Costa Rica Pics

[xdeus]

I recently traveled through Costa Rica for 12 days with my son and a couple of friends. We rented a car and put a LOT of miles... kilometers... on those Costa Rican roads. A few things to remember if you ever travel to CR:

1. No road signs. Not even in their capitol, San Jose. Either get a GPS or stop a lot to ask for directions. Most of the people were VERY friendly!

2. If you like playing video games, you'd love driving in Costa Rica. Between the pot holes, pedestrians, school zones, ninja speed bumps, bicyclists, and no shoulders which force broken down trucks to stop in the middle of the road... all of your video game skills will come in handy. Fortunately the speed limit rarely exceeds 50 MPH in most of the country.

3. If you're hungry, look for a 'Soda' on the side of the road and order a Cazado. A very hearty meal for about $4. Mmmm... fried plantains.

Here are a few pictures of the wildlife we encountered along the way:


A cool looking centipede about 6 inches long.


A friendly raccoon that followed us along a jungle trail for quite a ways.


A Capuchin monkey. We also saw spider monkeys and howler monkeys, but I was unable to get decent pictures of those.


Boat trip in the Tortuguero national park along the Caribbean coast.


Red eyed tree frog. They came out just after dark to find a mate.


An iguana tree. There were dozens of these very large iguanas sunning themselves on top of trees.


One of the many Caimans we encountered.


We found this cute Coati right outside of Arenal on the side of the road. He was very inquisitive and came right up to us when we got out of the car. About 50 yards up the road there was a pack of about 8 of them foraging along the road.


This gorgeous hummingbird was one of dozens... hundreds? of hummingbirds that were attracted to feeders in a cloud forest at Monte Verde.


One of the many gorgeous beaches along the Pacific coast. The northern pacific coast is like Waikiki with many resorts and white sand beaches. This one was about halfway down the coast and the area wasn't as developed.


Another beach shot with more rocks and tide pools. My Spanish is limited so I had a tough time asking for directions to tide pools. I spoke to a friendly Tica girl working at a hotel near there to ask for directions and described what we were looking for as "small water near the ocean" and she pointed at the hotel swimming pool.


A very large American Crocodile viewed from above a bridge. These guys can get huge, but are much friendlier than their old world cousins.


My son on the crocodile bridge. We wanted to get closer to them, but between the barbed wire and local police hanging around we decided against it.


The only species of snake we came across... an Eyelash Viper (Bothriechis schlegelii). We came across this one during a jungle hike. It was very non-aggressive and slowly slithered away when I gently moved it.


We found this one about 40 feet away. Gorgeous snake and one that I really wanted to see during our time down there.

Overall it was a great trip in spite of the heat and humidity/rain. It wasn't as buggy as I expected and we had a great time white water rafting, going down 30 or so zip lines, and exploring a cave with a lot of wildlife (they didn't allow pictures taken in the cave). We met a lot of very friendly people, especially in the smaller towns, but knowing a little Spanish definitely helps.

Thanks for looking.