Panama and Costa Rica 2025

Last night it rained hard all night. We woke up to loud claps of thunder. It was beautiful. It is the rainy season, but on this trip most of the rain has been in the evening and at night. It hasn’t dampened our experience one bit — pun intended.  We woke up at about 6:45 to gather our things, have coffee, and get ready to leave. We loaded up for the 75 minute boat ride and departed at about 8:45.  There was a boat for the luggage and another for the guests, but they were short two seats … so we had to stay.  Just kidding … we were hoping.  A group of 6 moved over to the luggage boat and we joined them. They were older folks from Barcelona. We got some restaurant recommendations for the next time we are there. There was also a guide with us, Denis.  We should mention that there were very few US Americans at our lodge — we didn’t meet any. We did meet Spaniards, Dutch, Danish, Germans, Belgians, Mexicans, Costa Ricans, New Zealanders, Swiss, and French.  We m...

After yesterday’s sun-up to past-sundown marathon of activities it was time for a day of much less. We woke up fairly early but just had coffee and stayed in bed until about 10:00. We then called a water taxi for a trip to the village.  We decided to walk out on the beach where we saw the turtle laying eggs last night. It was easy to find; even her tracks back to the water were clearly visible.  The process of nesting involves several distinct steps: 1. Crawl up the beach; Green Turtles like to get close to the vegetation, in this case, about 25 yards from the water.  2. Clean an area with the front flippers 3. Dig the hole/nest 4. Lay the eggs 5. Cover the eggs 6. Camouflage the nest — throw sand around  7. Return to the Sea The whole process takes about two hours, 10 minutes of which is laying eggs; she lays about 120 eggs. She can do this several times per season about every three weeks. What is left when she’s done is a well covered nest and a depression next to ...

Our alarm sounded at 5 o’clock this morning to meet for our real-life jungle cruise  at 5:45 . They took us around some of the smaller canals for about two hours. Our guide said that we were quite lucky as we got to see all three species of monkeys in the area and both species of sloth as well — and birds and reptiles. Animals we’ve seen around the resort and what we spotted this morning: Birds—  Montezuma Oropendola (we saw their long, woven, hanging nests) Ringed Kingfisher Keel-billed or Rainbow-billedToucan Collared Aracari (toucan) Bare-throated Tiger Heron Anhinga or Snake Bird (several, including one nesting) Black Vulture Magnificent Frigatebird Melodious Blackbird Mealy Parrots (probably) Great-tailed Grackle Parrots - too distant to ID Bare-throated Tiger Heron - “fishing”, it uses twigs and leaves to attract fish  Hanging, woven nests of the Montezuma Oropendola Mammals— Long Nosed Bat (roosting under the roof of a boat deck) Two-toed sloth  Three-toed slo...

We were up at the crack of dawn this morning to be picked up in front of our hotel for a journey to Tortugero National Park. There are several lodges in the park where people can stay. We really didn’t know exactly what to expect but it sounded like fun. We finally left the city at about 7 AM after picking up others at other hotels — we traveled in a comfortable bus. The driving portion took about two hours until our first stop for breakfast, which was included in the trip. This first part of the drive took us through another national park, the Braulio Carrillo National Park, and over the continental divide as it is in Central America — the highway crosses the divide at 5250 feet in elevation.  The views were quite spectacular — dense jungle covered hills among misty clouds. The picture below shows the confluence of two rivers of distinctly different colors caused by where they originate; the Rio Sucio originated from an area of volcanic rock and the Rio Honduran originat...

Today was mostly a travel day. After a good night sleep we had breakfast  at 10:00am  and met two of the former students traveling to San Jose, Costa Rica. We are all on the same flight so we decided to Uber together to the airport. We left the hotel  at about 11:15am .  A 70 minute flight got us to San Jose. While we’re perfectly capable of navigating on our own, it’s great to have friends help out.  Tonight we’re staying in downtown San Jose.  We booked through Priceline and are really happy about the hotel we chose — sometimes it’s a crap shoot.  It’s a very nice hotel next to a plaza and the National Theater of Costa Rica.  There’s a major shopping/pedestrian street a block away. And, we got to our room only to get a call from the front desk — the TV in our is broken and they want to fix it, so they moved us to a suite overlooking the plaza.  After settling in we took a stroll along the pedestrian street. We bought some snacks and drinks ...