Birthday Trip

Sophie and I took a trip for my birthday! This post is going to be a long one with a lot of pictures! And apologies, I thought about splitting this into two parts, but I had already added all the images by then, and it was a lot of work to add these all.

 

8/27 

The first  place we went was Carara National Park. Sophie had arranged for us to get a tour from a guide, and I am really glad we did! When we got there, there were about a half dozen iguanas,which was really neat, they were really big and just watched you.

 

First, we went down one path, and the guide was able to find a family of howler monkeys. It was really cool! She had a telescope, so we were able to see them really well. There was a baby monkey too, which was really cute!

 

After that we went down another path through the jungle, and we saw all sorts of creatures. We saw a bunch of spiders, including big orb weavers. We also saw an agouti, which is a really cute large rodent. It looked like a capybara, but it is a good deal smaller. Later, I heard a rustle in the trees, and a coati came rushing down off the tree! We must have freaked it out, because it scampered off into the jungle.

 

We saw poison dart frogs, a viper taking a nap, a tarantula, leaf cutter ants, and a bunch of birds and lizards, as well as other creatures.

 

Later on we went into another part of the park, which we had to drive too. What is cool about this park is that it is a transitional area, so the two parts of the park are actually two different biomes!

This was a much less popular area, as the path was not paved. In fact, it was very muddy, so we got mud all over our shoes, but luckily we had the right shoes for the job. We saw paw prints, and the guide said it was from a puma, but we did not see the puma on the trip. We continued on, and saw a bunch of dense plants. We also saw a humongous tree! It reminded me of the giant pine tree that we hiked to as a kid at a camp on Mt. Graham. On the way back we saw scarlet macaws too, which was really cool!

Here's a bunch of pictures (more after this set of pictures):

One of the many iguanas at the visitor area

A picture of the agouti from my phone

The next set of pictures is from my dslr camera. I had some difficulty trying to get it to work, so some of the pictures were blurry, but here are the ones that came out fairly well:

Going into the park

This is where the howler monkeys were, unfortunately the picture is blurry and you can't really see them. But they were really cool to see!

Leaf cutter ants

 

 

Cool red cup mushrooms

Baby iguana

Beautiful orb weaver spider

Poison dart frog!

The agouti!

Cool spider

cool tree, I believe it is called a ceiba

Another cool spider

Bats! We used the telescope to see them

Cicada. They get so loud here!

Grasshopper hiding

Flower area at visitor area, the butterflies loved it!

Another iguana

Then we went to the other part of the park , which was very muddy, and was a lot different than the other one!

Puma print

We see palm trees here, which were not in the other place

Mushrooms growing of cut up wood. There were so many mushrooms here!

A bird we saw through the telescope

 

 

MASSIVE tree! This was so cool!

Milipede!

Scarlet macaws seen through the telescope

After this, we dove to the birding lodge where we stayed that night. It was a lovely place! The owner had two dogs, which were very well behaved!

Here are some pictures from the observation tower they had:

You can see the ocean from here

The bathroom at our lodge, which had a rock area, which was interesting!

We had pizza for dinner at a place close by. Sophie had neopolitan, and I had a honey walnut pizza. They were delicious!

Gecko in the room

8/28

In the morning, there was a lot of squawking outside, and it turns out that there were  a bunch of scarlet macaws in the tree! That was really cool! I wonder if they were the same ones we saw in the park? It was relatively close by.

 
Sophie had found this remote beach a ways away, so we went there. It was good we thing we had 4x4 and high clearance, because it was dirt road for a lot of it.

It especially came in handy when we came to a large puddle in the middle of the road. Sophie checked to see if it was deep, it did not seem to be, but I was hesitant. We parked and walked for a bit, before deciding to go back and get the car. Turns out, I was able to go on the side and get us through no problem, so we drove the car to the beach, which was much nicer than walking, because it was hot and muggy, and the road was pretty sandy.

When we got there, we saw the beautiful black beach with these amazing rock formations! Definitely a hidden gem
 
After we were at the beach for a while, we headed back home. We did a few errands, had some lunch, and then had birthday ice cream at Pops, which is a local ice cream chain. It was an amazing birthday!

Scarlet Macaws in the tree!

Flowers on the stair way

view from the observation post

Having coffee at the provided breakfast at the birding lodge. It was good! The people were really nice!

A cool mushroomy log at the birding lodge

On the way to the beach

Mangrove forest area

 

Two dogs on the road as we stopped to look at the mangrove forest

There were herons here too in the trees. You can barely see one far away.

Heron prints in the mud

Mangrove roots

Road to the beach

This place really reminds me of Anne of Green Gables

The beautiful beach!

Beautiful rocks

A Beautiful big tree with vines that we saw on the way home

Back home!