A high and dry, wild and wet, majestic history medley – RTW 2018

[JohnM]

This morning was spent walking in the Monteverde cloud forest near Santa Elena, followed by a nearby canopy walk, with a series of five aerial walkways. The cloud forest is very different from rainforest - a lot more ferns and moss. Just beautiful.

Looking down on the canopy reveals an incredible amount of flowering and fruiting on the tops of trees that just is not visible from the ground. It makes very clear why monkeys spend so much of their time in the very top of the canopy - and why they are so danged hard to photograph.

 

[JohnM]

A few life-forms captured on my phone camera.















This is a tarantula burrow in the side of the path embankment. The occupant was visible with a torch but impossible to photograph.

 

[JohnM]

Thunderstorm brewing this afternoon.

 

[craven morehead]

Thunderstorm brewing this afternoon.

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Raincoat at the ready

 

[JohnM]

Actually, the thunderstorm fizzled out. Weather forecasting is impossible in Costa Rica. It changes - dramatically - every five minutes. Be prepared for rain at any time is the rule.

Tonight we dined at what has to be the hippest place in Santa Elena: Treehouse.

It’s a big, multi-level touristy place built around a gigantic living tree. Great live music that had us all up dancing. A great way to spend a Friday night .

The food was amazingly good for such a big, touristy place. I had a tenderloin (aka fillet) steak with green peppercorn cream sauce and it was excellent. They do grow pepper in Costa Rica.

Shared a very good Mendoza Merlot with one of the other guys.

 

[JohnM]

Moving on today from the cloud forest at about 1700m to sea level to visit Manuel Antonio NP tomorrow. Stopped on the way for a couple of hours’ walk in the small Carara NP, an example of a transitional-region forest between rainforest and drier forest.













Industrious leafcutter ants.

 

[JohnM]

Dinner at the hotel where I’m staying was very good. At the coast, so seafood time. Extremely limited wine selection (like one white and one red...), so nothing to report there.

 

[amaroo]

Just caught up. Some nice meals in that lot.

 

[JohnM]

Manuel Antonio NP is a very popular place for locals because of having beaches, walk trails and capuchin monkeys that come to hang around the people, and today is Sunday.

Walking in, we encountered many Blue Morpho butterflies flitting about and looking particularly spectacular because it was bright sunshine. Like all butterflies, nigh on impossible to photograph with their wings open.

A sloth photographed through the eyepiece of the guide’s telescope.

 

[JohnM]

Slight glitch on the morning drive S right now (the bus has WiFi). Some sort of protest going on and a key bridge is blocked.

Bring in the water cannon, I say .

 

[JohnM]

It turns out that the peaceful protest is local oil palm farmers wanting to discuss a grievance with the government. Traffic is blocked but walking across the bridge is possible.

We’re about 70 km short of our next destination, so our guide organises a bus to come from there and we walk across to meet it. Our regular bus will bring the bags when possible.

We walk a few hundred metres to a pleasant shady park to await the bus. A cannon-ball tree is interesting. The park also has some examples of ancient stone spheres that have been excavated in this region. Thought to be some burial-related cultural artefacts, probably relating to tribal aristocracy.



I can’t figure out why the odd photo gets duplicated sometimes. It doesn’t show twice on the upload list.

 

[JohnM]

Still at sea level and back in rainforest at a pleasant ecolodge.

Every stop has been two nights. Basically half a day travelling and 1.5 days for activities at each place. Works very nicely.

 

[JohnM]

Location:

 

[JohnM]

Costa Rica is, of course, famous for its frogs. I’ve seen some good ones, but they can be very hard to get close to and zooming with a dinky camera in gloomy conditions is hard to get focus, especially with dark ones on a bark background.

Anyway, bingo this afternoon! The famed red-eyed tree frog in reasonable light and docile enough to stick an iPhone in its face.

Also good toucan encounters but not close enough for phone pics. They tend to fly high in the trees to feed on the fruits up there (they also prey on other birds’ young in nests.)

 

[JohnM]

Pleasant sitting in the open bar/lounge/meals area of this fairly small lodge with a drink as the sun sets and steady rain falls.

Enterprising bats are soaring around us taking advantage of insects attracted to the lights.

 

[craven morehead]

Pleasant sitting in the open bar/lounge/meals area of this fairly small lodge with a drink as the sun sets and steady rain falls.

Enterprising bats are soaring around us taking advantage of insects attracted to the lights.

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Looks very relaxing

 

[JohnM]

Danged #*\!&@! Sony camera. Back in rainforest and it plays up. Clearly a design flaw. Thank goodness for the backup Lumix.

Something for anyone thinking of going to rainforest to bear in mind with any camera type, I suggest. But Sony seems especially bad.

 

[JohnM]

Spent the morning walking in the rainforest where one of the finds was a hummingbird nest.

The mornings tend to be sunny and hot, making it very steamy. Around noon it started to bucket down, with a good dose of associated thunder.

There is a good reason why it is called rainforest...

 

[JohnM]

Night walk just now.

 

[RB]

Over time we have also encountered some problems with our Sony-don't think Sony will be our next camera
Just caught up with a lot of this report-great stuff, some great experiences