Even more critters of the Cloud Forest

I did see plenty of agoutis, a relative of the guinea pig I first encountered in Panama many years ago. Basically they are giant rats without tails, although I have to admit those little pink ears are kind of cute.

More critters of the Cloud Forest

Here's one I wasn't expecting: a family of armadillos rooting through the lawn while I was eating breakfast one morning.

Critters of the Cloud Forest

I'm sitting at the airport in San José, crossing my fingers that the two delays already announced for my flight will be the last. If this trip to Costa Rica has reminded me of what I've always found so magical about travel, and demonstrated that it's maybe still possible even in a post-Covid world, here's a reminder of the flip side: the delays, the stresses, the inconveniences. I feel like I should be home already and I'm not even on the plane yet.

So here's a coati. Although other guests and staff at my hotel claimed to see them wandering the grounds on a regular basis, I never did—until yesterday morning when I was walking to reception to check out. A coati crossed the path right in front of me, but of course my camera was packed away and there was no chance to get a picture.

So you'll have to settle for this very unsatisfactory capture from my first day when I got to watch a family of them scampering through the trees, too far away and high up to photograph, but fun to watch anyway.

Heading home

 I'm back in San José, and flying home tomorrow.

My driver from Monteverde, who told me to call him Wayne although I suspect that is not his real name, kindly slowed down enough to let me get this shot on the mountain roads. 

Wayne kept us entertained on the three hour drive by identifying every fruit tree between Monteverde and San José, and Costa Rica produces a lot of fruit. We saw lemons, oranges, avocados, mangos, bananas, guavas, passion fruit, dragon fruit, and probably a few others that I'm forgetting.

I do love this country. I want to come back.

Another view of the Cloud Forest

This was taken from the overlook in the Aguti Reserve, where I went for a solo hike this morning. This was my last day in Monteverde, and I had thought about doing another excursion like the birding tour yesterday but decided I don't have the energy for any more touristy stuff.

This reserve adjoins my hotel, and is free for guests, so it's a perfect alternative to guided tours. On Monday I'd only seen one other couple there, and they were arriving as I was leaving, but there were half a dozen families there today. I didn't mind; I mostly had the trails to myself, and the hikers I talked to were friendly and low-key.

I wouldn't mind spending a few more days here. My knees, however, have made it very clear that they are done with these shenanigans and they can't wait to be back on the flat pavements of Manhattan.

Paging Noah

I wasn't kidding about the rain being torrential; this was the view from my room this afternoon.

Cloud forest

 

The weather was surprisingly sunny my first two days here—yesterday was actually hot—but there was a light rain for the start of the birdwatching hike I took at a local reserve early this morning, and when we were driving back to the hotel afterwards, there was thick fog everywhere. (Oh, so that's the cloud forest I kept hearing about.)

The rains started in mid-afternoon and have been steady, occasionally torrential, ever since. We're not just sitting in a cloud, we're sitting in a cloud that's leaking very badly.

View from the mountains

That's the Pacific Ocean, seen from the terrace here.

I sprang for a transfer to the hotel and had a driver pick me up in San José because I didn't want to have to try to figure out how to get here on my own. And though we did drive along the coast briefly after leaving the Central Valley, we soon turned east towards the mountains and spent two hours on narrow winding two-lane roads going up, up, up. I wish I had been able to take some pictures along the way—there were fields full of white Brahmin cattle, river gorges so deep and thickly forested you couldn't see the actual rivers, and a string of towns that seemed to consist of only a church and a couple of houses.

It felt as though we had left the ocean far behind and below us, so this view was a surprise.

Monteverde

After two and half weeks in the Central Valley of Costa Rica, I'm up in the mountains, in the cloud forests. My hotel has trails on the property, and adjoins a private reserve, so I've already had the opportunity to take many underexposed blurry pictures of new birds (plus a few I may actually be able to identify eventually.)

I saw this variegated squirrel in the trees on my way to breakfast this morning, and he was not as fidgety as the birds so I could actually get a decent picture, showing off that magnificent red tummy.

Sunday bird blogging

Flocks of crimson-fronted parakeets are a common sight—and sound—in San José, but they're usually perched on top of buildings or zipping by overhead, so aren't easy to photograph.

But I was lucky enough to find this one in my garden on Wednesday. I heard him before I saw him, and he somehow managed to keep shrieking even while eating.

Saturday reflections

This building is near one of the roundabouts that make traveling by foot through San José take so much longer than Google Maps leads you to expect.

The program is over and I'm leaving San José in the morning. I wish I had a few more days here, much as I'm looking forward to seeing a different part of Costa Rica.

Urban poetry

This has been my home in San José for the past two weeks. I had dinner in Barrio Escalante tonight with some people from the program; it's a very chic neighborhood full of interesting cafés and small parks, and I think if I ever come back to San José I would stay there.

My neighborhood is strictly residential and adjoins a highway; the only restaurants are fast food and I buy my groceries at, I kid you not, Walmart.

But behind an unremarkable wall on my ordinary street is this oasis, a two-story glass house surrounded by garden. I love the way the front door seems to float there on its own; that's actually the living room to the right, looking through two sets of glass doors to the garden in the back. My bedroom is on the second floor behind the tree.

The Uber coming home from the restaurant took five minutes and cost two dollars, so I can easily hang out in the cool neighborhood without having to sleep there.