Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
DaySix
DaySeven
DayEight
DayNine
DayTen
DayEleven
 

Day 5 - Monday, August 30

Wake up at 5:00am today! We had a 5:30 am bird watching walk.  Our guide turned out to be Walter whom we had for the Volcan Arenal hike two days ago.  We didn’t have to go very far, in fact our first stop was less than 5 minutes from Tabacon.  We stopped and walked a few more places and the driver would follow along with us and then go back and get the minibus and bring it up for us.  We saw a lot of birds, but not as many as some days according to Walter.  They seemed to be hiding from us.  We saw lots of Oropendola and other birds whose names I cannot remember.  The best part for us was when we found a whole bunch of toucans flying around and then parrots.  Walter got out his telescope and we were able to get great views of them and some decent pictures.  It’s amazing to see these birds, that are only available up here in pet stores, flying around naturally from tree to tree.  The next time we come here we need a prosumer digital SLR camera with a nice telephoto lens and maybe a tripod.  Our walk took us to Lake Arenal where we had some coffee, juice and cookies and then continued on our walk.  In addition to seeing some great wildlife we talked a lot to Walter and learned more about Costa Rica.  A lot of the tour guides start out as drivers which is a hard life and then learn English and become tour guides.  Walter also said it was really neat for him and other Costa Rican’s to see tourists come to their country and stare in awe at the things that they take for granted.  It reminds them that what they have really is unique and special.  While on the walk we could hear rocks bouncing down the side of the volcano though we couldn’t see as it was a cloudy morning.

The tour was done by 8am and we ate breakfast and cleaned up packed up and got ready for our transfer to the Papagayo Peninsula Four Seasons.  After checking out we had some time to kill so we sat in the lobby and talked.  There were a few other people in the lobby surfing the net on the wi-fi connection.  At noon our driver showed up.  It was the son of the owner of the transfer company. He didn’t speak a lot of English but his English was far better than my Spanish.  The drive to the Four Seasons was to take 3 ½ hours.  We had to go around Lake Arenal, which we bypassed the previous day by taking a boat.  The road around the lake was very bad, but not quite as bad as the road to Monteverde, though sometimes it came pretty close. This road was paved most of the time, but even paved it was filled with some amazing potholes, and at times it seemed it hadn’t been paved in 20 years or so.  Interestingly along the road we’d come across housing developments with lake side lots being sold by Century 21. 

We stopped the town of Tilaron for bathroom break and to get something to drink.  They have Coke Light down here instead of Diet Coke and it’s a lot better. It uses AceK as well as aspartame and has no aftertaste. It’s more like Pepsi one but even better. I’d drink it like crazy if they sold it in the states.  Someone needs to talk to Coke about this.  Anyway, I ended up feeling pretty bad as I had thus far been unsuccessful in getting US money changed into local currency.  Tabacon wasn’t equipped for making change and everyone takes US dollars. The smallest bill I had was a $20US.  I’d been using them to tip the tour guides.  The two Coke Lights I bought came to 1100 Colones, or less than $2.50US.  It took the cash register, the waitress and a customer together to get close to the right change for me in Colones.  Important note: next time travel with $5 bills!

After this town the road started getting better and the land started flattening out.

[DAILY GALLERY]