Day on Jaco Beach

Today was dedicated to relaxation (well after our surf lesson that is).  We spent the whole day at our resort - Hotel Club del Mar in Jaco. We had a 2 bedroom apartment with full kitchen which allowed us to cook some food for breakfast.

I got up early today for my 7:30 surf lesson.  My teacher was John (surely Juan) and he works for Del Mar surf camp.  We started out with a lesson about surfing and then we headed to the water.  Jaco is know for its surfing although the beach in front of our hotel isn't the best surfing spot as the waves are much bigger at Playa Hermoso but for the intro class it was perfect.  Surfing was a lot harder than I had imaged.  The balance thing wasn't bad but jumping up when the wave hits the bad of the surfboard and getting your feet into position was the most challenging thing for me.  I was initially nervous to even jump but then I realized it didn't have to be as instantaneous as I had thought (well, not for the baby waves we were practicing on anyway).  Then the hardest part as just getting my feet into the right position the first shot because trying to adjust after you're on is virtually impossible.  I had a great time though. I learned to turn to the left and right and caught some good waves, although I spent more time wiping out.  I'm not sure if I'll do much more surfing though.

After that it was all relaxation for the rest of the day.  It was spent over a combination of lying out under sun, swimming in ocean, and swimming in pool time.  It was great and was over too quickly.

For dinner we went to the Taco Bar which advertises heavily along the roads.  It was actually a great place.  You get to pick your meat - they specialize in fish, how it's cooked - grilled vs beer battered, and the  flavoring - herbs, spicy, coconut.  Then you can get whatever you want from the salad bar as toppings.  It was a great meal for very little money.  I'd definitely recommend it!

It's sad to be leaving Costa Rica.  I really had a great time. It's hard to say what my favorite part was as everything was so awesome.  The worst part was definitely the drive to Monteverde but all the activities were great.  We definitely had great luck in all the parks with our guided tours. We saw all the rare animals and got to take pictures of them.  I think we had great guides along the way.

[The only thing that makes me a little sad is that it's so hard to see these animals it's almost necessary to hire a guide and therefore making it a luxury item to see cool wildlife.  Of course, if you've got the equipment - high def binoculars or sighting scopes - you can see them on your own if you eavesdrop on the guided tours but making those purchases isn't cheap either.  Therefore, if you're low on funds, then you see the flora and maybe a couple animals/birds that aren't too far away but otherwise, no pay no play.]

I will definitely come back and I definitely want to do the hike from Monteverde to Arenal.

Manuel Antonio National Park

Today we drove to Manuel Antonio Park which is the smallest national park in Costa Rica but has the most concentrated wildlife.  3 types of monkeys are there - howler, white-faced, and squirrel. The squirrel monkey is the smallest type of monkey at about 25cm and difficult to find.  Other animals in this part are 2- and 3-toed sloths which are animals that generally stay put as they have a very slow metabolism and only get out of their tree once a week to defecate.  There's also a variety of frogs and birds.  Of course, some people go there just for their magnificent beaches.  We decided to get a guide because we knew that sloths and monkeys are hard to spot in the trees without a guide and a spotting scope.  This proved to be an excellent decision.  We parked at a lot about 300m from the entrance and paid $4 (which is the going price) and paid $40pp for the guide and entrance which was also the going price. Our guide was named Lenny and as I usually do, I requested to see the squirrel monkey.  He was hesitant to say anything because they are the hardest monkeys to find as they're endangered and also small which of course is why I requested them in the first place.

Here are some of the pictures from the tour:

Howler Monkey

2-toed Sloth

Sleeping Fruit Bats

3-toed Sloth

Large Red Grasshopper

Halloween crabs

Mosquito-eating Bats

Smiling Baby 3-toed sloth

Our tour was about to conclude and I was a bit disappointed because I hadn't seen the squirrel monkey. However, before our guide was out of sight something incredible happened.  We happened upon a group of squirrel monkeys!! Not only that, but quickly thereafter, we came across a very large group of white-faced monkeys that surrounded us - left, right, in front, behind, above - it was incredible!!  We probably saw a total of 15 monkeys today.  I was truly impressed.

I give you a conversation with monkeys:

"Hey, what's going on over there?"

"I see humans."

Do you bite your thumb at me, sir? No sir, I bite my thumb but I do not bite my thumb at your ,sir.

"Hm, should I eat here or jump to a different branch?"

"Look there, someone's coming!"

"What? What are you staring at?"

"Does my butt look big?"

"Lady, I'm watching you."

"I said no flash!"

And did you know that monkeys smoke the ganja?

After watching the monkeys for more than 30 minutes, we relaxed by the beach for a while and took a dip in the ocean which was the perfect temperature. What a great day!!

