gump in Costa-rica Birding

2006-12-31T19:55:00.000-08:00

7th e-mail
Hello everybody,Hmmm...Im trying to remember when I sent my last email. I think I remember, if not than I may miss a day in this report. Oh well. My last day in Guapiles I went to Las Cusingas which is a private reserve. I took a taxi early in the morning to the turn off and walked the 4 km to the reserve. I couldnt find it on the way there but the road ended so I retraced my steps and was directed to it by a local(it turned out that there was no sign. I saw lots of birds along the road but by the time i got to the reserve it was 10:30 and it was very quiet, pretty though. The following morning I took the Bus to Puerto Limon then down the Carribean coast to Cahuita, a small town that atracts a lot of tourists. Here I spent Christmas eve. At the local store I found some organic Carob cookies! Most cookies and sweets are of very poor quality ie. white flour, white sugar, but these were the real deal and I ate a whole bag in one night and the folowing morning while walking ion Cahuita NP. The walk in the park didnt live up to its conotations; it was very wet and on my first attempt at exploring I had to turn back as it was raining too much. A fine way to start Christmas morning. About an hour after I got back to my room the rain turned to a light drizzle and I went out again. THis time I was able to walk for a couple hours before it set into a heavy rain again. The walk back wasnt particularly pleasant. There were a few birds about which made up for the precipitation. In the early afternoon I caught the bus to Manzanillo, further south, via Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. In Manzanillo I called mi familia which turned out to be a real feat. I had bought a phone card in Guapiles but it didnt have a access number so I couldnt even call the help and information number written on the card. I felt a bit ripped off. So I bought a couple 1000colones cards($2 a piece) and tried again. THe line was very fickle and it would suddenly go "busy" on 5 out of six attempts at calling. I finally got through and it turned out that each card was only 10 mins. So I talked to my mom and sister then went and bought 3 more cards and called again. I got to talk to all my immediate family but didnt get to wish the others mewrry Christmas(sory Bong, Grandad, Tom) and I got cut off in the middle of talking to my sister willo. Sorry family for talking about you all in 3rd person, for the benifit of the other peoples on my email list. The next morning I walked and birded the Gandoca Manzanillo NP. Here I saw lots of birds and lots of poison arrow frogs as well. Most of them were all red, i think they are called Strawberyy P.-A. frogs. I also saw one that was black with yellow markings. Very cool. As I was walking along the trail I felt something move underneath my foot. I looked down and nearly skipped a diastole(or is it an astole). It was a five foot black snake, at least an inch thick! I spent the next half hour loking at the ground and walking very gingerly. The next morning I caught the bus to Limon. I arrived at around 1. From there I wanted to take the bus to Paraiso and then to Orosi. There are two roads from limon to San Jose. One goes south via Turrialba and Paraiso, the other through Gaupiles and Braulio Carillo NP. Unfortunately the busses only go the northern route, through Guapiles. So I had to take hte bus to San Jose, then to Cartago, then to Orosi(via Paraiso). Fortunately all the buses coincide nicely. When I arrived in San Jose I quickly caught a taxi to the corect station adn the bus left right after I boarded. It was the same in Cartago. I disembarked the bus, walked tro the correct bus stationa nd again the bus left as soon as I got on. I arrived in Orosi at around 5:30 and went to the hostel where I got a bunk in a dorm for $6. The next moring I tried hitching to Tapanti NP, my reason for vcoming to this area. After waiting 20 mins I got a ride half way with a friendly local. From htere a pirate taxi ($4) drove me to Tapanti. The man at the hostel had told me that it is possible to stay at the ranger station at the entrance to the park but that Id need to bring my own food. SO I mhad bought provisions for a couple days. HOwever, at the ranger station the ranger told me that it isnt possible to stay the nihgt there(I think you need to have a reservation, then you can) but that there was a place down hte raod called "Finca Los Maestros" that had cheap rooms. I left my big pack and my fod at the ranger station and birded the park for a few hours. htere were lots of birds, despite the rain. Fun fact: Tapanti recieves the most rain of anywhere in CR, up to 7 metres a year! I then went to Finca Los Maestros but there was no one home. I waited 3 hours, fortunately there were a few birds here including a Collared Trogon, a high elevation bird I had been hoping to dsee here. Nobody showed up so i walked down the road to the Kiri Lodge, where I got a room for $25, the most I have spent on a room here in CR. Que malo. Along the road I found a Blue wined warbler, a north american species that is quite rare ijn CR. The next morning ibirded fora bit around the lodge before the restaurant opened at 7:00. I had breakfast then went to tapanti, which is about 1 km from the lodge. I saw 68 species this day, my second best day here. needless to say, I was fairly pleased,not the leas because I saw two species that are quite tough to find; Sharpbill, which is very difficult to find, and Blue-hoodeed Euphonia, a bird that is decreasing due to poachers capturing them adn selling them as caged birds. They are very good looking birds. After five hours in the park I returned to the Finca, this time the owners were home( a very nice woman named Mireja and her husband(I think) who i never met. I retrieved my stuff and set up camp at hte finca before returning to the park for a couple hours. I ate a very good dinner of rice, noodles with meat and a gravy of sorts and a fish filet, that was rather salty, but good nonethe less. This morning I set off walking at 6:00 and birded til 1:30, a solid 7.5 hours! I saw lots more birds including long-tailed Silky flycatcher and Sooty-faced Finch, which was my 300 "lifer"(new species) in CR. I have now seen about 340 species in total. After a very good lunch I bade Mireja and Finca Los Maestros goodby and hitched to Orosi where I am now, at the same hostel. While waiting for a ride i< realized that I had forgotten to return the key to my room to Mireja so I ran back p the road to do so. The funny thing is that I also forgot to return the key of the hostelwhen I stayed there a few nighjts ago. Oh well, both keys are now safe and warm at home. And thas my life this past wek, please, email me and tell me about your lives too.Mink and Dad, I hope youlike your new hairstyles! Mink, it makes you look older! Haha.Willo, email me whenever you find someplace or some thing you want to do here in CR or in Panama, Id like to know we have some soprt of plan before you get here. I know what I want to do here (you can probably guess) but Id like to know , if you find any thing in particular that you want o do here. Formulate a plan and Im sure Id be happy to go along with it. To everybody else, happy living, lying and leaping. I hope I didnt forget anything important. Gump

