Air plants stuck to the telephone wires
Luxury Ride
This was the least blurry photo I managed to take from inside the colectivo
Obviously we stopped halfway through the ride to see what was happening in La Copa Mundial
On the ride in the colectivo, we saw a number of animals passing by: a coati, spider monkeys, an agouti, and massive blue butterflies (there was no way to take photos because we were driving too fast).
At Carate we got out and started our hike. Here are some highlights:
Some poisonous caterpillars. Our guide warned us that touching them would bring extreme pain for about an hour.
Some less poisonous caterpillars. This one waved its head back and forth, at which point our guide said "I'm a snake, I'm a snake" in a heavy Costa Rican accent.
Some rad trees
A real-life plant wall! Just like at the MOMA and every bougie start-up office
Some lizards and birds
Bonus bat! This one is called a tent-making bat because it chews the leaf along the stem to make either side of the leaf fold downward, making a tent for it to hang out in.
Other mammals we saw included a bunch of Coatis
You can see the baby coatis in this one
And a Tayra, a cousin of the wolverine. Very hard to get a clear shot of these because they were super fast
And of course, the whole reason we went to Corcovado, the whole reason we came to Osa Peninsula, the whole reason we came to Costa Rica: the monkeys!!
Squirrel monkeys!! These were the hardest to find and also quite hard to photograph because they are so fast. There was a teeny tiny baby that came to check us out before the mom called to him from above being like "don't talk to strangers!" and it ran up to jump on her back.
Spider monkeys were also hard to capture on camera because they don't sit still for long. We did get to see babies, so that was awesome. This one sat still for like 30 seconds munching on a banana.
Howler mom and baby!
See if you can spot the one part of the howler monkey that isn't black or brown.
The capuchins were, of course, hamming it up for the cameras. They are so smart and fun to watch. I have like 10 photos I wanted to post of them, but I refrained for your sake.
Long grooming session was going on up here. Looka da behbeh!!!
By the end of the hike, I had a migraine and we both had blisters and rashes and were sore all over. We had gone probably 10 kilometers through sand, stream, ups and downs, under and over logs, weaving through enormous leaves. Even the guide said that the day was hotter and more humid than most. Wonderful. This was our "look, we survived" photo
But we didn't realize that we still had a loooong way to go. Some nice tourists who had rented a car took us as far as Mata Palo so we could avoid riding the colectivo all the way back (nothing like riding a bull when you have a migraine). We planned to rest in Mata Palo and catch the collectivo from there, but then about an hour later we saw the colectivo driver riding by on the back of a motorcycle holding a large plastic container. Guess they ran out of gas! Glad we caught that ride from the tourists. But now we were still an hour away from our hotel and not sure how to get back. Apparently hitchhiking in this area is extremely common and very safe. We watched some local kids playing fútbol for a while and then were lucky enough to hitch a ride with some locals back to Puerto Jimenez. We got home around 7:30, fourteen hours after we started.
We showered in the "suicide shower" in our hotel - a common type of shower in many parts of the world. Then went out for the best local pizza (even locals say this is the best spot) and some passionfruit and basil smoothies to cool down.
We slept hard, through the noises of the bumpin disco down the beach from us, the screaming parrots, chirping geckos, and our iguana friend stomping all over our tin roof. We crashed without remembering to take our food outside, and awoke to a parade of ants swarming in and out of my backpack. They are ravenous and they bite, as John found out when he was attempting to empty our backpack outside. This morning I'm just trying to calm my migraine in preparation for tomorrow's adventure. Today is our day of rest and air conditioning. Pura vida!
