February 19 – Drive to Sierpe and the boat to Drake Bay

We were off about 8:00 for the long drive south.  A couple hours in we had a rest stop at a bridge overlooking the Tarcoles River.  

Down below in the river were a large number of crocodiles.  We were told that the local crocodiles don’t eat people.  But we decided not to take a swim.

We also saw a yellow-headed caracara.  Costa Rica is all about wildlife so we are hoping to get a lot of photos of birds and other treasures.  About 28% of Costa Rica is national parks or reserves so we will be spending a lot of time in parks.  And Costa Rica has 900 bird species.  

A short while later we stopped at the Carara National Park where we met our tour guide for a walk through woods. 

There were a lot of animal sightings:

Orange Billed Sparrow

White Nosed Coati.  There was quite a band of these rooting through the leaves and undergrowth.  They

were constantly on the move.  The brush was so dense it made it hard to photograph them.

Lizard White Lined Bats

Cicadas (they were so noisy that our guide had trouble hearing birdcalls).  Although what we really saw were their shed exoskeletons.

Wasp Nest.  Didn't see any wasps and it looked abandoned.

Termite Nest

Jesus Crist Lizard (so named because it can run on top of water)

Chestnut Backed Ant Bird

Riverside Wren

At the end of the walk we headed over to the bathrooms.  On the way we saw an iguana at the park station.

We didn’t see any scarlet macaws during the walk but shortly after we got back on the road the guide spotted some (to us invisible) scarlet macaws near the road.  So we stopped for some photos.

The countryside along our route.

We stopped for lunch midafternoon but we were running a bit late so took the food to go.

We arrived in Sierpe with some time to spare, found our boat, loaded all our luggage and then took an hour boat ride down the Sierpe River...

to the ocean and then on to our hotel at Drake Bay.

We are in a pretty remote area at the far, southern end of Costa Rica.