2006-12-31T19:53:00.000-08:00

6th e-mail
Hi everybody,This morning I took the bus from Puerto Viejo to nearby Guapiles and I have the afternoon to kill so I figured Id write you all (I just watched one and a third soccer games and figured I could prob. be doing something more productive). Willo, Im sure flying into San Jose will work out fine, its easy enough to get places here that i will just make sure that I am in the area around when you arrive. I cant wait for you to get here and see all the great things! Yesterday morning I took the earliest bus I could (530) to Selva Verde reserve 8 kms west of Puerto Viejo. I had to wait a few minutes for the trails to open, in the meantime I chatted with one of the guides there who was also a birder. AFter a short while he told me that a birding tour for the hotel guests had just started. He walked me to where they were and for the next 2 hours I birded with 5 other part time birders. The guide wasnt great and being with a group kinda made it tough to see all the birds ie. sometimes you get stuck at the back of the line. the only upside was that the guide knew a lot of the calls of the common birds there so could say what was around before we actually saw the birds. The guide was very friendly and we chatted for a bit and h said that if he saw me later he would take me to a pond where he had seen a grey'necked wood'rail, a bird I have already seen here but a nice bird to see none'the less. We didnt end up meeting up til after I had already visited the pond (no wood rail) and was on my way back to catch the bus to Puerto viejo. During the tour we saw quite a few birds including 3 Great Green Macaws flying overhead! They are an endangered species due to habitat loss. We saw 2 other types of parrot, Brown'hooded and white'crowned. The white crowneds we got to watchfrom quite close as they ate sdome kind of brown spiky fruit that looked abit like flattened chestnuts on the outside.We also saw a few Poison Arrow frogs of two types. One was green and black and is hence called a Green and Black Poison Arrow frog, the other red with blue hind legs call the Blue Jeans. They look just like the little plastic frogs that dad sells at the store! We also saw two types of Trogons, birds closely related to the Quetzal and very beatiful birds, Violasceaos Trogan which has a yellow belly, purple head and back with a black and white tail. the second type was new for me, Slaty'tailed Trogon, not quite as spectacular as the Violaceous(red belly, green head and all black tail, very christmasy actually) but nice nonethe less. We also saw lots of hummingbirds lke the Long'tailed Hermit and the Red'footed Plumeteer. I have now seen about 25 different types of Hummingbird! Amazing diversity here. After the tour I walked the trail and saw LOTS of poison arrow frogs, mostly the green and black ones. I saw lots more birds including a Broad'billed motmot. Motmots are strange birds, quite colourful with long tail and they nest in burrows in the ground! As I waited for the bus I saw a Snowy Cotinga fly across the road. They are fairly common but not usually seen as the stay in the canopy. I had to wait 45 mins for the bus and go figure I saw the Cotinga after waiting about 44 mins. Oh well. this morning I took a walk out the north side of Puerto Viejo before taking the 940 bus here. I dont know what I´ll do for the afternoon, maybe watch another soccer game ahh, and do my laundry! Should be fun. Tommo0row I think I am going to catch the first bus to braulio Carillo NP and bird there and see if I can stay the night in which case I´d return here, buy some food and get my pack and if possible take a bus back to Brauliio Carilo in the afternoon but most likely the next morning.Talk to you later, I´ll call on Christmas. Gump

