Some like it hot: a trek through Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula

[SafariChick]

@@kittykat23uk thanks, I think you may be right about that. And yes, I was really happy with our sightings!

[TonyQ]

@@SafariChick

Great viewing of the Tamandua - and I love the sloth (and tapir)

It looks like the hard work was worth it!

[michael-ibk]

Wow, I wasn't aware one could see so many mammals in Costa Rica. Tapir, Tamandua, Sloth and Peccary, great stuff. I agree with the Boat-Billed Heron, I'm guessing White-Whiskered Puffbird, Crested Guan, American White Ibis and Snail Kite for the rest.

[Whyone?]

I am very much enjoying your report @@SafariChick

 

I know that Costa Rica is a better known destination for American's than us folks in Europe. We only travelled to CR for the first time 4 years ago and fell in love with the place (friends and family thought we were mad!). The Osa Peninsula is now one of my top 3 destinations _ I cant wait to get back, and know where better to stay than BdC

 

Looking forward to reading more....keep up the good work!

[SafariChick]

Wow, I wasn't aware one could see so many mammals in Costa Rica. Tapir, Tamandua, Sloth and Peccary, great stuff. I agree with the Boat-Billed Heron, I'm guessing White-Whiskered Puffbird, Crested Guan, American White Ibis and Snail Kite for the rest.

 

Thanks again for the bird help, @@michael-ibk - my guide Nito told me he will get back to me when he has a bit of time off to confirm IDs so I'll let you all know if anything turns out to be different. I should say that I don't think you are likely to see peccary, tapir or anteater in places other than the Osa Peninsula portion of Costa Rica, though I haven't been everywhere of course. But from what I've read, the Osa is the most wild and undeveloped still. I remember reading somewhere that Drake Bay did not even get electricity until 2004! Many places are off the grid so those that have electricity use solar. The places I visited on my first trip, the area of the Arenal Volcano and Manuel Antonio were great but I saw mainly monkeys and a few sloths there (and birds of course). I did see a peccary near Arenal but only in a wildlife rehabilitation center. Oh and from Manuel Antonio we did take a mangrove boat tour that was fun and saw a very rare animal, a silky anteater which is very small. It was sleeping and rolled up in a ball but I'll try to dig up a photo of it.

 

Thanks for the nice words @@Whyone? In terms of where better to stay than BdC I don't know - staying at BdC was more pleasant and comfortable than where we stayed in Drake Bay but the wildlife we saw was best in Corcovado itself so I would urge people visiting the Osa to do at least a day trip, but preferably an overnight, at Corcovado. And there are places that are higher end and more comfortable in Drake Bay - I have a friend who stayed at a place called La Paloma in Drake that's supposed to be beautiful and there are several others - I just didn't want to spend the money on them since we were splurging on BdC (though compared to Africa, it was reasonable. I suppose that's one good thing about Africa - almost everything else seems less expensive!) For instance, we spent about $120 per night including breakfast at our B&B in Drake vs. about $750 per night for all four of us at BdC including all meals and self-hiking but guided hikes were extra. BdC has about 780 acres of wilderness trails on which to hike and access to beach, swimming and surfing by hiking down a trail or being driven by BdC stafff. At Drake we had either two small rooms or one larger but still not large room for all four of us. At BdC we had a beautiful Casa with two big bedrooms, each with its own beautiful bathroom, and a living room/kitchen combo with a huge wraparound deck with full ocean view. But I'm getting ahead of myself again - there is still more of Corcovado to tell about - a little later!

Edited April 19, 2014 by SafariChick

[SafariChick]

Continuing with (still) our first day at Corcovado, we came back to the ranger station for lunch. Meals were typically rice and beans, some kind of cooked veggies, and some kind of meat - for us vegetarians that meant pretty much the same meal every day but our kids actually thought this was some of the best food of the trip - out in the middle of the rainforest in a place where food must be flown in by small plane or boated in, very simple meals but yummy. We then took a rest until about 2 p.m. Steve and I actually fell asleep lying on the floor of the deck, and we weren't the only ones. the deck surrounding the ranger station was shaded and was the coolest place - in the tents on the sleeping platform was much hotter. There were some rocking chairs and other chairs but it was actually pretty comfy at that point to just lay flat out on the deck floor!

