fauna

Our Hotel

The tour starts with a meeting tonight, so we have the whole day to ourselves. The guys slept until 1 pm, hopefully beating back some of their colds. Quesadillas for lunch around the pool, and then Sarah, Eric and I headed out for some touring of our own. Kevin stayed back at the hotel to keep fighting off his cold.

We took a cab to the National Museum and learned some of the history of Costa Rica and Central America. The highlight, though, was visiting their butterfly garden – an enclosed area with about a dozen different butterflies, interesting native plants and some exotic spiders and other insects thrown in.

I’m not sure what kind of a tree this is – the plaque under it said Jacaranda, but I don’t think they grow these beans.

These giant caterpillars are about 4″ long. Sorry, don’t know what they become.

The underside of a Morphos butterfly

The top of a Morphos wing. It was lying on the ground like that, honest!

Yellow Aphids. I’m used to green ones.

After the museum and butterfly garden we took a walk around the plaza. It was a busy Sunday afternoon, but we were happy to grab a cab and head back to the hotel.

More napping, relaxing and hanging out ’til dinner, then our intro meeting with Paul the tour guide. It looks like there will be about 46 people on the tour, from all around the US.

Heading back down the mountain there was a crowd of people standing in the road staring up into a tree – a Costa Rican slothjam (kind of like a bearjam in Yellowstone). The green you see in her fur is moss – yes, they’re that slow.

Paul taught us a lot about sloth-life, including that the mating ritual involves a lot of napping, and they can have 150 different species of insects living in their coats.

Two Toed Sloth

Today was Marcos’ birthday. He’s our bus driver, and according to our guide Paul, “The second best driver in Costa Rica. The first best is in jail.” Many times Marcos proved his skill at maneuvering the huge Mercedes bus.

Happy Birthday, Marcos!

I wish I wrote down the name of the place we stopped for lunch, the food was great plus they had a nice butterfly garden out back. It’s near the town of Guapiles, and it’s exactly here: N 10.20316667, W 83.77471000.

Butterfly

Morphos wing detail

The plant is called “Labios de Puta”, or in more polite English: “Hot Lips.” It makes more sense before the blue berries appear.

Passion Flower

Meanwhile, back amongst the banana trees, the leaf cutters are hard at work.

Another hour of bus travel down country roads from the banana plantation is Parismina, where we offloaded from the bus, said goodbye (for now) to Marcos, and boarded a boat for the hour and a half ride to Laguna Lodge. We’ll be at the lodge for the next two days.

Parismina is the end of the road at the Caribbean Sea. From there, everyone travels by boat, like these locals.

The view out the window of the taxi, as we zipped up the Tortuguero River.

More locals, out for a spin.

The Princesa del Rio, chugging along.

After dinner that night, I went on a frog hike. I didn’t find any, but I almost walked into this lady. She was hanging from the canopy at about knee height. If my flashlight didn’t catch her I would have walked right into it – and that would have kind of freaked me out. Her leg span is about 4″. After I took this shot I looked away for a moment, and when I turned back she was gone. So was I.

The Princesa del Cielo, hanging around.

San Jose, Costa Rica

Two Toed Sloth

Lunch And Butterfly Garden

Leaf Cutter Ants

To Tortuguero!