted into heavy rain.  Taxis were full so we took shelter in a cake shop serving coffee.  The girls there were very nice and directed David to the nearest grog shop for a bottle of Chilean red, $9.  Aussie wines sell for around $18.

At breakfast next morning our Toyota (Daihatsu) Bego was delivered.  Cost is $1230 for 2 weeks, including $350 for total insurance.  It`s a very neat 4WD.  Then we set forth on the 4 hour (we got lost) drive to La Selva Biological Station.  Hmmmm....  We had to negotiate the busy often one-way streets out of Alajuela with me using the GPS (note: NOT a vocal navigator).  My problem was sheer terror - driving on the wrong side of the road.  I really felt that we were always about to plough into parked cars or rip through pedestrians!  David`s main problem was me crying and screaming.  I couldn't shut my eyes because I was navigating.  For most of the drive I looked left.