 

Photos of the deck:

 

 

Untitled by marinarorysmom, on Flickr

 

and sleeping platform

 

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Edited April 19, 2014 by SafariChick

[SafariChick]

I am very much enjoying your report @@SafariChick

 

I know that Costa Rica is a better known destination for American's than us folks in Europe. We only travelled to CR for the first time 4 years ago and fell in love with the place (friends and family thought we were mad!). The Osa Peninsula is now one of my top 3 destinations _ I cant wait to get back, and know where better to stay than BdC

 

Looking forward to reading more....keep up the good work!

 

@@Whyone? what are your other two top destinations, I'm curious to know? One is Mana Pools I'm sure! And the other?

[SafariChick]

In the afternoon, the kids were still wiped out so we offered them the opportunity to stay at the lodge and just read and relax, which they gratefully accepted. So it was just Steve and I that went out walking on a different trail with Nito. It actually seemed a little less oppressively hot in the afternoon, which seems counterintuitive, but I think perhaps there was a little more breeze which was helpful.

 

While we walked Nito told us about an American client of his who has guided many times. This client comes to the area once a year and spends about a month, and has bought some property that he is restoring to a wild state. He has hired Nito and others to help him gather the proper plants to plant on the property to attract native birds, etc. This client (and Nito) had seen a tapir in the Corcovado Park who had a baby, but the mother tapir seemed to be sick. It was unclear what was wrong with her but she was very thin. The baby was about four months old and they normally stay with the mother for about two years. The concern is that the mother tapir would die and then the baby would also not survive. Since Bairds Tapirs are in danger of extinction, this client wanted to know if he could do anything to help this animal and her offspring. He had someone who works for him obtain a permit to try to capture the animal and have a vet examine and hopefully treat her. When we were walking around, we ran into a young man who works for this American, who, now that the permit has been obtained, is spending all day five days a week walking around and looking for the mama tapir. I am not sure of the plan to get the vet to see her. Nito said he is in favor of this plan since the baby's life is also at stake and since this is an endangered animal. (I am not sure of the exact term for their status). But some guides around the Park are unhappy about the plan, and think nature should be left to its own course. It is an interesting situation and I was reminded of it in reading the thread on ST about the Mara lioness who was recently wounded by a buffalo and treated by KWS.

 

Some more wildlife we saw:

 

A different type of bat (I think this is the one that had suction cups on its feet - I may have said that about the other photo with the two bats in it - I know we saw two different types of bat - hopefully Nito will help me ID).

 

 

Spider Monkeys:

 

 

 

 

bees:

 

 

more squirrel monkeys

 

 

Agouti

 

 

 

Bird-eating snake

 

Bird-eating snake

 

and non-wildlife - beautiful trees with buttressed roots

 

[url=https://flic.kr/p/n9Fra9]

Edited April 19, 2014 by SafariChick

[graceland]

Liked seeing the lodge; I can see the girls loving it! And Nito's stories and then meeting the gardener/caretaker for the American couple...very cool. Of course the spider monkey was adorable. I can tell you had a fabulous adventure...a bit different from Africa. I live in heat and humidity and try to avoid it; but sometimes it is worth the trek!!

 

Yes-- Costa Rica is a great destination; reminders of many many years ago. I had thought it had become too touristy but happy to see that is a myth

 

Looking forward to more.....

[Atravelynn]

A vulture and tamandua confrontation, how exciting. From your flicker shots it looks like you had a couple of tapir encounters. Lots of monkeys. Those bats were wonderful. Thanks for the Corcovado hint too. Your kids had to love their Spring Break! Hopefully they liked it hot. Hopefully that last sentence was not your conclusion and I just stole your thunder.

Edited April 20, 2014 by Atravelynn

[SafariChick]

Liked seeing the lodge; I can see the girls loving it! And Nito's stories and then meeting the gardener/caretaker for the American couple...very cool. Of course the spider monkey was adorable. I can tell you had a fabulous adventure...a bit different from Africa. I live in heat and humidity and try to avoid it; but sometimes it is worth the trek!!

