Sea Kayaking

Our itinerary included a sea kayaking/bioluminescence tour on the south-west coast and we were doubly fortunate in that outing. First off, when the torrential rain kicked up in the afternoon, we decided that you only live once and we aught to go regardless. Secondly, the other people that would have been on the water at the same time as us didn't make the same choice about the rain, so we had a private tour.

 There were frequently pods of dolphins in these waters and we had high hopes to see some, but unfortunately the passing storm had kicked up some chop on the water so it was a little difficult to spot a small dorsal fin in the ocean. The skies were striking and it had been ages since we'd been out in kayaks, so it was amazing all the same.

 The bioluminescence portion of the trip was too dark for any pictures to be taken, but still has a story worth sharing. After dark we were snorkeling about and told that there would be tiny plankton which would light up due to motion on the water, but were having trouble seeing anything. After 10 minutes or so of flapping around with my face in the water I was beginning to wonder a bit if it was like the story of the Emperors New Clothes and everyone just raves about the bioluminescence because they don't want to admit they can see anything. Fortunately, moments later everything changed and every motion of your body was trailed by an underwater fireball of glowing particles. It was truly an amazing experience and unfortunately, one of the few where you'll have to either take our word or go see for yourselves just how incredible it was.

Spectacled Caimans

 Caimans were the second and smaller crocodilian we saw in Costa Rica, with the males being up to 6ft long and the females being somewhat smaller. Their diet consists of invertebrates and fish with a few pigs thrown in for the larger adults. Like many of their Family, they have mastered the art of patiently floating along and trying to look as much like a log as they can to any short-sighted prey.

 We saw a few baby animals as well as the larger adults. The babies tend to stay closer to the edge of the water and tuck in among the grasses. The young are interesting in that the temperature of their nest will determine their gender upon hatching, with warmer temperatures producing females and lower temperatures producing males. While we (falsely) think of reptiles as laying their eggs and then abandoning them, caiman mothers will not only raise their own young, but are known to cooperatively babysit for one another.

 While not as outright terrifyingly huge as the American crocodiles were, Caimans are still pretty impressive reptiles and pack more than a little dinosaur quality to their appearance. We were never in any danger from these creatures, but there was one night walk where the lodge kept caimans on the grounds and we could hear one consistently moving towards us from the darkness.

Vulture Variations

 Costa Rica has vultures the way cities have pigeons: they are practically everywhere you go. Unlike pigeons, which we typically lump all together as "winged rats," there are 3 distinct vulture species in Costa Rica and we were lucky enough to see them all. Turkey vultures are the same species we have here in Canada. They hang in the air with a distinctive "V" shape to their bodies and search for their food by smell and sight.

 In contrast, black vultures (which we do not get in Canada, but which are also found in the southern USA) hunt entirely by sight. To help them spot prey, they fly higher than turkey vultures, and will often rely on their motions, or those of predators, to help them locate a meal.

 King vultures are the largest of all (except for condors) and fly the highest. We saw them twice and Kathryn was very good at spotting their distinctive white fronts (compared to the turkey vulture, they have the inverse colour pattern). They typically fly highest of all the vultures and often rely on both other species to locate kills. Despite their enormous beaks, they rely on other birds to open up a carcass and then use their larger size to drive the others away.

Forest Mammal Grab-Bag

The forest is home to many small mammals, some of which are very cautious and rare while others are quite inquisitive and common. White-nosed coatis were a common sighting across the country and always a delight. These relatives of the raccoon often occur in large social groups of females and young, while adult males tend to be solitary. They are quite bold around people and climb trees on occasion, which helps make them easier to photograph.

 Central American Agoutis are one of 11 members of a family of large guinea pig-like rodents about the size of a rabbit. They are fairly common sights and frequently grazed on hotel grounds but are shy and easily startled, but when just the pair of us were out on walks we could get quite close. We have seen them in Mexico as well, and they have a fairly extensive range throughout the Caribbean and South America.

 We also saw a single Collared Peccary at La Selva. Everyone was very preoccupied chatting or watching some Motmots, and Kathryn had to practically shout at people to get their attention to see it as it snuck by in the background. While pig-like in appearance, they are apparently fairly distant relatives and easily differentiated by their downward tusks and scent glands.

Zip Lining

 Costa Rica is famous for (and the inventor of) zip lining, and in the Monteverde cloud forest there was a bit of time set aside to do just that. It's based on a pretty simple harness that loops around your waist and a thick glove you use to brake if needed. I found it very relaxing and apparently exuded an aura of calm enough to help a few others in our group get into the swing of things.

 Once you're geared up and strapped in, you get a shove and gravity does most of the rest of the work for you. Kathryn is seen below starting her journey from one of the decks. The operators run a pretty slick routine there with a handful of guides staggered across a few platforms so that once you get moving you can have a group of 20 people spread out fairly thinly and rarely feel like you're bunched up and waiting your turn.

