Lets tamun-do it

We spent our meal times talking to two doctors (Bill and Michael - Michael had already gone to bed at picture taking time), one from the USA and one from Canada - they were friends that met at medical college and always travelled together at least once a year. Bill wore this fancy shirt to attract hummingbirds.

pretty big boa constrictor

The walk back to Carate was mostly along the beach which was quite hard work and hot even though we set  off at 4am

Funky crab

Even though the tapirs were really amazing, they were not the highlight of the trip, the best wildlife sighting came less than half an hour from the end of the trail. We were lucky enough to see a tamadua (aboreal anteater) on the side of the trail eating a coconut (perhaps he was bored of ants!). It was amazing and was only a few feet from us - again my camera told me it was full which was great timing!

We thought things couldn't get any better and then we saw another one this time with a baby! It was so cute.  It had to hang on tight while the mum trundled about the forest floor, up and under branches and even up the trunk of a palm tree.  While the mum was busy eating a coconut the baby took the opportunity to relax and turned its head to one side and closed its eyes for a quick nap.

The baby looks as though it's draped over the mums back but its actually clinging on really tightly.

20 mins from the end there was a great spot in the river for swimming, unlike the sea it was nice and cool which made it really refreshing

After Carate ranger station we had another 3km to walk on the boiling hot beach (I am sure it was more like 5km!).  This poor horse has to pull a cart of toilet rolls along the beach in the midday sun, the umbrella was just for the man, I think the horse should be allowed to have one too.  

  As we walked along the beach the boundary of the National Park could clearly be seen as once the park ended houses began, however there wasn't as much development as you would expect considering the beautiful beach and view.  On the way we decided that vast stretches of coastline the world over had been spared the scourge of tourists and associated development purely because the sea wasn't suitable for swimming in, several tourists had drowned here recently.  Dangerous sea with rip tides, undertows and the worlds most ferocious shark the bull shark has saved this bit of coast.

The end of the trail, still smiling..... little did Ralph know that he would be bringing a good number of ticks back with him to the hotel

Roger our guide was hyperactive, even though we were feeling sunbaked and tired Roger was birding all the way home (about 2 hours in a taxi) and we stopped for birds all the way, this is a southern lapwing.

scarlet macaw

rude gecko pic

tapir-tastic

After a day off Fiona was ready to join us and did so by taking the fifteen minute flight to La Sirena ranger station

Fiona arriving in style - I felt like a bit of a cheat having a day in the hammock while Ralph sweated 22kms then casually flying in over the forest for 15 mins in a Cesna (sorry no more info than that Dad) but it was that or miss it all.  The view was great, we took off from downtown Puerto Jimenez, flew over town, then fields and then Corcovado national park began.  We flew over the forest which looked like hills of broccoli, very steep and divided by lots of rivers, over lots of flying parrots then just before we reached the sea we landed on this airstrip right next to the ranger station where Ralph was waiting with news of his tapir encounter!

White whiskered puffbird - one bonus of Fiona flying in was that she brought Roger's scope with her so we could get amazingly good views and photos too.

Slaty tailed trogon

Strange fish tailed spider

Double toothed hawk

spider monkey

We stopped for lunch by the Rio Claro after spending a few hours fruitlessly looking for Tapirs

You can just make out the tiny male orb web spider above the female

hawk

great tinamou

Violacious trogon

After lunch we were walking along the trail where Ralph had seen the Tapir earlier that morning and a large bird swooped down and ran along the ground and  into the jungle. When we got a better look we saw it was a collared forest falcon taking down something in the leave litter, possibly a snake - it was pretty amazing.

After much trudging Roger finally decided to take us to the most popular mud hole for the tapirs which many of the guides go to. We had to wait our turn on the trail until the some people had finished looking, but when we got there we were amazed to see 2 tapirs, a mother a baby. Not only that, in the same mud pool was a speckled caiman swimming about. The tapirs were so relaxed and we stood silently for 15 mins watching lizards run across the mum without her moving a muscle it was a really amazing experience.

The baby tapir

spectacled caiman

baby and caiman

nice teeth

The mums face was nearly camel like, she didn't seem to mind the lizard at all

She also had lizards on her back

Sadly our tapir watching was interrupted after 25mins by another group being led by a guide that was a complete idea. He loudly blundered towards the mud hole shouting at the top of his voice which caused the tapirs to be disturbed and move off. This was bad for both the tapirs and the people trying to watch them, we were glad to have taken the time to find a good guide.

