Tag Archives: costa rica

Mangrove Birding Tour, Tarcoles, Costa Rica

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Although there are several tour operators for these Tarcoles River cruises, only one caters to birders.  It’s called Mangrove Birding Tour but the hotels such as Villa Lapas will know it better if you tell them you want Luis Campos.  He is a specialist in birding cruises and knows all the local species quite well.  His boat is smaller than the main ones that cater to tourist groups so he can get into smaller inlets and closer to shore.  You will see the difference in the photos below.  If you don’t have a car, he will send someone to pick you up.  The driver took us down to the beach beforehand to see Scarlet Macaws and fishing boats (what fishing boats, LOL).  You will be picked up around 7am-ish and it’s about a 2 hour cruise.

I’ll let the photos tell the rest of the story!

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Other Sights & Shopping In Tarcoles, Costa Rica

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Carara may be the major draw for eco-tourists to Tarcoles but there are other places to see as well.  See my post on how to get there if you haven’t already.

TARCOLES VILLAGE

Has restaurants, shops & tour operators.  You can book a Tarcoles River cruise here.

IMG_5553 IMG_5552 IMG_5551 IMG_5554CROCODILE BRIDGE

Contrived & touristy but since it’s on the way to all the other attractions you might as well take a look.  If you do a Crocodile Man tour, you will see them jump for food.  I didn’t bother with this, not my cup of tea.  There are a couple small shops nearby.

IMG_5559 IMG_5557 IMG_5561 IMG_5562MOLAS & CAFE

Large souvenir shop with an attached cafe.  Molas actually come from Panama but you can get them here at reasonable prices (but more expensive than Panama) and the shop takes credit cards.  If you come with a guide, they will get a commission but if you are on a cruise ship stop, you won’t have time to avoid this.

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El Manantial Sanctuary, Puntarenas, Costa Rica

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El Manantial is a project dedicated to the conservation of macaws native to Costa Rica. The main focus of the project is the Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao) and the Great Green Macaw (Ara Ambigua), who once flew freely in many areas of Costa Rica. In 1994, individuals concerned with the status of these endangered species decided to create a project for their conservation; with the sole purpose of the project being the reintroducing of Macaws back into the wild, striving to increase their population numbers.

It’s very easy to organize a visit here whether you are on a cruise ship or land based.  Information on how to get to Puntarenas/Tarcoles is covered in my post on Carara National Park.

A guide will take you around the sanctuary.  You will see birds in aviaries and some wild birds who were either former aviary residents who were set free and decided to stick around or local wild birds who know a great place to find free food!

PHOTOS

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Carara National Park, Costa Rica

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Carara National Park in Costa Rica is one of the best places in the world to see Scarlet Macaws.  They flock to the palm trees to eat the nuts and their bright red feathers make them stand out.

GETTING THERE

First see how to get to Costa Rica using a Central America award.  Then you can either rent a car or take the bus or tourist shuttle bound for Jaco and get off at the park entrance.  You can also get a bus from Puntarenas which is a popular cruise ship port.  On a previous visit, we were on a Panama Canal cruise that stopped in Puntarenas and booked a private tour with Odyssey Tours which I highly recommend. Our guide, Alvaro from Odyssey Tours  showed up before 7am and handed us to his birding guide-Nestor who studies biology and knows birds very well. We headed off to Carara National Park to see the scarlet macaws, this is one of the rare places in the world where they are common and can be easily found. The trails were muddy because the first rain of the season had been the previous night and we were struggling to stay on our feet. My husband was the first to fall flat on his back-not hurt but got all muddy. I later fell on my side because I was protecting my camera.

Location of Carara National Park

If you are on a land based trip, I recommend you stay at Villa Lapas.  Yes, it is older and could use some renovations but if you are there for the birds, you can’t beat the location on the south side of Carara National Park and chance to see the macaws and other birds on the grounds.   You can walk to the main part of Carara from here as well if you don’t mind the heat.

