Costa Rica - Atlantic - Lots of animals!

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March 5th 2008

Published: January 30th 2010

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fer de lance

d d vine snake4

Vine snake that made the pose for us

Third time in Costa Rica, but this time to visit the Atlantic coast. That region doesn't really have a real dry season like the Pacific North West, so it may rain less, but it's raining a little bit everyday nonetheless. This was perfect because the jungle there is really all green and it was much easier to spot frogs, and we saw a ton of them, without any difficulty!
So in brief, we arrived and stayed at San Jose one night. Next we took the bus to the Atlantic. The bus trip was really nice, especially in the mountains, in Braulio Carrillo park, where the cliffs and sides of mountains are litteraly draped with plants!
Arrived at our place for a couple of days, we stayed at Puerto Viejo, a very sympathic little village.
The highlight really, is Cahuita national park. Nowhere in Costa Rica, you can see wild monkeys, sloths and others, so close... and also snakes!
Every morning i took a walk behind the village, and was able to see hundreds of blue jeans dart frogs mating, so they were everywhere. These frogs have variations in color, so they are all reds at that place. More inland, they have

d e capucin s

Close-up of capuchin

the distinctive blue legs. In Panama, in Bocas Del Toro islands, they even vary far more in coloration.
In Puerto Viejo, we also visited a small botanical garden, that turned out to be a good spot for wildlife.
Then we begun to come back. We stop on the way to Guapiles, and stayed there a couple of days. We slept in a cabin, up on the shore of a river, full of forest. One wall of the cabin was completely made of screens, so you had the impression of sleeping in a tent. I liked that very much, but my wife did not sleep very well, (she's not a camping fan).
While staying there, we visited the very beautiful Heliconia island botanical park. As the name suggests, it possesses a very large collection of plants of the heliconias family.
We left after that to stay a couple of days in Alajuela. We met our friends there, that we made last trip. We went to restaurant, and the kingdom hall with them. It was really nice to see them again!
In Alajuela, we took a bus to go to Grecia World of snakes, an outdoor snake zoo, where you can take

h poison vert5

Black and green dart frog

some of the snakes in your hands.
Real nice!
After that we came back home. Sniff, sniff!

Next trip in 2009, was to Mexico: Mexico city, Teotihuacan pyramids, Monarchs butterflies in Michoacan, (they migrate from Canada), Oaxaca, PAcific Coast, lots and lots of little villages. Actually, a more cultural trip than the one before, but really many nice things too.
Check my next blog.

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