Day 7: Arenal to Monte Verde

Today we head from Arenal to the Monte Verde area.  The fastest way is to cross the lake and drive the rest of the way.

We got up and had breakfast, then headed to Arenal National Park to hike around.  There are signs in the parking lot instructing you to back in to your parking spot for a fast get away if needed.  Kind of crazy.  Although the volcano is unfortunately dormant right now.  

There is a man made lake - Lake Arenal right there.  

I think this is a strangler fig - a biggun.  As you looked closely at these trees you would find all sorts of things living in them.  This one had bats and lots of harvestmen (? kind of like daddy long legs, but our guide told us they were actually insects).  At night we found huge spiders and bark scorpions on them.

Here are those bugs, one area of the tree was covered in them and they moved and swayed together.

Clear wing butterfly

This is a crested guan, a relative of the turkey.  You just never know what you'll find in these forests!

Oropendola - you can just barely make out the gold tail.  This was a common bird, their nests hung down from trees like baskets.  Some how I have not one photo of one.

Our first real coatimundi sighting (Aaron saw one in Tortuguero but thought it was a monkey).  He came pretty close to us.

Lizard

I love these beautiful basilisk lizards

We then stopped at a butterfly garden.  They had a small area to show how they raised them, and so you could see them at different stages.  

Aren't these gorgeous!  I'd love a necklace out of a replica...

They also had some amphibians, like this red eyed tree frog - the spokes-animal for Costa Rica.

This is what they look like when they sleep - pretty smart!

They also had some poison dart frogs, these are called something about "blue jeans" in Spanish.  We didn't see any wild frogs, besides some brown less exciting ones.

Tiger beetle

A cemetery on the way back to town.

Casado, of course

Time to return the Jimny.  

Taken from the middle of Fortuna.

And we are on our way to Monte Verde - via jeep/boat/jeep.  They drove us to the lake, we got on a boat, then took a terrible road to Monte Verde. 

Refueling roadside!

We got into Santa Elena just in time to get a wildlife night tour.  We did see a lot of animals...but...our guide was rude.  Like really rude.  There was a Swedish guy on our tour, and when our guide showed us a tarantula, he wanted to know what a tarantula was (it was pouring rain and difficult to see).  Our guide literally ridiculed him for not knowing that word in English, and of course tarantulas don't grow in Scandinavia.  Anyway we got drenched, and I felt bad for the animals, and the Swede.  There were probably 60 people out in groups running around this forest yelling and shining lights on animals just trying to do their thing.  We ended up seeing: a 2 toed sloth with a baby eating, 2 green pit vipers, 2 Mexican hairy porcupines, an emerald crowned toucanet, a mot mot, said tarantula, 2 scorpions, a mouse, a katydid and a stick insect.   

Day 4: Tortuguero to La Fortuna

We booked a shuttle trip from Tortuguero to Fortuna for $55, but because it was the low season there weren't enough people to make the trip go.  It's a long story, but someone ended up giving us a ride all the way in his own car, after the early boat filled up and then we consequently lost our second planned connection.  I think he was a tour guide?  I'm not sure, but he was super nice and saved the day.  (and didn't murder us - bonus!)

But before we caught our boat out of town we had a canoe trip planned with the same guy that had taken us on a turtle tour the night before.  He was actually pretty awful, rude and chain smoked - on our nature tours - but we did see quite a few animals.  

Red lored parrots.

Green ibis.

Basilisk lizard 

Anhinga drying its wings

Tiger heron preening in the sun.

I asked if we could find some caiman, so we took some back canals.  There are manatee in these canals also, but it's very rare to see one.

We did see lots of these guys though, I think they are beautiful.  Spectacled caiman.

There is one hiding here:

Jesus christ lizard, hilarious when they run on water!

Finally we caught a boat from Tortuguero to Siquirres.

This is what our boat looked like.

Here is our trusty steed, that drove us halfway across Costa Rica.

There are fruit vendors all over the roads, we asked the guy driving us what this fruit was, so he stopped on the side of the road and had the vendor bring us some to try.  It's called mamón chino.

That foot belongs to a woman we picked up along the way...I'm not sure what the details were as she spoke zero English, and our driver spoke limited English.  But she was nice and taught me how to peel the mamón.  

It's called rambutan in other parts of the world, I know that they also eat it in Thailand.  It's texture is similar to lychee (they're related) but I don't think I've had fresh lychee, so I'm not sure how the tastes compare.  It was sweet, mild and juicy.

A bit of Oregon in Costa Rica!  We also saw Kettle Chips for sale several places.

We finally arrived in La Fortuna, famous for Arenal Volcano, which is in their backyard.  When I visited CR in 2006 lava flowed daily.  In fact when we got close to the volcano, we not only saw lava flowing, but also felt and heard it rumbling.  Unfortunately the volcano is now pretty much dormant.  But it's still beautiful, and this was the view from our room.

We finished the long day off with dinner at the Lava Lounge, owned by the person teaching our cooking class, which we took on Day 5.  Pretty good, I believe Aaron had fajitas, the chicken had been marinated in Salsa Lizano - yum!  My nachos were good too, I think one of two times we had "real" cheese while we were there.