Costa Rica ’19 Day Five

Peaceful morning on the rooftop Wednesday. The slightest of breezes is keeping the deck cool. This morning we saw in the distance what looked like new visitors… a pod of dolphins breaching the surface in the cove. Looks like they were moving in on something to eat too. Quicker than normal turnaround today, as we warmed up a quick breakfast and rummaged around to get ready for this mornings outing.

At 7:30 AM sharp our naturalist guide for the day, Rocio, arrived in a beautiful, air conditioned van, for the 1/2 hr drive to Carara National Park. Riding in luxury today! We engaged the guide services through Adventure Tours Costa Rica. She pointed out lots of the highlights along the route and we talked Canadian winter vs Costa Rican winter. After a quick stop to pickup tickets / visit the last “banos” prior to our hike, we made our way to a roadside entrance to the park.

As we armed ourselves with sunscreen, bug spray and lots of H2O, Rocio gave us quick lesson in do’s and dont’s and set up her telescope on a tripod for carrying. Basically, stay on the path and close to your guide. Just seconds from the road we started to encounter wildlife. Early in the day, before the heat gets oppressive, is the best time to hike. In short, we saw a wide array of bird life, plant life that seemed from the Jurassic Era, multiple mammal species, and some amazing insects. It’s really too much for a blog, but I’ll throw my efforts into capturing three highlights!

Perhaps at 1/2 km in, we started hearing a raucous… debris (plant leaves and nuts) falling to the forest floor. This was followed almost immediately by a troop of White-faced Monkeys (Capuchin) moving effortlessly through one of the highest nearby trees. I believe Rocio called it a cashew tree. At roughly the same time, several pairs of Scarlet Macaws flew into the same tree. Gorgeous birds in the wild, with a real scream for a call. The younger monkeys moved down, quite close to us and foraged their way past us. Nice moment… Felt like movement from every direction coming closer to us. They were very curious about who’s standing in the neighborhood!

The second highlight, at least for me, was the beautifully colored Black Mandibled Toucan that sat proudly for pictures. This guy is going to double for our “Bird of the Day” as he was spectacular. Rocio explained that he is actually carnivorous, very experienced in killing and predatorial to snakes and other reptiles. We got excellent shots of this bird with our iPhones through the eyepiece of Rocio’s spotting glass. Great find! Other bird species of note, in no particular order or preference, that we encountered include Jacamar, Lattice Tailed Trogon, Royal Flycatcher, Turquoise Motmot and Squirrel Cuckoo.

Although the many birds, Iguanas, Howler monkeys and plant life were amazing, I think the third highlight needs to be close ups we got of insect species. Of note, we got a great lesson about cicada, the noises they make, and life cycles. Further, our guide took us to a mammoth ant colony, where we examined, from the carrying of food to a tree that seemed centuries old, to the sawdust and waste being removed from the back of the tree. Simply incredible to watch the process of life through decay from the front to the back of a tree.

All in, we spent over 2 1/2 hrs on and off main paths covering appr. 4 kms and our guide was just perfect. The nature of the trip was exactly what we were looking for, some rainforest education and encounters with plant, bird and animal species in their natural environment. From there we scooted to a beautiful lunch just past the Crocodile Bridge over the Tarcolitos River, at Restaurante Los Cocodrilos. Authentic Costa Rican with rice, beans, fried plantains, chicken, fish, salad and amazing fresh juices. Costa Ricans refer to this type of “homemade style” meal as a Casado. Then the return home, for roughly a 4 1/2 hr tour. Everyone was happy with the opportunity, quality of information and all aspects of the excursion! Well done and we’d highly recommend!

Gotta say… When we got home we all fell asleep! Then we had a bit of an emergency, that being I had a craving for Piña Colada. Off to “the store” for all the requirements. We remembered Mike’s recommendation on rum, Flor de Cana, so we made that happen. However, while at the MasxMenos the power crashed (luckily just for a minute) and it started to pour! Tropical rain style. We hailed one of the trusty cabs who did a huge U-turn on the middle of the Main Street (😳) and we were home lickety split.

So… With a Piña Colada running start, the evening raced along pretty quickly! We watched the sunset, jumped into the surf that was smacking Jaco Beach, took a dip in the pool, had a cheese and meat supper (with Monica’s fried plantains), Chilean wine and manoeuvred two separate power outages. Another early start Thursday, so after some time on the rooftop we were off to bed in order to catch a sunrise and be prompt.

… Costa Rica ’19 Day Six