Nature beckons
- jeanneb
- May 1
- 3 min read
The last few weeks we've been exploring northern Costa Rica. We've had the opportunity to see so many amazing creatures, vistas and even some things that we'd wished we'd not seen so up close and personal.
To start the month, we had a boat trip through the mangroves just north of the popular surf town of Tamarindo. This beautiful national marine park Las Baulas de Guanacaste was full of cool creatures. We had an excellent informed guide that was able to point out to us an amazing number of species in just over 2 hours.
Northern raccoons (procyon lotor), long-nosed bats (rhychoncyteris naso), an american crocodile (crododylus acutus), a bare-throated tiger-heron (tigrisoma mexicanum), a boat-billed heron (cochleaurious cochleaurius), a green heron (butorides virescens), a snowy egret (egretta thula), a plumbeous kite (ictinia plumbea), mangrove crabs (cardisoma crassum), belted kingfisher (megaceryle alcyon) and of course a few brown pelicans (pelcanus occidentalis).
Moving inland, we visited a reserve for rescued injured and/or rehabilitating animals. There we were able to get up close and personal to a white-throated capuchin monkey (cebus capucinus), ocelots (leopardas pardalis), a variety of macaws, toucans, parrots and the local costa rican deer. Again our guide was extremely knowledgeable (he didn't seem older then 15!) and had lived with his family at the reserve for most of his life.
Moving higher in altitude, near the town of La Fortuna and the Arenal volcano we again found an amazing guided hiking tour to look for sloths (both two toed and three toed). We saw many more than expected including two mamma's with their babies. We also saw poisonous blue-jeans dart frogs (oophaga pumilio), an emerald basilisk lizard (basiliscus plumifrons) and a family of great currassow (wild turkey/crax rubra) running along the trail.
Continuing our loop in northern Costa Rica, we passed the Rio (river) Celeste and stayed in a lovely valley between the Miravalles & Tenorio volcanos at the Albergue Heliconias Lodge. It was rustic, but being improved. It had some beautiful hiking trails, with several tree-topped hanging bridges.
We watched flocks of montezuma oropendola (psarocolius montezuma), white-throated magpie-jays (calocitta formosa), black vultures (coragyps atratus) and a flock of birds that I've not yet been able to identify over breakfast.
The highlight of this stop in Bijagua de Upala with a much-too-close sighting of a fer-de-lance snake (bothrops asper). The fer-de-lance snake is the most venomous pit-viper in Costa Rica and is easily camouflaged in piles of leaves. Fortunately Dan did not step on it and I politely screamed and backed away quickly. Thankfully, it didn't seem to care much about our presence and didn't move. The rest of our hike was made with very CAUTIOUS steps.
In the last week, back in the Gulf of Papagayo, we saw baby yellow-bellied sea snakes in the water (the pelanis plataurus are also venomous but so small they couldn't get their fangs into us), green iguanas (iguana iguana) are constantly along the shore and mantled howler monkey's (alouatta palliata) howl in the trees every morning. The deciduous trees that were leafless when we arrived are now green and are flowering. The Plumeria scent is on the breeze.
We've had a few rain sprinkles in the afternoons and can see the lightening in the distance to the south -- the rainy season is on its way! Our boat is just about ready to be locked up for about 2 months while we head back to the US to celebrate Dylan's graduation. Hopefully all the nature this month is soaked up into our veins -- we hope it will keep us calm as we adjust back to "city" life. We've been in the wild now for almost 8 months so it will be an adjustment. Only time will tell. Onward!
My id app says it’s a chestnut-headed Oropendola…😊
The pictures certainly make your descriptive writings come alive. Just hold your breath while in Tulsa. You’ll be back to the high seas in no time.
Say Hi to Bob and Dorthy for me!