Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Costa Rica
Birders have a lot to like about Costa Rica. In an area the size of West Virginia there are more bird species than all of the continental United States and Canada combined. An American birder living east of the Mississippi expects to find one species of hummingbird on a regular basis. A field guide to Costa Rica lists 50 species with descriptive names including the words brilliant, fiery, sapphire, magnificent, emerald, and mountain-gem. It is easy to see why a popular field guide calls hummingbirds "avian jewels". When you throw in toucans, trogons, antbirds, mannakins....the list goes on and on, a trip to Costa Rica has to be on every birder's list.
My strategy for this trip was different from previous trips in that I would not get a rental. Having experienced city traffic in the Dominican Republic and talking to Americans who got ground up in the Latin American way of handling traffic accidents (whether you were at fault or not), I arranged for private transportation. If I could have completely avoided San Jose traffic and stayed rural I probably would have gotten a rental. This strategy meant, of course, that I would be anchored at each stop with limited means of making spontaneous side trips. The solution to this problem was Costa Rica's wonderful eco-lodges. Australia taught me that wandering through the rainforests was not the most efficient way of capturing bird images. Lodges designed to attract birds and therefore birders proved by far to be the most enjoyable and easiest way to photograph the local birdlife. Why chase them when they will come to you?
Our three hour flight left Orlando at ten in the morning and we arrived in San Jose around noon their time. We were warned that there would be many "helpful" people around with offers to assist us but were advised to ignore them all except for the individual who would be waving our name on a sign and know our destination. Sounded easy except that when we exited customs there were several hundred gentlemen waving signs with passenger names - but none with our name. Oh ...oh. I guarded the luggage while Edie went down the line again. Meanwhile a gentleman approached me and tried to grab my voucher with the idea of helping us. He said he would call our travel agency for us. I wasn't having any of that and was rather forceful in refusing his efforts to grab my voucher. I did give him the number to call. Edie returned without our driver so we switched places and I went down the lines looking for our name - also unsuccessful. Another ten minutes and suddenly the first helpful man showed up with our driver in tow. I mentally chastised myself for being suspicious but Edie was still nervous that the two were working together and had quickly written our name on a sign after the first person had seen our name on the voucher. She eventually relaxed when she saw the company shuttle and noticed he was wearing the company logo.
Besides being late our driver was new on the job and lost his way twice. The GPS was always the excuse. The low point was when he bottomed the front end of the shuttle in a ditch on a terrible street and tried to grind his way through it. That attempt was rather unsuccessful and we were hung up. We finally backed out of the ditch accompanied by sound of tortured steel . I asked if it was his vehicle or the companies. He said it was the company vehicle but in reality he treats it as his own personal car because he can keep it at home. He also liked side trips which was ok for a while but put an extra hour and a half on our trip and I was hoping to photograph that evening. He decided to give us a tour of San Jose which was informative and also reinforced my decision not to city drive in Central America. Traffic density is horrendous and everybody heads for the nearest opening and guns it. Motorcycles are everywhere and usually you proceed with them using the narrow space between you and the car on your side except they are going three times faster. Motorcyclist believe there are speed lanes just for them between cars and also between cars and the curbs. They are required to wear helmets and a narrow beauty contest like sash diagonally across their back and front. It can be any color. I don't believe the Harley crowd would appreciate these restrictions. The sashes don't do much in the way of rider protection since the injury rate is high.
We missed seeing the Presidential Palace when the street became blocked by police and a sea of red taxi cars. The "legal drivers" were protesting UBER drivers and had plugged up everything. We were also proudly shown the new soccer stadium which was a gift from the Chinese government to help foster trade relations between Costa Rica and China. Everything including materials and even workers were brought in by the Chinese. They didn't trust the corruption in Costa Rica so no currency flowed through the sytem to be siphoned off. Kind of smart when you think about it.
We finally reached our lodge, Rancho Naturalista, in time for a quick look around. Soon after a bell rang to announce the evening meal. Their web site said they were known for their warm, relaxed, friendly atmosphere, brilliant birding, good company, and delicious gourmet food served with the best fresh local ingredients. This proved to be quite true. The meal of fish, salad, mashed potatoes, and vegetables was served family style. We sat with two guides who were more than willing to share good locations with us. Renee was from Brazil and owned his own birding company there. Megan was a young Alabama girl who fled the corporate world after a couple years and has worked at Rancho Naturalista the last four years. Tomorrow we will try for hummingbirds.