 

Yes-- Costa Rica is a great destination; reminders of many many years ago. I had thought it had become too touristy but happy to see that is a myth

 

Looking forward to more.....

 

@@graceland I wouldn't exactly call it a lodge ha ha - just a deck with a small, hot dining room, a few rooms with bunk beds and some areas where you can set up tents but all pretty much open air. It's minimal but they do have flush toilets and showers, again very basic and not terribly clean but hey, this is a ranger station meant for researchers and it's in the middle of nowhere so I thought it was pretty cool.

 

@@Atravelynn the kids weren't too fond of the heat and the hiking but they were good sports and they did enjoy seeing the animals - and they enjoyed the second part of the trip even more once we got to Bosque del Cabo, but I still have one more day at Corcovado to describe first. And yes, there were more tapir encounters to come ...

 

In the evening, after dinner and a quick shower we headed to our tents. We'd taken off the rain flap part of the tent so we only had the mesh part to try to be cooler - most people did - and after the lights went out at 8 p.m. (it is only on from 6-8) we read a bit with flashlights and then went to sleep. I had brought with me my little battery-powered travel fan that I'd gotten before my trip to Botswana and had gotten the kids each one too. Boy did they get a lot of use. The nice thing about them is you can bend them at a 90-degree angle and set the thing down on a flat surface like a night table (if you have one) so I went to sleep with mine pointing straight at my face, setting it on the tent floor next to me. Of course this wears down the batter but it helped. I got a great sleep. Until about 3:19 a.m. when a haunting, ghostly sound filled the air and woke everyone up at once. Anyone seen Jurassic Park? I hear that for one of the dinosaurs they combined the sound of a rattlesnake, a swan, a hawk, and this creature that was currently disturbing our slumber ... the howler monkey! We heard them throughout our trip but never so loud as that morning at 3:19 a.m. - it sounded like there was a whole troop of them right outside our tent - and who knows, there may well have been! Somehow, my older daughter slept through the whole thing. My younger one says she woke up but went back to sleep. Steve got up and went to go sit on the deck and look at the stars. I tried to sleep but just lay there.

 

At 4:30 the room erupted again with a cacophony of chirps and beeps but this time, it was everyone's phone alarms going off. The tradition at Corcovado is to get up at 4:30 a.m. and go meet your guide as quickly as possible on the deck to go look for tapirs taking an early morning bath. I felt surprisingly refreshed - I think I slept really soundly and we did go to sleep at about 8:30 pm! We again decided to let the girls sleep in as they felt they'd already seen tapir and it was really cool but they didn't feel the need to get up that early on the chance we might find them again. Steve and I set off with Nito and went to the lake where the tapirs are known to swim in the early morning. When we got there, we saw many birds but no tapir. Nito found tracks that led down to the water and back out into the woods in the direction of where we'd seen the resting tapirs the day before. He said the tracks were fresh - they had already been in the water and come back out. Darn. We were disappointed. But he said we should sit and wait because there could be others. We sat on a log and waited about 15 minutes, just enjoying the early morning fresh air and the birds. There were probably about 6 other people there too with their guides. Suddenly someone said, look and there were two tapirs in the water! They apparently had come from the other side, so Nito said this was a different pair of tapirs than the ones we saw the previous day! It was really lovely to see them swimming in the early morning misty air.

 

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We hung around and watched them for about a half hour and then it was time to head back to eat breakfast which is served at 6:30 a.m. It was definitely worth getting up early for!

Edited April 20, 2014 by SafariChick

[SafariChick]

After breakfast, it was time for our last hike before we left Corcovado. This time, Nito took us on a trail through the primary forest, as up until now, we'd be walking in secondary forest (though it seemed pretty well grown back to me. We later learned from Philip, the naturalist at Bosque del Cabo, that stuff grows fast in the rainforest and in 50 years, secondary forest will look like primary forest again. Even in 10 years, trees that were tiny will be tall). We did not see as many animals in the primary forest. Nito said it was because the trees and plants in the secondary forest side were fruiting more right now and that the animals were thus attracted there. He said it changes back and forth at different times.

