Photos by Nanci Blog

  Day 4 of our Costa Rican adventure (December 5). Today we leave Tortuguero National Park and travel to the Arenal Region. (The Arenal Volcano is the youngest stratovolcano in Costa Rica. The 1968 eruptions killed almost 80 people and destroyed three villages.) But first we pack up and leave the Evergreen Lodge . It was a very pretty property but they should really consider filtering their water and it was not potable in the bungalows and had a funny smell that lingered in our tap-rinsed clothing. Suitcases were outside the room at 7 AM and our dock call was at 8:15 AM. We had a nice river cruise back to Cano Blanco to meet Eric and our group coach. Lots to see on our one hour cruise. A flock of Black-necked stilts. A small flock of Spoonbills. And a Juvenile Tri-Colored Heron that our two guides were very excited to see. Most birds are migratory and arrive as adults to over winter. This one is a bit too young to have flown here...so maybe it hatched here? We meet up with Eric a...

Day 3 of our Costa Rican adventure (December  4) started early, again, but the only sounds we heard were crickets and jungle night sounds. The howlers greeted us at 5 AM with their distinctive "barking", but that was OK because we had to be up and at breakfast by 7 AM. On our walk from our bungalow we saw a lot of beautiful flowers. We met up with Carlos, our boat driver for the day. Today we're  traveling in an open boat to see the tree tops better...you'll  see why in a minute. Off we go with our life jackets, cameras and binoculars. Costa Rica is a birders paradise. There are so many local and migratory birds here, it's mind boggling. Like this Blue Heron who just happened to catch breakfast as we motored by. The trees begin to rustle and we all look up to where Carlos is pointing-howler monkeys pop out into view. One of our travelers spotted a sloth high up in the tree. Way to go Martha! In addition to birds, lots of iguanas are seen on the trees.  There are G...

  Two-toed Sloth, Tortuguero, Costa Rica. More photos: CLICK HERE Costa Rica-where the people say PURA VIDA (good life). It's a stunning country; they have beaches, surfing, rainforests, mountains, cloud forests, volcanoes and such incredible biodiversity-it was magnificent, a biologist's dream trip! We traveled to this Central American Country with EF Go Ahead Tours . (We've traveled with them to six previous destinations: Italy, Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand, Great Britain, and Spain). They offer large and small group tours. We flew out of Boston on American Airlines on Friday, December 2 thorough Miami to San Jose, Costa Rica. After a long day of travel we arrived at our hotel the Crown Plaza Corbici around 9:30 p.m. It was a fairly upscale hotel in the center of San Jose. Unfortunately, Saturday night the hotel was hosting a school graduation AND Roger Waters was performing in the stadium near the hotel. As you can imagine-it was quite noisy. Our adventure began, Monda...