2006-12-31T19:51:00.000-08:00

5th e-mail
Hi everybody,well I´ll get right to it. Last wednesday i caught the bus from Tilaran to Monteverde. Although it is only 39 kms. it took 2.5 hours, at least. Needless to say the roads are terrible in this region, same in monteverde, going to the reserves takes 20 mins to go the at most 7 or 8 kms. The scenery en route to monteverde was spectacular, rolling hills covered in verdant pasture. The downside of this is that it all used to be rainforest. My first day in monteverde i went to the Monteverde reserve, caught the bus at around 6:30 and arrived just before it opened (7:00). Right from the start I could tell there would be lots of birds and other things of interest. I walked for 5-5.5 hours and saw many many birds, including a quetzal (for those of you who dont know what that is, look it up on the net, very sectacular birds). The story behind me seeing it is this; I was on th return leg and was about 5 mins. from the entrance when I saw a guide and two turistos at the side of the trail looking at something. I asked them what they were seeing and they said they were waiting for a quetzal that had been repiorted there earlier. SO Iwaited with them and within a minute(!) one showed up! It was a male in all its splendor. It was swallowing a small variety of avacado that they apparently like a lot (I can relate! Ive been eating lots of avacadoes here,mostly on bread with a touch of salt, very good). The guide explained that it takes them around 20 mins to digest these small fruits so they tend to sit in one place for that time. Well guess what, it sat in one place for at leastt 20 mins, in fact it was still there when I left. This area turned out to be the most birdy of the day as probably 20 species passed through while we(a mall crowd had gathered at the point I left. At least 10 or so people) watchedthe quetzal. Among these was an emerald toucanet (A type of toucan that lives only at fairly high elevations) and a Black Guan (a large bird related to turkeys, outside of parks very rare, due to hunting, but inside protected areas relatively common). I had and incredibly expensive lunch($9 for a panini with tukey ham and cheese!), gotta eat ya know and there werent any other restaurants nearby. Afterwards I went t othe "hummingbird gallery", an area with 7 feeders that atracts about 50 hummingbirds of seven species as well as a tiny bird called the Bananaquit. Also atracted to the hub-bub was a coati and a pair of very tame foxes. Amonst the Hummingbirds were the violet sabrewing, second largest hummer in the world (6 inches and violently violet when the light catches it) and Coppery-headed emerald which lives only in Costa Rica. After resting for an hour or so taking pics of the hummingbirds I walked a trail that led toa waterfall. Nothing spectacular but set it the very moist rainforest setting was v. picturesque. I missed the bus back to town but fortunately got a ride with a family from florida.My second day in monteverde I went to the Santa Elena reserve which is at a higher elevation and attracts less visitors, hence I had to pay $2 each way for the taxi-minivan that ran every couple hours. The day started very foggy the area was enshrouded in clouds but after half an hour at the reserve it dissipated and gave way to more cloud, though well above the tops of the mountains and hence not a problem. There werent as many birds here but it was just as spectacular as monteverde res. What the birds lacked in quantity they made up for in quality as i saw a few species that are restricted to high elevations in CR. Among these were a3 Golden-browed Chlorophonias; candy coloured birds that look like they belong on some animated kids show. While waiting for the taxi-minivan to pick me up a ranger pointed out a peccary at the other side of the parking lot. Evidently it is somewhat of a celebrity as it had a name; Charlie. Charlie ambled over to us to see if we had any food to offer, sniffing greedily at the apple in my bag. We actually got to pet him/her. Unfortunately most of the mammals Ive seen here are the individuals who, like charlie, are the local street dogs, looking for handouts around the park entrances. After a hurried dinner I took a night tour ($17, a splurge for me). It wa quite good, though I wouldn't say that it was worth $17. $10 maybe. We saw a couple very small frogs, some interesting insects( a couple leaf katydids, which do look quite a bit like leaves, except for their legs), Tarantulas(!) including one that was bigger than my hand(got some good pics)! We also saw a few raccoons, a coati and at the side of the road where we met our transportation the guide found the resident two-toed sloth! When we first saw it it was climbing along the power lines that run through the foliage!On my third day I walked to the Childrens Eternal Forest Reserve, a few kms along the road to monteverde. it is at a lowere elevation thatn the other two reserves and a lot drier, hence a differnt set of birds and critters. Saw lots of Blue Morpho butterflies, about 5-6 inches from wingtip to wingtip and very blue. I had a very entertaining time here