The beautiful american pygmy kingfisher

grey headed tanager

At the end of the day we went to look for sharks at the river mouth

A bull shark

Us with Roger, you can see that Ralph is in urgent need of a haircut

The Sirena ranger station

Video Nasty

WARNING: THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS A VIDEO THAT IS AMAZING, FASCINATING AND DISTRESSING IN EQUAL MEASURE WATCH IT AT YOUR OWN RISK.

In all seriousness the snake video half way down the post is quite distressing to watch, you have been warned!

The night before the trip we went to a nice Mexican restaurant but it was incredibly hot, and full of Americans watching the super bowl. Unfortunately the food and heat made Fiona feel a little unwell, as we walked home she passed out and I had to carry her back to the hostel 3 blocks - luckily she is very light (she made me say that)! We both decided that getting up at 4;30am and doing a 22 km hike in the blazing sun may have been against doctors orders so I had to head off on my own.

The day started with the taxi picking me up at 4:30am

Much of the road was a riverbed making the 4x4 necessary

The river bed, sorry I mean road

We stopped a couple of times for a bit of birding on the way

Dog at the first ranger station

Ralph fresh at the start of the trail

The first bit of the trail (the first 40 mins) is through primary forest - the cicadas were deafening. The two guys in the photo worked for the park authority and were carrying out their daily tracks and prints census  (every morning they look for mammal prints such as tapir and cougar), they told us they had found giraffe and manatee prints on that day.

The primary forest was quite lush

fancy fly

Me and Roger, the guide, had just crossed the second river (not as dramatic as it sounds in the dry season - I didn't even have to take off my shoes!) when we heard a very strange noise like a baby mammal bleating for its mother. We searched around a bit and eventually Roger found a big den like hole just off the trail. Inside was the horrifying scene of a frog being swallowed alive incredibly slowly.

A striped racer eating a smoky jungle frog

Here is the video, the sounds of the frog make it pretty distressing to watch.

click here or cut and paste the link to watch it

http://s1140.photobucket.com/albums/n576/ralphandfi/video%20NASTY/?action=view&current=P1170467.mp4

Brilliant forest frog

This scratch pad had been put in place to get an idea of the big cat population - the strip is impregnated with scent to encourage cats to rub on it

This is the famous blue morpho moth, it looks much more impressive when it's wings are actually open 

This peccary and it's mates were hanging around La Sirena ranger station a little while after we arrived.  It took us quite a few hours to get there as we stopped loads to look at birds - I even got to see the red capped manakin do it's Michael Jackson moonwalk! 

This impressive chap is a great currasow

and this is his lovely wife

This was the mother of all geckos, it was easily 4 or 5 times the size of any we had previously seen

Snake cruising around at 4:30am. You are not allowed to do night walks at Sirena, but for some reason this is categorised as from sundown (6pm) to midnight, early morning walks 1am onwards are ok - go figure....

Although I really wanted to see stuff I was afraid of seeing something really good without Fiona and that she would have missed out, this is exactly what happened, after an uneventful first hour, save the snake above, we went down to the beach to look for Tapir. Me and Roger were talking about something when we suddenly noticed a large teenage tapir crossing the river bed in front of us, the light was terrible so it made taking pictures really difficult.

Once we had seen it pass us and go into the forest behind us we waited a couple of minutes and then returned to the jungle to look for the tapir, after a couple of minutes we noticed something ahead, it was the tapir! We followed it along the trail for about ten minutes, watching it stop to eat once. During which time I was frantically messing with my camera trying to delete pictures as when I tried to take the first shot the terrifying words "MEMORY CARD FULL" appeared on the screen, which was a bit of a nightmare, I didn't want to spend my whole tapir experience deleting photos of our trip to olympic national park. The light was terrible and I had to keep a respectful distance so as not to scare the animal, but I did get this short bit of video which  does give you a sense of what it is like to follow a tapir. Luckily other amazing wildlife experiences were to follow and luckily Fiona would be able to share these.

click here for video

http://s1140.photobucket.com/albums/n576/ralphandfi/video%20NASTY/?action=view&current=P1170532.mp4

Red brocket deer,  no idea who brocket was