Day 2 Costa Rica - Stephanie

With the roosters crowing at 5 am here, you don't need an alarm clock, which we worried about last night.  No fears!  The roosters will let you know when it's time to get up and they are relentless!  With daylight shining in our faces we thought we had overslept to meet our tour guide.  Nope, we still have 2.5 hours to kill before the first "Soda" opened up for breakfast.  And what a breakfast it was!  Fresh, friendly, and cheap.  Met another local photographer at breakfast and his friend, a native born Manzanillo, introduced herself.  She said her name in Spanish, then held her nose and said in a nasally  tone "Karen for US".  She was extremely friendly and funny.  The children of the owners were playing with the family dog and running around chasing and catching chickens and bringing them to show them off to us.  Great entertainment!

After breakfast we had a little more time to kill and photographed the locals coming in in busloads to the beach.  We later learned that this was a holiday weekend and the beach would be packed (no joke - it was!).

Show time!  Abel (pronounced Avel) Bustamante showed up and the trek to the jungle began!  Never in my wildest dreams did I think that we would see just about everything I had on my list I wanted to see in the first day!  Abel was wonderful!  He has charisma, charm, KNOWLEDGE, and a great personality!  I know we could not have picked a better guide than he.  Our "4 hour tour" ended up being a 6 hour tour, then a very nice 2 hour dinner with him learning even more.   His wife runs a local "tourist" store where we stopped in for more water and formal introductions (even though we met her in their house the night before).

Then dinner in another local "Soda" on the beach that specialized in Caribbean cuisine.  And YUM!!  Especially the home made hot "sauce" with onions and cucumbers soaking in it.  I think Abel was a bit surprise at the amount of that I added to my food and he said I was like his wife, I liked the hot stuff.  :)

Back to the jungle.  We saw Howler Monkeys, Golden Orb spiders (of which I allowed one to crawl all over my hands while Kevin ran off), Leaf Carrying Ants, Bullet Ants (STAY AWAY FROM! - Abel said one bite from them is like being stung by 500 bees), we saw all 3 Toucan species that inhabit this part of Costa Rica, Strawberry Poison Dart Frogs, Camillion, Yellow Crowned Night Heron, a Broad Winged Hawk that was not a common site in this area and it was being harassed by Collared Aracari - Toucan, a Crested Guan (which Abel was excited about because it's not a common local bird either), 3 Pale-billed Woodpeckers, Helicopter Damselfy, lizards, Gartered Trogon, Green Iguana, Hammer Head Lizards (2), Yellow-Headed Gecko, Iguana, and then............ Drum Roll..............Two Toes Sloth, Three Toed Sloth (2), and Yellow Eyelash Viper and Gray Eyelash Viper!  And not to stop there, Abel pulled me to the side and told Kevin to keep going (as he knew of Kevin's fear of spiders), he showed me a hole and gently stuck a stick into it bringing out a Tarantula (which he said was an old friend of his).  I'm sure I'm leaving out some things we did see, but those are the ones that stick out in my mind.

After dinner it was shower time and time to down load photos.  Then it was lights out for me.  Jungle life is hard on me.  I tried to edit photos but kept falling asleep.  Night, night.  (Insert thinking I was in a horror movie due to the Howler Monkeys howling in the middle of the night - eerie and scary sounding!!!!)

GREAT day 2.  Day 3 will be a chill day to recoup from Days 1 and 2.

Stephanie

PS   After looking at photos, I realized I actually got the Geicgo's tongue going out to catch an ant! I knew he was eating them, but didn't think I caught that.  Yay!  Bonus!!

Young Local with Chicken

Two young local girls arriving at the beach by bus

Eneresto - Local Resident

Two Friendly Local Residents

Black-mandible Toucan

Three Black-mandible Toucans

Black-mandible Toucan

 

Broad Winged Hawk

Butterfly silhouette

Caligo (Owl) Butterfly

Camillion

Collared Aracari

Spider (do not know what kind)

Crested Guan

 

Gray Eyelash Viper

Female Pale Billed Woodpecker

Female Pale Billed Woodpecker

Golden Eyelash Viper

Golden Eyelash Viper

Golden Orb 

Gray-necked Wood Rail

Hammerhead

Helicopter Damselfy

Howler Monkey Family - Female on top left with baby, male on top right, female with baby on bottom limb

 

Iguana

Keel-billed Toucan

Lizard Love

 

Long Eared Bat (Soooo cute!!!)

Male Pale Billed Woodpecker

Cemetery by the beach

Abandoned hut by the beach

Three Toes Sloth

Two Toed Sloth

Strawberry Poison Dart Frog

 

Tarantula coming out of his hole

Tarantula

Tarantula going back to his hole

 

Two Toed Sloth

Some kind of Warbler (I think - couldn't find it in the Costa Rica bird book)

Yellow Crowned Night Heron

Golden Eyelash Viper

Yellow Headed Geico (tongue out catching ant)