chasing my 200th costa rican life bird (for those of you who dont know thats a bird I have never seen before in my life). Found it near the end of the day, a quite drab type of flycatcher called a Mountain Elaenia. Oh well, they cant all be toucans and quetzals. The following morning I took the 6:30 bus to San Jose, again the scenery was spectacular, even more so than the route I took coming to monteverde. at around 11:30 we arrived in San Jose and I refilled my empty wallet and my empty stomach and at 1:00 I was on my wy to vara blanca, 1.5 hours north. I missed the stop for Vara Blanca and had to trek up hill for about a km, very painful with my big pack. At vara blanca i ended up at the Hotel el Establo which cost $25, I explained I was traveling on a budget and asked if they could lowere it a bit and they were kind enough to give it to me for $20, more that I would usuallly pay biut there werent any other optioons. the people were very freindly and after dinner (and a free desert of some sort of coconut cake with syrup, incredibly good, in fact I want to ask at the restaurant where I am now if they have such a thing) the caretaker invited me to a couple games of pool, I was out of practise and he was quite good and best me 3 out of 4 games but it was a lot of fun and I helped him with his english and he helped me with my spanish. In the morning I was planning on catching the 7 oclock bus to Colonia Virgen del socorro, a well known birding area, not in the hamlet of la virgen del socorro itself but along the access road and a trail by the rio sarapiqui. the caretaker made me a good breakfaast of eggs, garlic toast and ham. He called someone to make sure the bus was at 7, it turned out that no, itr was at 8. Bummer as the later it got the less good birding I could do at la virgen. At about 8:30 I was let off at the turnoff and I lugged my pack 3/4 km. down to the river were I left it in the bushes while birding the trail then the road. one of the areas claims to fame in respect to birding I a small bird called Lanceolated Monklet which is very hard to find in Costa Rica but relativeley common at this site. As I headed down the tail I saw very few birds. In fact I only saw about 5 differnt birds here. (very) Luckily the second of these birdds was a Lancolated Monklet! DING DING DING, its a winner. It was joined by a second one after about five minutes of watchig it. The pathed crossed and foolowed numerous streams and was perhapsthe most beautiful place I have been yet, dont worry I got lots of pics. ALong the road I saw lots of birds including my first keel-billed toucans. Always cool to see a toucan. At around 1:30 I lugged my pack back up to the highway and waited for the bus. Theere were lots of vultures circling overhead, i wasnt that tired, and as I watched them I noticed one was bigger with white on it. A king vulture, spectacular,and once again I was very lucky to see a very elusive bird. As I waited for the bus a man pulled off and asked if I wanted ride to nearby San Miguel, I took it and was able to fit in Lunch before the bus arriveed. I took the bus to the hamlet of chilamate, 1 km from Selva Verde park, where I was planing on going today. There is one cheap hotel here and a few expensive lodges. My luck turned here as the cheap place wasnt open due to renovations. Bummer. But I got a ride with the owner of the hotel to just outside of La Virgen (not the same as La virgen del socorro) where she had a freind who had a few cabinas as well as a camping area. Cabinas were $20 but I took one because I really needed shower after a hot day with lots of physicxal exertion. Instead of going to Selva verde this morning I went to the Tirimbina reserve, right beide my cabina. In my guidebook ot said it costed $3 entrance. Incorrect. I had to pay $14 but really it was that or probably not do anything all day. In a way it was worth it, but still, it was more than I wanted to spend as the last two days combined hade cost me about $65! Ouch, and now today has also cost me around $35. Very bad. Anyways on the positive side at Tirimbina I saw my first poison dart frog! Red with blue hind legs, very cool and also came across my firs tArmy ant swarm! I think it was a fairly small one but there were still a lot of ants and I got a couple bites as I followed it for a bit as they often atract a lot of birds. This one didnt really, although I did see a few new birds in the area. From a birding perspective today was a succces, I did se lots of great birds. At 2 oclock I caught the bus to Puerto viejo where I am now, at the Hotel Lindo Sarapiqui. there is no internet now so I will have to save this anfd probably send it tommorow morning. I do hope I remember, as I have been writin for over an hour and a half. Tommorow I am planning on going to Selva verde, there eis a bus at 5·30. I hope everything is fine in dandy in all your worlds. Chris p. enjoy Hawaii, CHhis rich, dont drink too muchtea and eat too many british candies in Britland. All you skiiers and snowboarders, i hope the hill is kicking ass. Family, hello, I miss you, and I hope everybody has a very merrry Christmas!Hasta Luego,gump

