Alex and Choo Choo were still sleeping. Being quiet in the morning is always a challenge. At home, I can just go downstairs. Here? I have to go for a walk. And I found a snake.
The hotel’s restaurant had a pretty great buffet with our first dose of gallo pinto. And a cat, described by the staff as “The Boss”, who would go from table to table to say hello. He had a very odd meow, making him sound like a ten pack-a-day smoker. But he was very nice.
Our day was Adventure, Rehashed. First off was the Butterfly Conservatory, which we’d been two before, southwest(ish) of the Arenal Volcano. It’s about a 45 minute drive, and fairly picturesque.
And I missed the turn for the road. Again. And in this case, I remember doing exactly the same thing the last time we’d been there, back in 2009 with my Mom. Down we went into the trails to the large tents, where the butterflies lay.
I don’t remember how the conservatory was structured last time, but I can say that each of the four tents was set up to be a specific climate. Highlands areas were moister, slightly cooler, with lowlands drier and sunnier. Gates between the tents were intended to prevent butterflies from one area escapign into another.
We didn’t have a guide per se, but we were led by a student from the Netherlands spending time in Costa Rica. He knew English and Spanish, Dutch (obviously), and enough French to talk to another couple who were moving through the tents with us. And he knew quite a lot about the butterflies, which was helpful as I had a few questions as I was taking pictures.
Our last stop with the guide was the poison dart frogs. We were requested not to go in without him. Although it’s nigh-impossible to get to the frogs – they’re wisely kept behind doors – there’s always gonna be some idiot who ruins it for the rest of us.
We roamed through the rest of the facility, spying some lizards and a couple of massive snapping turtles, before climbing back up to our car. I stopped only long enough to get a picture of Arenal, before we headed into La Fortuna
La Fortuna is the largest town in the area. It’s not saying much, as the core is scarcely eleven roads across and four tall. At the western edge of town, we passed the Sloth Park, and all did double-takes. (Well, more Alex and I than Choo Choo, anyway.) This was new – it hadn’t been there the last time (November 2014) and we couldn’t help but wonder: who the heck brought sloths all the way up here?
(The short answer, as I don’t want to leave anyone hanging until I got the answer many hours later, is that sloths are all over Costa Rica, not just the coasts. I was delighted to learn something new.)
Alex spotted a restaurant called Rain Forest and we had to go. She has an unhealthy obsession with The Rainforest Cafe. This was decidedly not the same, neither in atmosphere nor in food (I’ll let you guess which has better fare; as a hint, there’s no animatronic animals in La Fortuna).
We wanted down the main road, popping in and out of little shops, just to see what they had. Some were upscale, with fancier trinkets; others were our preference: the less expensive, somewhat hokey shirts and mugs. We stopped at a Pops for ice cream, which we finished off in the Parque de La Fortuna, which was just taking down its Christmas decorations. The bells at the local church rang for an unknown event.
We stopped at the Sloth Park on the way back, mostly to understand what the heck it actually was. Though we didn’t go in, we at least understood that sloths weren’t imported.
Back at the hotel, we went for drinks in the swim-up bar. Or at least, we tried to. Choo Choo and I found the water a bit cool, but Alex was outright freezing. The bartender, laughing at Alex’s discomfort, started lobbing ice cubes next to her while he made her piña colada, which just made us laugh harder. I don’t mean to demean my wife at her temperature intolerance, but it was funny. She treated to the nearby hot tub.
Jorge appeared not long after. He’s Montaña de Fuego’s on-site naturalist. (It’s quite common to have them at more expensive places.) He’d been out back on the trails and announced to Alex that he’d found a sloth and we should come look. Without shoes (maybe not my wisest move), we followed him into the edge of the forest.
Was there a sloth? Yes, there was. But more importantly, there was a great, big, black turkey sitting in the tree staring at us as we came in.
I would later learn that the curassow is not directly related to turkeys. They’re both part of the Order Galliforms, which includes chickens, but they’re different families. Turkeys are more closely related to peacocks, apparently.
Oh yes, there was also a sloth. But more interestingly was the weird sound I kept hearing. Jorge, being very well informed about all the animals about, took me to see it.
I’d never seen a toucan that close outside of an aviary or a zoo. And here it was, just sitting in a tree, looking down. I was starting to understand why people turn into birders.
Jorge was so good at it that I had to ask the obvious: did he do night walks? Naturally he did, so naturally we asked if he would take us into the forest.
We met him just after dinner, which was well into the dark. Choo Choo had opted not to come, so it was just Alex, Jorge, and I traipsing around the property. We started right outside the entrance, looking for spiders. Then we went over to the hot pools, finding little lizards and frogs. In particular, the famous red-eyed tree frog.
Alex got the best picture. To be fair, Jorge got the picture with her phone, but the picture was poster-worthy. And he snapped it in seconds, using the phone in ways we’d never seen done before. I learned a couple of techniques watching him. He even had a funky device on his phone that allowed for a longer lens for shots further away.
Several lizards, birds, and bugs awaited us as we started down the path into the forest. What had taken us mere moments to traverse earlier in the day took almost an hour. We looked at everything. Jorge more than earned his role, spying an insane number of things at great distances, hidden mostly behind the foliage. He saw the leg of a kinkajou about 20 metres away. He had to use a laser beam to show it to us.
We didn’t get far down the hill. Aside from being pitch dark (even with Jorge’s powerful light), one of our troop hadn’t quite worn the proper footwear. He would, however, show us pictures of other creatures he’d seen the night before, including sloths and jungle pigs.
Beats the hell out of anything on TV, I tell you.