The last things to remember about Lost Iguana are these:
The Turkey Vulture that insisted on being photographed.... Kept making noises and posing until we took notice of him/her!
Arenal Volcano that revealed herself to us once more in the early moring light to then disappear behind the clouds.
......And the White-nosed Coatis that arrogantly strolled through the resort on the final night of our stay. What a wonderful setting!
La Quinta Country Inn Sarapiqui hotel was descrbed in our itinerary as basic. Certainly not at the same standard as Lost Iguans but........
We certainly enjoyed our stay here. The staff were happy and very friendly; rooms clean and comfortable with a beautiful shared balcony overlooking the river.
The best thing of all about this stay were the excusions to La Selva Biological Research Centre. This extraordinary place was purchased through public fundraising to create a research station that could be directly attached to the nearby national National Park, Braulio Carrillo. La Selva is in the Caribbean foothills of Costa Rica and comprises 1614 hectares of old growth and disturbed tropical wet forest. La Selva and the attached park account for 4% of the total world's biodiversity in such a small area. The biodiversity is spectacular , including mire than 1850 species of plants, 359 species of tree; 448 species of birds and approximately 500 species of ants.
Needless to say our trips to this magical place gave us the greatest insights into a tropical jungle and all the life forms it contains. We were assisted by two of the most gifted guides imaginable. Octavio on the first day was an avid birder and we were priviledged to observe many birds in their natural habitat.
Blue Jeans Poison Dart Frog calling for a mate!
Mot Mot.
Annual migration of Smithonian Hawks and Turkey Vultures on their way from North America to South America and some to Oatagonia. We happened to be in La Selva to observe this Hurculean effort on the day they flew passed. The birds find the thermals and take them to help conserve energy.
Jacintha on the second day was exceptional. She is the only female guide we have met and is a permanent employee of La Selva. In a very macho Latin American world, this speaks for itself! We spent a total of five hours with her walking through the jungle.
It poured with rain for the first two hours, and as we had lost out ponchos, became saturated. Not cold, just wet! The rain eased for the afternoon session. Peter felt that he would hold us up in the afternoon, so kindly decided to stay in the canteen area of the research centre.
So I was so lucky to spend three hours with Jacintha learning all she could teach me about the things we saw. Jacintha could see things that I had not the faintest way of seeing, even to the point where she pointed out a rare Eyelash Palm Pit-viper to some snake experts that had just walked passed it!
The camera at this point decided not to focus properly - affected by the very high humidity 85 -95%! So the following photos are of poor quality. But give you a basic idea.
The camera now gets packed inside a wet/dry bag at night with an opened packet of rice.
We saw many varieties of ants, Bullet Ants; Leaf Cutter ants, Army ants etc. Bullet Ants collect fruit and stow it into a bromelaid pond in the sunshine for several days to make the fruit ferment and then they take the fermented fruit and liquor down into their nest for consumption.
A troup (?) of pecuaries sauntered across the path, one with baby in tow.
A couple of sloths two-toed and three-toed
Two males Mot Mots were dancing and displaying in the hope of attracting a female mate.
The birds at La Quinta were spectacular.
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