 

We saw this Mealy Parrot near the ranger station:

 

 

 

on the trail we found army ants

 

 

also many leaf-cutter ants, which are really fascinating and whole books have been written about them. But I don't have any photos of them.

 

We saw lizards

 

 

 

a male lizard displaying his dewlap

 

 

Suspicious spider monkey sequence:

 

 

 

 

It was time to go back to the ranger station and pack up for the boat ride back to Drake Bay. At the station before we left to walk back to the water to catch the boat, our younger daughter spotted this grasshopper (?) which was one Nito and the other guides said they'd never seen before. Nito was quite excited by it and we took a bunch of photos.

 

 

 

[url=https://flic.kr/p/n9F1Ri]

 

Then it was time to start the half hour walk back to the boat and say farewell to Corcovado. But Corcovado had one last surprise for us ....

[SafariChick]

We were almost at the boat, maybe only 2-3 minutes away, when Nito stopped us and said wait here. He walked a few steps off the path into the woods, and came back and said come here - it's the mother and baby tapir. I was beyond excited. We thought we'd seen everything we would see and now a last-minute tapir sighting - with a baby? And it turned out this was the sick mother and baby. Poor thing, you can see in this photo something isn't right with her:

 

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As always, it was hard to get photos without foliage in the way but we did our best:

 

 

 

 

 

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I managed to get this video to upload to youtube and it's worth a watch, less than a minute - You can really see them well in this video - and you can see the baby scampering at the end, it is very cute.

 

 

http://youtu.be/BF0sSwNlagk

 

And as they scampered off into the woods, we had to scamper off to make our boat ride, which luckily we did. No one was ill and it was a very pleasant ride back to Drake Bay. That evening we had one more adventure planned in Drake Bay before we headed over to Bosque del Cabo the following day.

Edited April 20, 2014 by SafariChick

[Kitsafari]

@@SafariChick - this is another place that I may never have a chance to go to, sadly. so your report will truly be my window to the other end of the world.

 

and anteaters! peccary! sloths! tapirs! all those primates, and the stunning birds. i'm missing so much while you had a wonderful fruitful trip!

 

thanks for sharing - and looking forward to more.

 

btw - the mother tapir looks quite thin. did they manage to get her and the baby in the end, or am i asking too soon?

[kittykat23uk]

Did you have to pack light when staying there since you mention trekking to the camp?

[michael-ibk]

Love the baby Tapir! Osa looks really wonderful, definitely on my bucket list now. Looking forward to more.

[SafariChick]

@@Kitsafari you could get to Costa Rica, why not? I don't know if they have managed to get the Mom and baby tapir yet - I have to ask Nito about it - we left just a few minutes after we saw them and the next day went to the other side of the peninsula so I don't know. I hope to find out and will share if I do.

 

@@kittykat23uk I didn't explain this well. What we did was we stayed one night at this B&B Finca Maresia. At first we were going to just pay for our room there and leave all our stuff in the room ($120 is not much in the grand scheme of things) but then the owner told us he was able to rent that room for the one night we would be in Corcovado and give us another room upon our return and he could keep our luggage in his office so that would save us the $120 for the night we weren't there - so we said sure. It was a little hectic with just one night on either end and having to keep packing up and we actually preferred the first room situation (2 rooms, one for adults, one for kids) vs. the latter where we all had one bigger room, but anyway it was nice to save the money. So this way we only had to take an overnight backpack into the park. There is also the possibility to fly in, there is a little landing strip and we saw a plane come in.

 

@@michael-ibk glad you are enjoying it!

[SafariChick]

That night we came back to our B&B and moved into another room. It was a larger room where there was a double bed for Steve and I and two twin beds for the girls. There was only one fan in the room and it was above one of the twin beds. This was not very good planning in our opinion. Also, the way our little casita was set on the hill, if you opened the curtains so air flow could come in, everyone from the main lodge and walking up and down the hill to and from it could see in - and we were trying to wear as little as possible. This was also not good planning. As we were resting before our evening activity, with the one fan on high, the mosquito net that was in its daytime, rolled up position, somehow got caught in the fan, causing the fan to stop working. Steve tried to see if he could fix it while standing on the bed and while all of us sweated profusely, but he was not able to. So he had to walk up the steep hill to ask for help. Luckily, about half an hour later, help arrived in the form of an employee and a volunteer who is working at the B&B for 3 months since he loves wildlife and wanted to see Corcovado - turns out he was from a city about 45 minutes away from where we live in California - Santa Cruz - where Steve surfs all the time so it was fun to meet him. Finally it was untangled but not until the employee had to go back up the hill to get some tools. Apparently this happens in this room all the time but not usually so badly that tools are needed. Finally they were able to get it detangled and the net retied in a different position, which did not give us trouble that night.