2006-12-31T19:49:00.000-08:00

4th e-mail
Hi all, To Bongle, happy belated birthday(I couldnt get to internet yesterday).WWell, Monteverde was absolutely spectacular. I stayed there 4 nights, 3days. The first day I went to the Monteverde Reserve. It was absolutely amazing and I saw lots of birds, 42 species, 37 of which were lifers! Talk about quality. The rainforest is amazing, very beatiful although I expected there to be more wildlife, insects etc. hardly any though, except birds. THey had an area with 7 hummingbird feeders, there were lots of hummers here, prob. 50 or so of 7 types. Very pertty. Today I took the bus from Montverde to San Jose then up to Vara Blanca, where I aam now. I was planning on going to a small area which is suposed to be one of the best birding spots in CR, called Virgen del Socorro but I thought it was only a few kms. from town when actually it is 15 kms. kinda sucks since the Hotel here coosts $20! and aparrently there is at leasast one place right close by to virgen del socorro. Oh well, hopefully things will work out and I will get there tommorow. i have to keep it short as this is the only internet in town and hence is fairly expensive.Bye for now,Gump

2006-12-31T19:32:00.000-08:00

3rd e-mail
Hi everyone, thanks for all the wonderful emails and good vibes. I will start my narrative from where I left off, one week ago in Puntarenas. From there I returned to the Tarcol Lodge in Tarcoles for the next 4 days. During this time, I followed pretty much the same routine as my first stint here. On wednesday I went to nearby Carara National Park. One of the prime birding areas in CR. I took a taxi there and arrived at 5:45am at the North entrance. I birded here for 5.5 hours and saw tons of great birds. Stupidly I forgot my water bottle at my cabina, so I was without water for the whole morning. I then taxied to the main entrance, where thankfully they had some water, and birded for a few more hours. Due to the fact that it was mid-day I didnt see as many birds her but did see a few troupes of leafcutter ants, which was pretty neat, as well as a couple white faced capuchin monkeys. The downside of the day was thatit cost me $30, not including my cabin($6). On thursday morning I walked up the beach to the mouth of Rio Tarcoles. Parts of the estuary are filled with trash, one area wasperhaps 2 acres of solid garbage. Rather sad. By the time I was walking back it was very hot so I took off my shoes and walked in the surf til I reached the path to the road. By friday morning I was again running out of money and I had the choice of taking the mangrove tour offered at the lodge or going to Carara again. I ended up taking the tour($20), which really was a foolish decision as I would have seen way more birds at Carara. The tour was neat though, we saw lots of crocodiles, including one baby swimming alongside the boat, Iguanas, and of course birds. On Staurday I caught a ride most the way to Puntarenas with one of the taxi drivers, Oscar, who was going to nearby Palmares. As we pulled into the junction where we would part ways a well timed bus drove by and Oscar hailed it for me and easy as you please I was in Puntarenas with no money in my pocket. SO I went ot the bank and got out $200. From Puntarenas I was going to Liberia, a few hours north and from there Rincon de la Vieja National Park. After te bank I returned to the bus station and found out that there was a Bus to Liberia in 30 mins. As it was only mid-day I took it and at around 3:30 I was in Liberia. At my hotel I found out that they offfered transport to Rincon at 7am for $40 for 1 person, $20 for two or more and that there was no where near the park to get food. As there were no supermarkets open before 7am(obviously) and the expensiveness of transportation I decided to not go to Rincon but to Santa Rosa NP on the north coast instead. So on sunday, I bought some food and caught a 11:00 bus that dropped me off at the entrance to the park. Here I payed my fee($6 for entrance plus $4 for two nights camping) and waited to catch a ride into the park. Once at the campground, a large semi-park-like area with ancient fig trees (looked a bit like a tropical version of lakeside park) I set up camp and set about exploring. This area is not rainforest but dry tropical forest of which only 2% of the original forest in Central america remains. On monday morning my first challenge was finding a clean toilet, the first one...had a frog in it, a quite large one at that. The next few were disgustingly dirty, CR may have a lot of parks, but sometimes they are not very well maintained. After breakfast, dry granola with banana, I walked 4km down the road to a trail called, for some reason, Sendero Los Platos (duck trail), maybe it was because of overhanging branches and vines and the epiphytic cacti that grow on some of the trees. There certainly wasnt any resmbling a duck here. The last part of the trail follows the rigde of a large forested canyon. On the other side there were numerous trees covered in purple flowers. Very scenic. i spent the rest of the day lounging about and walking a couple more of the trail. This morning I birded for a few hours, the packed up and caught a ride out of the poark with a ranger. I rode in the back of his pickup, a rather bumpy ride. From the entrance to the park I caught a bus to Liberia where I transfered to Canas, 1.5 hrs south. On the bus I met a couple of ameriacans who were also getting osfff in canas. As we both had the intent of catching a bus to Tilaran in the foothills near Lkae Arenal, we strategized together as to how to get a bus there. After walking to the wrong bus stop I looked in my guidebook which conveniently had a map of the town. We found the bus teminal on the map and we contemplated whether or not to get a taxi there, only a few blocks, but we all had large bags, aand they didnt feel like walking with there. Fortunately a taxi showed up and one of the americans asked it how much it would cost to go to Tilaran, only $14, split 3 ways, you got a deal. Rightnow I am in Tilaran and

