Costa Rica in Winter

Costa Rica in Winter –

Thousands of species of birds migrate to Costa Rica in the Winter. Do you blame them? I could spend my winter in a tropical location.

I flew out of Atlanta to Miami and then caught a flight from Miami to San Jose.  The second flight included a gentleman sleeping on my shoulder almost the entire flight. Landing in San Jose, Costa Rica, the first impression is the 2 ½ hours waiting in line for the customs/ immigrations process.   The sleepy dude and his wife/friends were right behind me in line. After talking they found out that my friends were an hour ahead of us in line and began paging my friend at the top of their lungs. Finding him, they pushed me under the straps and up to the front telling people that they were reuniting me with my husband. Once we were through immigration, my friend was introduced to my new friends from Israel. 

The next stop was the Hilton downtown across from the futbol stadium.  Nice place.  The hotel was right downtown, and everything looked like an average American street. Fast food restaurants filled the other side of the street, but we ate at a deli under the hotel. On the way out of San Jose, we stopped at a location called Catarata Del Toro with sloths and a beautiful waterfall in the garden area.

Day 1 was at Boca Tapada where we stayed at the Laguna Lagarto Lodge. The hotel has a large deck off the back, and we had a section reserved just for us. About 20-30 feet from the deck, the employees have set up perches for the birds that look authentic.  We saw a lot of toucans, parrots, grackles, woodpeckers, and a variety of colorful tanagers.  There were numerous butterflies there eating the bananas off the ground. 

We had workshops shooting the hummingbirds with synchronized flashes. There were 5 set up with the flash trigger mounted on our cameras.  After dark, we also used the same equipment to shoot bats in pitch black conditions guessing when the bat got to the banana bloom.  The mosquitoes ate me alive, but I got some awesome shots.

The hotels do not have screens, they have grills.  The bugs come right through, but the reptiles running around outside cannot get through. The hotel was great, and the staff did everything possible to make it enjoyable.  One employee called us out after dark to see the owls in the trees. One employee invited us to his house to shoot, and his wife prepared a meal for us.

Our next location was Sarapiqui where we stayed at the Tapirus Lodge.  We saw different species of hummingbirds as different species live at different elevations.  We went to a place called Frog Heaven. We had a workshop shooting different types of frogs and snakes they caught and brought in. We also hiked through the woods and found white bats on the underneath side of leaves.  

One of our trips was to the home of an artist, Cope’, and shot a lot of birds from his backyard.  Walking through his yard, you could find several animals as well. In front of his house, there was a sloth.

Onto the next stop, we sent to the Talamanca Area (highlands of Costa Rica) and hiked up to the top of the mountain (9000 ft elevation) to find the national bird, the Quetzal. We stayed at the Paraiso de Quetzal Lodge. There are a lot of spots from the deck overlooking the mountains where you can shoot hummingbirds in their natural environments. 

The next stop was the Mid Pacific area.  Staying at the Las Isla lodge (chocolate factory), here we shot macaws, Caracaras, Hawks and King Vultures.  A safari boat ride brought us close to crocodiles and various birds including herons, cranes, and others.  The sunset on the river was so beautiful. After staying at the Cerro Lodge, we headed back to the San Jose airport. 

All means were al fresco except the cafeterias we stopped on enroute. The rooms had multiple beds in each room. That scratching noise in the bathroom is the howler monkey on the roof. The last lodge had only three walls in the bathroom with the other being open to the jungle; lizards run across the shower while you’re in there. Median income is around $40K-$50k and most people live quite modestly but in very nice locations.