 There were several dozen platforms all in all with lines as short as a little over a hundred meters, to the long line at the end which was over a kilometer. The two longer runs were done tandem to make sure that each group had enough weight to not get stuck in the middle and slow the whole thing up. Running a camera with your left hand while braking with your right and holding your wife with your feet is pretty tricky, so we don't win any cinematography awards for our footage down there, but the screen grab below at least shows the height and view from one of the lines.

Basilisks

 Basilisks are common lizards in Costa Rica and we were able to see all three of the regional subspecies, starting with the Green Basilisk. Mythology-fans and D+D players will be disappointed to hear that these basilisks are unable to turn people to stone with their gaze, but do retain a unique defensive ability all the same. Frequently called "the Jesus Christ lizard" by the locals, their feet have evolved in such a way that they can run on their hind legs across open water for significant distances. Being good ecotourists, we did not disturb the animals, so we haven't seen this reaction firsthand.

 The Striped Basilisk is a smaller animal and quite good at blending into its surrounds on the Caribbean side of the country. The picture below spoils this ability somewhat by being so zoomed, but on that spot at the end of our hike it took a moment to pick it out from a pile of driftwood even at a short distance.

 As we have stated many times over by now, Costa Rica LOVES variations of wildlife, and the Brown Basilisk (below) is a Pacific-only variation of the Striped Basilisk. We found this animal when we were out looking for squirrel monkeys and it was perhaps too cold and lazy to want to move, so we were able to get quite a nice portrait of it.

Tamanduas

 Costa Rica is home to a single species of medium-sized anteater and we were incredibly lucky to see them twice. The first sighting was up in a tree in the forest at Carara, where we were able to watch this one trundle around and scratch for quite awhile. Their eyesight is very poor so they rely primarily on smell and sound to find their food, and we were apparently quiet enough that it was not too concerned by our presence.

 Despite their comedic look, they can be dangerous when cornered, and are know for injuring overly curious dogs that get too close. Since they are equipped with enormous claws for tearing open termite mounds, they can cause quite a bit of damage if provoked. This one looks pretty relaxed and mildly embarrassed by such talk as he scratches his head with his back leg.

Rounding out our set of three, here is the best look we had, as one stopped to drink from a stream in Corcovado. You can really see the peculiar colouration of their body which makes it look like they are wearing either pyjamas or a life-jacket. This one continued to showcase their poor eyesight by walking directly towards us and passing within a few meters of us after his drink.

San Jose: Strangeness

Every city has its peculiar features, customs, and parks, and here are our favorite bits of weirdness from San Jose. First off, many stores have a hawker standing outside shouting into a microphone in an attempt to draw people to their store. This was new to us, but not THAT strange. What WAS strange was walking around in the evening and watching two competing butchers shop employees engage in a rap battle about who had the best meat...

 La Sabana park was a nice little green space we walked into one day to stretch our legs and get out of the downtown core. The park itself is very nice with several food vendors, boat rentals, and pony rides. What I found strange was the giant sculpture of a pile of bones in the middle island, without really any signage or context. Luckily, Kathryn was only too willing to have her picture taken in a Hero Pose to commemorate her apparent battle with the beast.

Peculiar to Costa Rica in general (especially in Guanacaste in the north-west) but most apparent to us in San Jose, is their variation of bullfighting. The sport is hugely popular at the end of the year and was literally on the TV of every restaurant we visited and nearly every channel at the hotel.

Now, as you will all know, Kathryn and I are pro-animal in most every way and expected to be appalled by Costa Rican bullfighting, but instead became utterly hypnotized by it. Before you judge, here's rule #1 (and pretty much the only rule):
1) Nobody is allowed to hurt the bull.

In each event, a bull (who is admittedly hungry and has a rope around his midsection to make him grumpy) is ridden into an arena where he inevitably bucks off his rider. Then dozens and dozens of people (who are PAYING to be in there) try to get his attention and somehow earn fame in the process. We saw "winners" being given groceries and whatnot, but many people apparently do it for the thrill. Eventually, when the bull is bored of chasing people around and starts to tire, people on horses lasso and remove it. Bulls that perform well are brought back year after year and generally have a far better life than Canadian beef cattle.

San Jose: Sights

 San Jose is home to a number of very pleasing and impressive buildings, we would be remiss if we didn't spend a little bit of time showcasing our favorites. The National Museum of Costa Rica is housed in an old military barracks, which still bears the bullet holes of the civil war in 1948 (as an interesting aside, after the civil war, the victors disbanded the army and Costa Rica has never reinstated a military force since) We tried to visit this museum several times in our stay, but its hours are not posted and it turned out to be closed the entire time we were there, but the grounds are quite striking.

 There are 3 main cathedrals in the downtown core, along with several smaller churches, but the Iglesia Nuestra Senora de la Soledad is my personal pic to share with everyone. Not only is it a beautiful building, but I find the state of Mary standing on an aircraft propeller to be both interesting and confusing. If anyone can find any information about this statue, please let us know.