2006-12-31T19:31:00.000-08:00

2nd email
Hi everybody,I hope things are going well in canada, they certainly are here! After leaving San Jose on Thursday I arrived in Tarcoles around 1 oclock and spent the next two nights at the Tarcol Lodge which caters especially to birders! It was very cheap, only $6 a night , though there was no hot water which in the end was ok as it is hot enough that you dont want a hot shower. Fortunately there was a fan in my room. The only cool part of the day is from about 1am - 6am, other than that the days are hot, but not so hot that you cant do anything. I spent the two days in Tarcoles birding and seeing muchos pajaros! The Scarlet macaws fly over the area every morning and afternoon. They are VERY loud and very big, fortunately they generally are only in pairs, if they were in a flock, they could burst your ears! They only drawback to the Tarcol Lodge was that it is about 5 kms from town and offers no food. There is a very small store where I picked up breakfast/lunch of stale bread, cream cheese a carrot and some very poor corn chips. I had to go without dinner the night before, alll in all I have been getting only about two meals a day down here, which is ok, just means you have to eat alot when you can. I am probably going back to Tarcol Lodge tommorow and this time I will bring some food. More on that later. Also at the Tarcol lodge I saw Crocodiles and a Pygmy owl my first night there, (very cool!) as well as over 60 other species of birds! All the Ticos (costa rican people) that I met there were very freindly, sa have been most f the ticos I have met, but there thye seemed esecially amiable. On Saturday I caught the bus to Puntarenas, 40 kms north. I got to the bus stop at 6am but didnt get a bus til after 7, as all the busses that passed, I guess, were full. from Puntarenas I caught the ferry over to the Nicoya Penninsula and took a taxi (bad idea, as it cost me $15) to Curu wildlife Refuge. I spent the afternoon walking the trails which were very pretty, but very birdless. The habitat there was mangrove coastlines and semi rainforest inland, broken by small savanah like areas and pastureland, lots of habitat=lots of birds and the following morning i did indeed see lots of birdsincluding Black-headed Trogons and Turquoise-browed Motmots, both very aesthetically pleasing birds aswell as a couple Macaws that gave me very good lokks as they inspected a cavity in a deadd tree(i got pics, though not spectacular). There are also lots of Butterflies, and i saw Blue Morphos which are 6 inches across and violently bright blue! I also saw a couple Owl Butterflies whiach are equally big, though not as spectacularlokking. There were also Howler Monkeys which sound more like lions than monkeys as well as White-faced Capuchin Monkeys which are very cute and quite freindly. Raccoons and similiar creatures called Coatis came around once in a while to and there were lots of lizards and Iguanas all over and I saw one Agouti which are funny little rodents about the size of a cat that look like rabbits with big assses and no ears. The afternoons werent very birdy so I spent it walking the beach and lounging about my cabina. 2 dats at CUru cost me $36 including two meals. So far I have spent on average less than $20 per day, which was my goa,l and this is only so high because my day getting from Tarcoles to Curu was so expensive. I think that most days I could verywell get by on $15, unless I am at one of the more expensive National Parks, which can charge up to $15 for entrancce. At Curu I met three volunteers, one American, midddle-agedman and two younger women, who were very nice, one was from Spain and I suspect that theother wasa Costa Rican. The guy was a typical down-south american, bush supporter(though he seemed to disagree with his environment policy which was a step in the right direction), nice enough though. The women were very nice and aI got to practise my spanish with them. For the most part I can communicat what I want to, but understanding the ticos can be difficult to down-rigt impossible. Some of the ticos are definately used to foreigners and speak in simpler language. Today I spent from 6am til 9:30 birding Curu, then caught a bus to Paquera to take the ferry back to Puntarenas where I am atthe moment. Tommorow I am going back to Tarcoles and will probably stay at the Tarcole lodge again. This time I will go to Carara National Park ad will probably spend a cuople days birding there. Thanks everyone for your emails. Mom, if you havent alreadey booked the tickets, I am planning on getting off in Seattle, so a ticket from there wuld be good. Adios, I miss everyone at home,Gump

