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Published: April 28th 2010
Ready to start the day
All fresh and clean waiting to wilt.Good Morning All:
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Sitting outside our room at 6:00 AM. The birds are singing, the howler monkeys howling, and the crabs scuttling about. Costa Rica is awake. I'm sweating already!
Had some trouble with the photos and spelling yesterday as you may have noticed. I'll try to do better today.
Up and in the boat (before breakfast) by 6:00 for a river and canal tour. 6:00 AM, do you appreciate the full impact of that? Hot as Hades already. But, in for a penny, in for a pound. Saw many beautiful birds, flowers and other wildlife. (See photos). At 8:00 they brought us back for breakfast. Fruit, rice and beans, eggs and pancakes. After breakfast we got a half-hour break and then back out again for a walk in the forest.
But, first a stop to get fitted for rubber boots. We hadn't quite dried out yet from the humidity of the boat trip, but we dutifully got our rubber boots. Boots that others had undoubtedly had sweaty feet in.
Our guide Fernando said follow me, so we did. The boots are for
The already famous anhinga
These birds need to get out of the water to dry their wings or they cannot fly. the mud - thick, gooey, boot sucking mud. After 90 minutes and a sighting of a spider and a venomous snake (See photos) we were so drenched I cannot describe it. I looked over at Emily who looked physically ill. When I asked what was the matter, she said "I want a shower".
So we rushed back to our room, showered, changed our clothes and ran to the pool to cool off. Not a bit of shade in the pool so even the kids couldn't stay long. The prospect of being cooked alive made us seek out Fernando to ask if we could take an early evening boat trip. The National Park "closes" at 5 PM, but he arranged to take us out from 3:30 to 5:30. Not exactly the coolest part of the day, and no guarantee of animal sightings, but we decided to go.
The first picture I tried to take told me I needed to recharge the battery. So these photos are Guy's. I probably didn't need to tell you that. You'll see for yourselves.
Were we ever glad. Saw a couple of rare birds and an iguana, but the best were white-faced monkeys.
Green Heron
Doesn't look green so not sure why they call it a green heron. There were half-dozen or so, but, one threesome were fairly close. And the white-faced monkeys are the only ones who brave the forest floor instead of always jumping from tree to tree. There was a baby, maybe 6 months old, who clearly was practicing climbing, swinging, and jumping from one branch to another. What a site.
On our way back, the moon had risen and it just seemed the perfect ending to the day.
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Michele Aspinall
non-member comment
Great photos! Willem has enjoyed the morning blog. "Mom, mom they saw a Caiman, they're so lucky!" We're also reading along in AYM. Can't wait to see the adventures tomorrow bring.