January 2019:
Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard, California
Ventura California Pier
Ventura Pier and rock cairns
We saw thousands of dolphins on our ferry ride to the Channel Islands
Potato Harbor, Santa Cruz Island
View from hike
Hiking on Santa Cruz Island
Lots of incredibly huge and complex lichen
Finally made it out to see the Channel Islands of the coast of southern California
Our first stop off in Costa Rica was in the jungle above the town of Pavones on a small organic fruit farm. It was a wildlife viewing paradise! We saw a mom and a baby sloth right off the bat in a tree next to our cabin.
Sloths are the cutest animals in the world.
Momma and baby sloth resting in the sunshine
The beaches by Punta Banco were idyllic, palm lined and always empty.
An indigenous man rides the beach on his horse, Punta Banco
Scarlet macaw
Howler monkey
We enjoyed our week in the area, wildlife viewing in the mornings and walking on the beaches in the afternoons. We saw three types of monkeys: capuchins, howlers and squirrel monkeys. Exotic birds such as scarlet macaws, toucans, fiery billed aracaris, motmots, frigates, curassows, montezuma oropendolas, hummingbirds and a boat billed heron. Also iguanas, snakes and raccoons.
Every sunset seemed to be more perfect than the last, and our location on the southern pacific side of Costa Rica right up against and Indigenous Reserve near Panama meant that it was peaceful and non-touristy.
After a week in paradise, we continued slightly north to base ourselves out of Golfito to see Piedras Blancas National Park. The view from the top of the lookout in town was incredible!
We took a local water taxi across the way to a sandbar with a bit of mangrove forest and some lunch outposts.
We snorkeled a bit to cool off, before having lunch, beer and a great view of Golfito.
Piedras Blancas NP was truly a gorgeous jungle! We spent the day hiking the trails and returned to a four course delicious lunch cooked by a couple at a lodge nearby. Also at the lodge, we got to see a cayman crocodile, a boat billed heron and some curassows.
Boat billed heron
The rare paca agouti, hunted to near extinction, was a pleasure to see mid-day.
Cayman crocodile
There were heaps of primary (old growth) trees with immense trunks such as this one. And tons of vines, ferns and wildflowers.
Dave and I got a bit off trail and had to do some jungle bushwhacking until we found the trail.
Incredibly lush and natural and loud with a deafening cicada song
We drove around the gulf to see some more of the National Park and mangroves. Had lunch, beach time and some snorkeling too.
Next we ventured north, uphill and inland to the coffee plantation areas. We rented an apartment in Orosi with this gorgeous view of town, the coffee plantations in the hills across the way, and the orange poro trees that provide shade for the shorter coffee trees.
We hit the jackpot on yet another peaceful non-touristy place with a lot to see.
We visited the University Botanic Gardens outside of Orosi to see their extensive orchid displays. This photo is of an organ-pipe cactus being home to some gorgeous lichen and air plants.
We were thrilled to see this beautiful flowering vine hanging from the trees.
It was a very peaceful afternoon walking around the different flower exhibits.
We drove to the very top of the tallest active volcano in the country, Irazu. You can almost make out the steam coming out of the crater behind our heads on the right hand side of the photo.
It had a beautiful aqua blue lake in one of its craters.
We visited the ruins at Ujarras and enjoyed getting our first glimpse of the montezuma oropendola birds.
This is the view in Orosi from the coffee plantations back toward where our apartment was located.
It was a wonderful walk and learning experience to see how coffee is grown and how they're clipped to be short and easy to harvest.
More poro trees in blossom.
Next we drove further north to Arenal Volcano and stayed in the small town of El Castillo.
We had views overlooking the lake and volcano. And welcome drinks when we arrived.
We toured the Butterfly Conservatory in town. These were the easiest to photograph, but there were many different beautiful species, including the huge iridescent blue morphos.
There were also frogs in the exhibit and a beautiful garden trail.
Blue morpho butterfly
Toucan
Montezuma oropendola
Ginger flower
We hiked some jungle trails on the grounds of the Arenal View Lodge and visited the Mystic Bridges park to get a view of the animals in the forest canopy. We saw a band of wild raccoons there, a two toed sloth and some more monkeys.
Waterfall on our jungle walk. Below is a capuchin monkey.
We had a wonderful and relaxing three weeks off, starting with our four day trip to Ventura, California. We've long wanted to see Channel Islands National Park and since our flights to Costa Rica were leaving out of Los Angeles, this was the perfect opportunity to go. We stayed at an airbnb in Ventura a block from the beach and enjoyed all the delicious food options as well as walking trails. Our trip to Santa Cruz island was great, starting with the thousands of dolphins we saw from the ferry. We went on a couple scenic coastal hikes on the island.
Costa Rica was amazing! We researched all the touristy areas so that we could completely avoid them, to great success. We stayed in an airbnb cabin in the jungle above Pavones on the South Pacific side of Costa Rica. It was like being at a zoo there, with the number of exotic birds, monkeys and other animals we saw all the time. We spent out afternoons walking on the beach and swimming. After that week, we went north to Golfito to explore the Golfo Dulce (the sweet gulf) and Piedras Blancas National Park. A great jungle experience, and we got to go snorkeling too. From there we headed inland to see some coffee plantations, tall mountains and active volcanoes. We caught the coffee plantations at the start of their blossom, with poro trees covered in orange flowers. We got to do some hiking around both Irazu and Arenal volcanos, went to a botanic garden outside of Orosi, visited some ruins, a butterfly conservatory and went on a forest canopy walking tour.
When we go back, we'd like to stay in Los Quetzales or Tapanti National Park to bird watch. And also take a trip to the Caribbean coast to Manzanillo for some more snorkeling and wildlife viewing.And Tenorio Volcano - Rio Celeste National Park to see the celestial blue river.
Love you all!
