My Diary of My Trip to Costa Rica. Episode One

Arriving in Costa Rica, I was met at the airport and taken to hotel.  After checking in, my plan was to photograph their gorgeous guidance, however, it is the rainy season Costa Rica and a thunderstorm came up, so I sat on the balcony with my roommate and we just observed the changes in the sky and talk.  We met our leaders Greg and E.J, who discussed the plans for the following day and our itinerary
Before I left the Hotel I shot a couple of photos of the gardens.

After breakfast, we brought out the gear and luggage and then Jose loaded everything on the bus and we started our trip to our first location, a lodge in the Atlantic lowland rainforest.  I obtain some photos through the bus window.

On the way to the lodge, we passed pineapple, yucca, heart of palm and pepper plantations.

The problem we had on arriving in the closest town to the lodge was that the bridge over the small river  was washed out and we had to cross on a temporary log and rock filled incline.  People from the lodge brought our gear and luggage over and they transported us up to the lodge.

After signing in and obtaining our rooms, and having lunch; everyone set up on the covered porch to start photographing.  We were looking for Toucans, Oropendulas, Parrots and many other species of birds.  Over the next 2 days, the group divided it's time between photographing from the open covered porch at the lodge, One third traveled to the Lodge managers house where there were perches set up the photograph  Many of the smaller bird species, such as honey creepers and finches. 

Shining Honeycreeper

Blue-grey Tanager

Montezuma Oropendola

Green Honeycreeper

Collared Aracari

Black-checked Woodpecker

Great Kiskadee

Brown-hooded Parrot

Brown-hooded Parrot

Keele-billed Toucan

Collared Acarira

There were also opportunities to photograph everything from caimans to ants and other macro subjects. 

Leaf-cutting Ant

One of the more interesting subjects to photograph and watch was the green basilisk lizard, otherwise known as the Jesus Christ lizard because it's ability to run on water.  It was interesting to watch one of those lizards running on water, they really do it.  They are able to do this because of long toes on the rear feet, and fringes of skin that open up in the water that increase the surface area.  As a rapidly run, they slap the splayed feet against the water and create a tiny year pocket that helps them from sinking, as long as they can keep their speed up.

From the porch, one of the afternoons, we did observe a caimans swimming in the lagoon below us.  But, the best views of the of the caimans were at night.  The lodge offers a walk with the night watchman, who feeds chicken parts to the caimans.  The watchman has named the caimans and calls them to come get their food.  We were able to be close to the caimans, not in any danger, and able to touch their tails.

In fact, he had the youngest member of our group, a great young lady who is14 years old, straddle a caiman’s tail.

The weather was hot and humid, with rain showers and storms intermittently.  It usually did not take long for our close to become damp with perspiration, and the best time of the day was the evening shower.  The meals were served buffet style, and typical Costa Rican recipes with plenty of fresh fruits.  In fact, one of the best events was when they had just harvested pineapples, and they served us slices of those pineapples, which were the most tastiest pineapple I have ever eaten.  The pineapple was juicy and warm, having just come off the plant.  I could've eaten the whole pineapple myself.
We finished our visit to the lodge in the same way that we had arrived, packing up the vehicles, traveling down to the river, and crossing the river, then loading everything onto our bus to be on the road again.  To be continued in the next blog.