Costa Rican Crabs

 With its long and varied coasts, I was not surprised to see quite a few crabs in Costa Rica. What did surprise me was the number of crabs we saw out of the water and far from moisture on many of the hot days down there. This hermit crab was clinging to the side of a tree in the Caribbean rainforest quite a distance from any bodies of water.

 Tougher still, there were dozens of these small hermit crabs on the beach in Corcovado looking for open coconuts to eat. Even early in the morning I was sweating up a storm just walking along that beach in the hot sun, but they were quite active in their search for food and eager to provide some fantastic macro photography options.

 We saw this small crab in the trees of Cahuita and I was surprised to learn that it lives only in the brackish waters along the seaside, but if placed in the ocean would likely die. We have seen many crustaceans in and alongside the ocean in our various travels and around Vancouver, but I was very impressed by their assault on the land in Costa Rica.

Corcovado

 It occurs that we have been covering Costa Rican people and animals pretty well, but haven't been giving enough attention to the landscapes and scenery which were also so stunning. To rectify that, here is a selection of photos which showcase what an incredible park Corcovado is. The picture below was taken beside a stream where we stopped to have lunch during our all-day hike in the area and hopefully helps show what a slice of paradise the whole area is.

 I have struggled for years to take compelling photographs of forests. The locations themselves are always amazing, but my pictures have previously never come away with anything that helps capture the scope or majesty of an area. While I still have much to learn, and large steps yet to take, I do find that a fisheye lens really helps capture the scale of these places, as it does below looking through the foliage and out onto the beach.

 Going over the top with fisheyes of course, the logical conclusion is another little planet, which you can click to enlarge if you like. This was our morning hike from where our driver dropped us off along several kilometers of unoccupied beach to the park gates. Mario was very keen on getting us there early, so the only others on that path at that time of day were a donkey and his driver doing a luggage delivery from one of the lodges in the park.

Pre-Columbian Gold Museum

 San Jose has a handful of very nice museums, one of which is dedicated entirely to gold artifacts and crafting techniques of the people who lived in the country prior to the arrival of Columbus. Since all the pieces on display are small and priceless, the museum is sensibly built in a giant vault. The same area also had a great display on the history of money in Costa Rica, but doesn't photograph as well since its all either text or notes on display.

 One thing I found very fascinating about all the native art we saw in Costa Rica is just how different a style everything was. This should not really be any surprise given the artists had a completely different culture and understanding from my own, but all their artwork has a striking and alien quality to it. These artisans used the "lost wax method" where they would carve their piece out of wax, surround it in clay, then melt out the wax and use the impression it left behind to cast their piece. Given the detail of all the pieces and the difficulty (so I read) of working in molten gold, the final results are still stunning hundreds of years later.

 Early indigenous people were fascinated by jaguars, vultures, crocodiles, frogs, and a variety of imaginary gods and creatures, and this was clearly reflected in their art. My inner Englishman was particularly taken with this golden shrimp which reminded me of lobstering off the Northumberland coast.

Iguana Identities

 We've had quite a few trips to the tropics (Mexico and Galapagos both) which had a few endemic species of iguanas, and Costa Rica was no slouch in this department either. As explained previously, Costa Rica has very diverse coasts which have been separated by mountains for quite some time, allowing for very different animals in different parts of the country. To begin, green iguanas like the one below, were a common sight in treetops on the Caribbean coast along many of the streams and rivers we visited. Fun facts: at 2m, they are the largest lizards in the country, the adults only go to ground to lay their eggs, and they are vegetarian AND would be unable to digest plants without symbiotic flora in their guts.

 At the smaller end of the spectrum, this helmeted iguana (the only one we saw) would cap out at 36cm in length and could theoretically be found on either coast. Fun fact: they apparently can be so stationary in their wait to ambush prey that small plants are known to grow on their heads as they wait. THAT is dedication to your means of hunting.

 Rounding out the set, spiny-tailed iguanas are found only on the pacific coast and have an in-betweeny length of around 130cm. They are the most sexually dimorphic of the three, with the females being almost entirely black and without the long crests of the male shown below. Fun fact: the males court females with a bizarre head-bobbing routine which we saw briefly from this individual and will hopefully be able to highlight in our video.