My strategy for this trip was different from previous trips in that I would not get a rental. Having experienced city traffic in the Dominican Republic and talking to Americans who got ground up in the Latin American way of handling traffic accidents (whether you were at fault or not), I arranged for private transportation. If I could have completely avoided San Jose traffic and stayed rural I probably would have gotten a rental. This strategy meant, of course, that I would be anchored at each stop with limited means of making spontaneous side trips. The solution to this problem was Costa Rica's wonderful eco-lodges. Australia taught me that wandering through the rainforests was not the most efficient way of capturing bird images. Lodges designed to attract birds and therefore birders proved by far to be the most enjoyable and easiest way to photograph the local birdlife. Why chase them when they will come to you?
Our three hour flight left Orlando at ten in the morning and we arrived in San Jose around noon their time. We were warned that there would be many "helpful" people around with offers to assist us but were advised to ignore them all except for the individual who would be waving our name on a sign and know our destination. Sounded easy except that when we exited customs there were several hundred gentlemen waving signs with passenger names - but none with our name. Oh ...oh. I guarded the luggage while Edie went down the line again. Meanwhile a gentleman approached me and tried to grab my voucher with the idea of helping us. He said he would call our travel agency for us. I wasn't having any of that and was rather forceful in refusing his efforts to grab my voucher. I did give him the number to call. Edie returned without our driver so we switched places and I went down the lines looking for our name - also unsuccessful. Another ten minutes and suddenly the first helpful man showed up with our driver in tow. I mentally chastised myself for being suspicious but Edie was still nervous that the two were working together and had quickly written our name on a sign after the first person had seen our name on the voucher. She eventually relaxed when she saw the company shuttle and noticed he was wearing the company logo.
Besides being late our driver was new on the job and lost his way twice. The GPS was always the excuse. The low point was when he bottomed the front end of the shuttle in a ditch on a terrible street and tried to grind his way through it. That attempt was rather unsuccessful and we were hung up. We finally backed out of the ditch accompanied by sound of tortured steel . I asked if it was his vehicle or the companies. He said it was the company vehicle but in reality he treats it as his own personal car because he can keep it at home. He also liked side trips which was ok for a while but put an extra hour and a half on our trip and I was hoping to photograph that evening. He decided to give us a tour of San Jose which was informative and also reinforced my decision not to city drive in Central America. Traffic density is horrendous and everybody heads for the nearest opening and guns it. Motorcycles are everywhere and usually you proceed with them using the narrow space between you and the car on your side except they are going three times faster. Motorcyclist believe there are speed lanes just for them between cars and also between cars and the curbs. They are required to wear helmets and a narrow beauty contest like sash diagonally across their back and front. It can be any color. I don't believe the Harley crowd would appreciate these restrictions. The sashes don't do much in the way of rider protection since the injury rate is high.
We missed seeing the Presidential Palace when the street became blocked by police and a sea of red taxi cars. The "legal drivers" were protesting UBER drivers and had plugged up everything. We were also proudly shown the new soccer stadium which was a gift from the Chinese government to help foster trade relations between Costa Rica and China. Everything including materials and even workers were brought in by the Chinese. They didn't trust the corruption in Costa Rica so no currency flowed through the sytem to be siphoned off. Kind of smart when you think about it.
We finally reached our lodge, Rancho Naturalista, in time for a quick look around. Soon after a bell rang to announce the evening meal. Their web site said they were known for their warm, relaxed, friendly atmosphere, brilliant birding, good company, and delicious gourmet food served with the best fresh local ingredients. This proved to be quite true. The meal of fish, salad, mashed potatoes, and vegetables was served family style. We sat with two guides who were more than willing to share good locations with us. Renee was from Brazil and owned his own birding company there. Megan was a young Alabama girl who fled the corporate world after a couple years and has worked at Rancho Naturalista the last four years. Tomorrow we will try for hummingbirds.
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