 The National Theatre is right downtown as well, with an easy opportunity to poke your nose inside and have a look around. Started in 1891, it took 7 years to complete, and adds a touch of European style to the area. All of these buildings are conveniently located in the downtown core and you can easily see them all in a single walk.

San Jose: Streets

 When we visited Ecuador in 2011, we both really liked the city of Quito and found we didn't have enough time there. So when going to Costa Rica I thought we should have a few days in San Jose at the end, hoping for a comparably gorgeous city..

It made sense to ask our guides about the city and what to do there, so I was a bit worried when Mario said he couldn't stand San Jose and spent as little time there as possible. Ok, that was fair, he was from the countryside and maybe just didn't like the big city. I was a bit more worried when Nico, who lives in San Jose, said he didn't really like it much....

uh oh.

 San Jose is the capital and main city of Costa Rica, with over a million people commuting in to work daily. This creates a bustling and busy city and a total nightmare for traffic congestion. Fortunately, there are several pedestrian corridors throughout the downtown area, and several covered markets. There are tons of illegal vendors selling DVDs and clothes in the streets while the markets reminded us of the bazaars of Istanbul and were fun to explore (so long as you kept your distance from the butcher shops at the back).

 Several of the downtown plazas are centered on churches and public squares, which offer nice views from the surrounding restaurants. On our last night there, a huge flock of hundreds of small parrots swarmed into the trees of this square and industriously began stripping many of the leaves from the palms.

We have covered some of the museums already, and will give some attention to some of the other attractions in the city, but would advise future travelers to allow a day or two at most for San Jose and spend the rest of your visit in the countryside.

Indigenous Stonework

 We recently wrote about the Pre-Columbian Gold Museum and the very otherworldly feeling that the artwork of the indigenous Costa Rican people had, and I wanted to follow that discussion up with a handful of pictures of stone sculpture by the same people to further illustrate how awesome and unique their style and cultures were. First off, nearly all of their standing objects had three legs; both their food jars/pots and the stone benches which were the pride of the warrior class. After a lifetime of four-legged chairs, they just seem the most natural and stable way to build, but these people carved tripods for most of their needs for centuries.

 Next up, this brazer in the form of a crocodile. We saw many pieces with this strange motif on the head design and never REALLY understood why it was so prevalent and popular, other than being an amazing piece of work. One bit of text did elaborate that their artists would obsess on a single defining feature for many animals and reduce the prevalence of most other body features down to next to nothing. In the case of the crocodile, it was the ridges down the back which their artists chose to express at the cost of all else. I don't get it, but I really liked these "chainsaw lizards" whenever I saw them.

 I wanted to end with this piece since its the only one I've shared which is representative of a human being and would indicate how the people saw themselves. Warriors were a common theme of sculptures in human form, so we can assume this might have been a famous warrior or hero. It was very popular in their art to depict warriors with severed heads, which must have been bragging rights and symbols of power, but this piece does not include any.

Scarlet Macaws

 We hoped to see quite a few parrots, parakeets, and macaws in Costa Rica, but nothing quite prepared us for how many Scarlet Macaws there were to see in Corcovado. The picture below was taken from the roadside on the drive to our lodge. We had already seen quite a few caracaras, owls, toucans, and other birds on the way up and were all scanning for other neat sightings. I looked out across a field and my brain couldn't really reconcile all the red shapes in the green trees, but was able to process the statement "Are all of those Macaws? Can we stop?" This picture doesn't even capture them all as there were at least 2 dozen in the area.

 They are stunning birds up close, and in Corcovado they are entirely fearless of people so we were able to walk right under some of the trees they were sitting in and take incredible pictures and portraits of their features and feathers. Costa Rica is so lush and green in every direction that a bird this red just leaps out at you and is even more stunning than you would expect. While most of us have seen unfortunate captive birds, nothing can prepare you for how gorgeous they are in the wild.

 Far from being an isolate incident, we saw dozens and dozens of macaws in Corcovado at all times of the day. Frequently when we were hiking along a pair of them would flash overhead in a flurry of all the colours of the rainbow. We never once got tired of seeing them or felt that we had enough pictures...

White-Faced Capuchins

 Of the four species of monkey we saw in Costa Rica, the white-faced capuchin were simultaneously the most bold, the most common, and the most expressive. We saw them on both coasts in sizeable troops that are more then eager to test the limits of what they can get away with around humans and hopefully steal a few bananas in the process.

 Being very curious and fearless around people, they would frequently come down to eye level to look for unattended picnics, which made them excellent subjects for portrait photos. At Manuel Antonio beach, where all of these pictures were taken, they were such a problem that our guide Mario spent the entire time we were there just keeping an eye on our bags to make sure we left with everything we had arrived with.

 Like many primates, they have developed some rudimentary tool use, including throwing stones or swinging sticks as weapons against snakes as well as using seasonal plants for medicinal purposes to repel insects and for antiseptic needs. Similar to people, all this thinking can leave them knackered out in the hot Costa Rican sun and in need of a nap like this guy.

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.