Last day in Monteverde and drive to Jaco

This morning I got up early and went to the Monteverde Reserve again - since it's only 500m from our hotel - Trapp Family Lodge (which isn't luxury but has a nice view of the forest and has all the amenities necessary plus a pretty good restaurant; also, another thing I like about our hotel is that it makes reservations for tours and such at no fee as in they will call for a reservation but we still show up at the tour and pay the normal price there - very cool of them). I saw one of the bird watching tours in action (5am to noon). I went to the humming bird gallery where they were just putting up the feeders.  I was the only person there and the feeders were swarmed about almost 20 humming birds who were obviously waiting for their breakfast to be served. This was very cool except the dive bombing and buzzing of the birds was a bit freaky.  I even saw a pair of birds dueling in mid-air - not to the death, fortunately.  Next, I went to the roof of the structure where I saw a few more birds and saw humming birds feeding from real flowers instead of feeders - very cool.

Next we went to Selvatura hanging bridges.  These are metal bridges that are built 15 to 35 m above ground to allow viewing of the rainforest from the level of mid-canopy to above the canopy.  I chose Selvatura because for a price similar to SkyWalk they have more bridges and are reputed to have wider bridges which was important for me and my fear of heights.  The bridges were indeed sturdy but the long ones definitely swayed in mid-crossing but I survived all of them and took many pictures along the way.  Perhaps the coolest sighting was a group of howler monkeys- 4-5 I think.  I ran into a tour guide from the same group as our guide from yesterday and he let us borrow his binoculars which let us see the monkeys up close in high definition.  The view was awesome and it was really cool to see the expressions on the monkeys' faces.  One of them was just staring down at us for a while.  There was an alpha male that totally regulated the movement of the others.  Unfortunately they were too far for good pictures.  See below for some pictures from Selvatura.  We also saw a three-wattled bellbird who make the most awful noise like a squeaky door.

After Selvatura, we went back to the Ranario to see the daytime frogs which were basically the poisonous ones and some sleeping nighttime frogs.

Next we drove to Jaco.  The road was rough at first but smoothed out fairly quickly - definitely a better ride than the one to Monteverde from Arenal.

 As soon as we got to Jaco - Hotel Club del Mar, I headed straight for the beach. The sand was brown and darker and expected but incredibly fine.  The tide was coming in and there were many surfers out.  I already signed up for a surfing class later this week :)  The water was super warm and really pleasant.  After swimming in the ocean for a bit, I headed to the pool for some drinks and relaxation.  We ended the day with some room service and a quiet evening.  Tomorrow we will head to Manuel Antonio.

Awesome day in Monteverde

Today we spent the first half of the day in Monteverde Cloud Forest with our private guide.  His name was Guiliano Salazar Gigli and he was a fantastic guide. He's been a guide for 16 years (used to be a lawyer in a past career) and was extremely knowledgeable about not only the flora and fauna but also about the history and conservation aspects of the reserve.  He seemed really passionate about his job and spoke English well. We really enjoyed our experience with him and I'd recommend him to anyone - see his website.

As I usually do when we hire guides, I requested to see something - a quetzal, well not any quetzal - the Resplendent Quetzal which is endangered and there's only about 300 in all of Costa Rica.  As you may know, so far I've been extremely well rewarded for requesting sightings.  Past requests include a seahorse in Bonaire - done, and 4 sea turtles - also fulfilled though it may have been 4 sightings of only 3 total turtles.  Therefore, I was cautiously hopeful about this one although I thought the chances of seeing the quetzal was very low, as did the guide as he hasn't seen one in 5 days.  HOWEVER, not only did we see the Resplendent Quetzal but we saw 2 - a male and female pair.  They were as spectacular as everyone says - the colors are radiant and awe-inspiring and when they take flight - it's an unforgettable sight. Here are some of my shots:

Other sights we saw included the golden browed chlorophonia, the black faced solitaire, beautiful variety of humming birds, magnificent trees and strangling figs, orchids, waterfalls, and a white nosed coati up close and personal.  It was a truly incredible experience.  The guided tour was so good that I'm seriously considering coming back to Costa Rica for the 3 day guided walk from Monteverde to Arenal with this same guide.  Like I said, I loved the experience and I really enjoyed touring with Guiliano.

After lunch we went to Don Juan's combined coffee-chocolate-sugar cane tour.  This was also a great tour.  We learned a lot about running a plantation for coffee, the process for making coffee, chocolate and sugar and got to try a bit of everything. Highlights include learning that dark roast is actually less bitter than light roast but also contained less caffeine, that fat in milk neutralizes some of the caffeine in coffee, and that chocolate was initially served unsweetened and with chili. Here are some coffee tour pictures:

We finished off the day with a night hike which was also awesome. We saw a pair of sleeping resplendent quetzals! - likely the same pair from the morning, a kinkajou, tarantulas, sleeping humming birds, stick insects, bats, toads and a variety of other bugs. Today was super awesome!