2006-12-31T18:36:00.000-08:00

1st E-mail.
Hello everybody,Well today went a little diferently then anticipated. I had been planning on catching the bus to tarcoles at 10.>30 but that all changede when I went looking for money. I ended up sleeping in til 7>30 this morning even though i tried to go to sleep at 8>30 last night, my rooms not very soundproof ad it was quite loud in the lounge area. My room is also lacking such things as windows and a fan. but thats ok. This morning I went exploring and ended up at a park on the small river that runs a couple blocks from the hostel. There were a few birds here, i visited it again in the afternoon and ther were more then. after the park, at around 9>30, i went in search of a bank as \i had only 1000 colones, not even enough to buy lunch with. The first bank i went to i got my card stuck part way into the machine and had to get a police man who was next in line to help me. I was afraid that if my card went all the way in, i may never see it again but he just used his card to push it all the way in and it worked...up until the point where it said invalid transaction, so i tried a different bank, with the same result so i went inside to see if i could get mey through them. No we dont take debitbut Banco San Jose does(in spanish). So on to Banco SAn JOse where they said...No but Banco Banex does. At banco Banex I finally got my money (50 000 colones, equal to $100US). Hopefully I wont have this much trouble in other places. at this point it was 10->30 and I'd missed the bus, I could have taken a later one but I wanted to make sure that i got to TArcoles with plenty of daylight left to find a place to lay my head. So I decided to go to the University of Costa Rica, which i'd read was a good spot to bird. After a quick lunch I caught a taxi for $2.50 and arrived at the university after a little confusion on the part of the driver after I had asked him if there was a forested area here. He didnt understand the word in the phrasebook for forest (bosque) and i didnt understand his subsequent questions. At the University I found a flock of 50 or so warblers, most of which stayed well hidden in some sort of conifer that wasa all over the place. I did see a few and also found a few other nice birds including a very tame Blue-crowned Motmot, a very pretty tropical species. Also, much to my surprise I saw a SLOTH in one of the trees. very cool. After wandering around the campus for a while and getting a little lost then re-orienting myself (i hoped) I headed off back towards the hostel, I wasnt sure I was going in the right direction til about 20 mins after I left the campus, but fortunately yes, I was heading the right way and i ended up back at the park where i'd been in the morning. I birded here for the next hour and ahalf. I saw lots of birds between outbiursts of rain. Then Iheaded back to the hostel where i lounged, resting my tired legs, before going out to find some dinner. i bought a phonecard, $20 for only about 1-2 hours. apparently itrs a lot cheaper on the weeken so I'll give someone a call on friday from (hopefully) Tarcoles.Hasta Luego,Gump