 

Finca Maresia volunteer detangling mosquito net from fan.

 

Untitled

 

That evening, we took The Night Tour with Tracie, the Bug Lady. This is a tour that is famous all over Drake Bay (which is kind of funny to say since Drake is so small!) and even in Puerto Jimenez, the town across the peninsula, and is the number one thing to do in Drake on Tripadvisor. I'd read a lot about it and everyone said it was a must do - even if you're not an insect fan! It turned out to be really interesting and lived up to the hype, though we didn't expect as much walking and uphill as it turned out to be - after the two days of hiking up and down in Corcovado, we were hoping it was more of a gentle stroll. But this was really well done. It was exciting even before it started because we had to get dropped off at the end of the road by a taxi, and walk on the beach in the dark with flashlight, jumping over a small creek, to the hotel on the beach where we were to meet.

 

Tracie found and showed us a whole slew of nighttime creatures, not just bugs, and what was very helpful is if you email them after your tour, they will send you a list of everything you saw that night. I won't put the whole list in here - there were frogs and spiders and all kinds of things - but will just mention a few (and if anyone's really interested I can put this list in!) The trap-door spider is really cool - it makes a circular cut-out little trap door and then hides inside waiting for unsuspecting insects to fall in. Tracie knew how to find the trap doors, I couldn't see it even though she showed us.

 

She also taught us a really cool trick - if you have a headlamp on, or hold your flashlight up at eye level and look down towards the ground - you will see little green sparkles - those are spider eyes! It was amazing how many spiders there were on the ground and we did this everywhere we went after this night - see little green sparkles - bend down closer with light, sure enough there's a spider! Same thing with some insects, etc. - moths have a different color than spiders, etc. I'll just show the few halfway decent photos I have:

 

We saw an amazing Walking Stick:

 

IMG_1728

 

A Gaudy Leaf Frog:

 

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A Red-Eyed Tree Snake

 

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A Tailless Whip Scorpion:

 

IMG_1732

 

That last one, she is supposed to be able to offer it to a guest to put on their face (I have a forum friend who has her photo with one on her face) but this particular scorpion was very feisty and was pinching Tracie which she said almost never happens, so she decided not to offer that possibility. (Wikipedia says "They are harmless to humans. Amblypygids possess no silk glands or venomous fangs. They rarely bite if threatened, but can grab fingers with pedipalps, resulting in thorn-like puncture injury.") I guess that is what happened here, this thing was grabbing Tracie's fingers with its pedipalps! My older daughter was disappointed as she would have volunteered to have this scorpion on her face!

 

We also saw a fascinating thing that Tracie told us about - a dead cricket clinging to a leaf - it was pure white - she explained how a fungus takes over its body and eats its non-essential organs, then invades its brain tissue and makes it climb to a high spot on a plant, then it eats its brain and from that spot on the high plant it can put off spores that fall on the forest floor and find more crickets to attach to! All in all, it was a very entertaining and informative couple of hours and I highly recommend it if you are ever in the area!

Edited April 21, 2014 by SafariChick

[SafariChick]

Argh I was just typing a post and lost it when I accidentally closed this tab! I will try again.

