Pura Vida - or Welcome to Costa Rica
Costa Rica - Rainforest, Vulcanos, Beaches well educated friendly people good food and always a temperature around 22-30° C. Well this in it self is worth a visit but additional to these highlights mentioned also the wildlife and the handling of the tourism is amazing. Most of the lodges and hotels we stayed in where class leading in eco - tourism. How the handle water and other resources was very impressive.
We rented a 4x4 car to get around and also stayed days in remote camps which only could be reached by rafting boats and it was great - sometimes we was the only ones in the lodges or a handful of other wildlife lovers were using the same locations.
A small warning for all people planning to get over - take you time while driving! When trying to get to the first remote location I was surprised to hear that for 120 km it would take 3 hours. Even more after 1hour and already 70km behind us but then the roads turns worst and worst and finally you could drive 20 km/h due to the road conditions (would not even call it road). But this was fine and underlined the very welcome escape from the big cities we normally traveling and living in.
The other part what was interesting for me to experience was the fact that even with a lot of birds around my focus fast moved into mammals. A bird on one tree and a monkey on the other ... yes the monkey won my attention. But it was a pleasure to see different species of Kingfisher or other birds on locations near the rivers or colorful birds including a variety of hummingbirds in the trees or bushes.
Following some pictures to get you into the Costa Rica mood.
At least some birds to start with!
For me the animal very high on the list to photograph was the sloth - these strange creatures are simply fascinating. They always smile (at least it looks like) and also they are simply be invisible if they want. I am very pleased to say that in total we found 8 different sloths while traveling the only problem you have is ... they not moving a lot. So it takes a fair portion of patient and good planning and even more pure luck to get some pictures you are after.
And some more mammals which could not resist to show up to make sure I can take a picture of them. Howler Monkey, Coati and the very unique Olingo which even the local guide I met never saw before.
It was a very nice trip and also the different other attractions like zip-lining and canopy tours or rafting is a must and should be included into any trip.
Comments are always welcome ...
Cheers
Holger