 

The next day it was time to move to Bosque del Cabo (I will call it BdC or Bosque for short). BdC had told us they'd send a taxi - it turned out to be Carlos, who works for them and gives guests rides to the beach or to other activities in the area. He arrived an hour earlier than we expected, so we hurried to finish breakfast and were ready to leave by 9 with him, which was a half hour before we'd meant to leave - but no matter, we were ready to move on. As a note, one can also fly from Drake Bay to Puerto Jimenez (I will call it PJ for short) but it's 25 minutes to the airport and have to be there 45 minutes early, and then it's I don't know a half hour or 45-minute flight? It cost more than the taxi and the taxi was to take 2-3 hours but it took less than 2, maybe 1.5 hours or 1 hour 45 minutes. The road is very bumpy and rocky (unpaved) part of the way, but we were used to that at this point as it was like that in all of Drake Bay! We had great fun chatting with Carlos along the way in a combo of English and Spanish. His English wasn't perfect but we wanted to practice our Spanish anyway so we tried speaking in Spanish as much as we could and sometimes asked him the words for things, and he asked us the words in English for things a few times.

 

When we got to PJ, we went into the supermarket to stock up on a few things - we were renting one of BdC's Casas which is larger than many of their other "cabinas" and has 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a living room/kitchen with a big wraparound deck with ocean views! We wanted a few snacks in the house even though we'd be using their meal plan at the restaurant (with Casas it is optional for an extra charge, whereas with cabinas, it's automatically included). Steve right away wanted to get some of these:

 

IMG_1748

 

It's his favorite cereal - he always buys it in Latin American countries - he says it tastes just like Cocoa Krispies at home only CK doesn't have Melvin which we think is the elephant - and he never eats Cocoa Krispies at home!

 

We then made our way up to BdC which only took about half an hour rather than the 45 minutes we'd heard. And the road was bumpy and rocky but not THAT bad - again, we were used to it from Drake Bay and from our prior trip to Costa Rica where we'd stayed off a rocky road in the Arenal area.

 

We were dropped off at the main lodge where the meals took place as it was lunch time. Ah - now this was more like it, the kids said! Beautiful ocean views, breezes, a greeting drink of fresh-squeezed ginger lemonade - this was the life! We had a delicious lunch - the food was very good there - we were given an orientation (bar and pool - very small but nice for cooling off and for kids to play - off the main building) and then were shown to our Casa, about a 3 to 5-minute walk away. We were wowed - the panoramic ocean view and breeze and the huge deck with hammocks and chairs and dining table, 2 large bedrooms, each with its own bathroom with outdoor shower - and tub which we never used. A living room which we also never used because we were either on the deck or in our bedrooms, and a kitchen.

 

A few photos:

 

The Deck (but this only shows a small portion of it - wish I had a panorama!)

 

IMG_1734

 

Living Room and Kitchen:

 

IMG_1749

 

Outside of our house:

 

P1030764

 

I have a short video I took that shows the deck and all the rooms better here - and a strange creature that appeared on our deck

 

Edited April 21, 2014 by SafariChick

[madaboutcheetah]

Just catching up with this report ....... @@SafariChick ........ looks like an awesome trip! From pretty birds to reptiles to Tapirs to primates to just about everything!!! Thanks for writing this up!

[TonyQ]

@@SafariChick

Continues to be very enjoyable

It is amazong how close you were to the tapir and baby!

 

The deck and the views from your cabin are amazing

 

(I think it is safer to type in Word and then past into safaritalk to avoid the risk of losing a big post)

[SafariChick]

For Bosque, I don't have as many photos and rather than describe each day individually, I'm going to just describe some different experiences there all together.

 

I got up early every day (5 or 5:30) and went for a hike by myself on the Titi Trail. I'd heard it was the place cats were spotted most frequently. They used to have puma sightings about 2-3 times per month at Bosque, but the naturalist, Philip, who is resident at Bosque told me they haven't seen one for about 5-6 months. The one they used to see most often, who has a name - Half-Tail - Philp says has raised several cubs in the area but she seems to be in another part of her territory now, which is rather large. The last one they saw was a male, not her. Sadly, I did not see any cats at Bosque, though someone else spotted an ocelot while we were there (NOT on the Titl trail but on another trail that went off of it). I did spot a peccary by itself the first day I hiked it - not on the trail but on the driveway, a long rocky road that leads up to the main lodge - off of which many of the trails run. Other than that and a couple of coatis, I didn't see anything at Bosque that I hadn't seen at Corcovado. Some say you can see as much at BdC as at Corcovado, but that wasn't my experience - however, that said, if you can't get to Corcovado, BdC is probably the next best thing. And there are more trails thad I didn't hike that were harder - like the one on which the ocelot was spotted. Another day, someone spotted an armadillo and I think it was on the Titi trail - I was very frustrated to have missed that and the ocelot - but it's a big property and timing is everything. Unlike a 4-hour game drive where guides are out with clients and can radio each other, I wasn't walking every trail over a period of of four hours. It seemed like these sightings happened later, more like 9 a.m. which surprised me as I'd have thought you'd see these animals earlier. Oh well, I can't complain because I had amazing sightings at Corcovado. And I saw plenty of monkeys and birds at Bosque. And it was a very relaxing, comfortable place to stay compared to Corcovado, so a totally different experience. So I would recommend doing both if at all possible!

 

The kids were happy to have more freedom to do what they wanted at Bosque. They spent a good amount of time at the pool and on the beach. Older daughter took a surfing lesson (Steve is a surfer but rather than teach her himself - which doesn't always go so well, we've discovered - he convinced her to take a lesson) which went really well and she caught a bunch of waves. She appreciated not having to wear a wetsuit - the water was bathtub warm! Younger daughter just enjoyed playing on the beach. Another day, older daughter went surfing again with Steve and yet another day they went on an expedition where they climbed a giant tree (really the remains of a tree which had been taken over by giant vines) and rapelled back down - an activity organized by Bosque. There are many other activities you can do from there, including rapeling down a waterfall, but those were the ones we did. Many of the activities involve going back to Puerto Jimenez and I preferred to just stay at Bosque and take advantage of the trails and relaxation. I also just loved sitting on our deck and looking at raptors soaring on the thermals.

 

Here are some shots from around Bosque:

 

Capuchin Monkey:

 

P1030782

 

Spider Monkeys:

 

P1030785

 

P1030789

 

Sign on the Titi Trail:

 

P1030766

 

More tomorrow - too tired for any more tonight!

[Atravelynn]

That walking stick looks like a walking log. It's huge. Great footage of the baby tapir.

[SafariChick]

Ha ha, yes @@Atravelynn that Walking Stick was rather large - and amazingly stick-like (or log-like). I loved the baby tapir too - really hope it and the Mom survive. My guide, Nito, grabbed the camera from me as he was closer to where they were moving and he finished the end of the video, so I am grateful for that.

 

Some more images from our days at Bosque:

 

Flower decoration at the bar:

 

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Bird (not sure what it is)

 

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Steve rappelling down tree which is really all vines as the tree the vines wrapped themselves around has long since died:

 

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A better look at the rappel gear used:

 

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Bird-eating snake on the primary forest tour with naturalist Philip:

 

 

And a lizard seen on the same hike:

 

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Coati:

 

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Edited April 23, 2014 by SafariChick

[SafariChick]

The first day that we went to the beach near Bosque, I was very happy that a bunch of Scarlet Macaws flew down and landed in a couple of trees right next to where I had spread out my towel. While my younger daughter built a sand castle, I watched the macaws as the hung around for a long time eating the nuts from the trees. I had seen many of the Scarlet Macaws fly by during our trip, both at Corcovado and at Bosque. They are always in pairs as they mate for life, though often the pairs are in groups so you might see a group of four or 8 fly by but within that group, they are two by two. They are very noisily squawking as they fly by but I could never get my camera out in time to get a decent photo. Frankly my camera - the one with 8x zoom that we managed to bring while we had left the one with 24x zoom at home in the forgotten backpack - probably wouldn't have captured a decent photo anyway from the distance at which they were flying. But since they were sitting relatively still and relatively close for a decent amount of time, I was happy I got some halfway-decent photos:

 

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When I started to take this last one, the bird was just sitting on its branch eating its nut but as I snapped the photo, it suddenly flew at me - don't worry, it didn't attack me or anything! I thought it ended up making for a fun photo though:

 

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I was very glad to get some time to spend observing these birds up close. What a beautiful bird, and such an iconic image of the Osa Peninsula.

 

Well, there ends my trip report. It was not a long trip but I felt like we packed in a lot of activity and animals. It is a destination I definitely recommend for anyone who loves wildlife and doesn't mind doing some hiking to see it!

Edited April 23, 2014 by SafariChick