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In the map above which I found on Go Visit Costa Rica, I have highlighted the path you need to follow to see the macaws.  You will need a ticket first which costs $10 at the ticket office.  Then walk or drive to where I indicated “Path to palm trees”.  Go as early in the morning as possible to see the macaws fly in and enjoy a breakfast of palm nuts.  We spent about an hour here watching a family of Scarlet Macaws fly back and forth bringing nuts to another apparently more comfortable tree to eat them.  Then we went back to the main office area and took the trail to the right (yellow highlights).  By this time it was getting closer to noon when birds tend to take a siesta so we didn’t see much, just some leaf cutter ants and a cool looking frog.

When we did the tour with Odyssey, they took us to a local Costa Rican diner for lunch, then in the afternoon we saw more birds including a Violaceous Trogon and Turquoise-browed Motmot (the one with the long racquet-tail).  A complete bird list can be found here.

PHOTOS

There’s a lot here as I just couldn’t get enough of the Scarlet Macaws!  Lighting was poor but I did my best!

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Lodge Review: Villa Lapas, Carara, Costa Rica

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Villa Lapas is adjacent to the Carara National Park.  From their website:

We are a rainforest-resort, located in the pacific coast of Costa Rica. We have become one of the Costa Rica’s top tourist choices, becoming a favorite of birdwatchers and nature lovers.

Our Hotel features 58 rooms surrounded by lush tropical gardens sitting in the midst of a private 500 acre rainforest reserve, with a beautiful river flowing alongside the resort complex.

A replica Of Costa Rica’s historical past, the Santa Lucia Town in Villa Lapas adds a quaint, charming touch to it’s natural surroundings. Santa Lucía includes a church, a local cantina, a lake, restaurant, two souvenir shops and other points of interest, perfect for weddings and private events too. And the Villa Lapas Canopy tour, where your adrenaline flows while you zip through the jungle.

 

We arrived in the early afternoon from Monteverde after being dropped off by the bus.  The grounds are beautiful as one would expect from being next to Carara.

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The reception, bar & restaurant are in a breezy open air area with views of the garden.

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The rooms are on the small side which was fine as we spent most of our time outdoors watching the birds.  The buildings have a Spanish colonial style.

IMG_0780 IMG_0784 IMG_0781 IMG_0782 IMG_0783You won’t have to go far to start birding.  You will find the same species here as you do in Carara but they can be easier to see with the wide open spaces.  We watched Scarlet Macaws flying to and from Carara & their roosting grounds.

IMG_0785 IMG_0786 IMG_0805 IMG_0807 IMG_0808 IMG_0811 IMG_0813 IMG_0815 IMG_0816The swimming pool was small and full of leaves so we didn’t go swimming though we did dangle our feet in the water to cool off.  We were amused by the iguanas running around, sometimes upright!

IMG_0795 IMG_0788 IMG_0787We walked across the bridge to the Santa Lucia Village just in time for an afternoon shower.  It’s a beautiful scenic walk past a small stream.

IMG_0790 IMG_0791 IMG_0793 IMG_0794 IMG_0796 IMG_0801On the opposite end of the property were some buildings that looked like staff quarters and an unused massage hut that would actually be better used as a bird hide.

IMG_0802 IMG_0803Dinner & breakfast are served as buffets and there was a decent variety of dishes-meat pasta, some local dishes that I found a bit spicy, soup & salad.  I forgot to bring my camera to dinner so no pics, sorry!  It started raining as we walked back so had to borrow an umbrella.

Although some hotel booking sites will show a link to Villa Lapas, they never seem to have availability so it could be the property isn’t using them anymore so no airline miles or Ultimate Rewards points.  They have an onsite secure booking form which gets the job done.

The staff are very friendly and helpful.  Although it’s a beautiful property, it does need renovations.  If you are a dedicated birder, you won’t care because the birdlife is amazing but if you are used to Sheratons & Intercontinentals you will probably be disappointed.  The reviews on Trip Advisor are pretty mixed.  Birders love it, normal tourists didn’t.

 

Violet Sabrewing (Campylopterus hemileucurus)

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IMG_0731 IMG_0726The Violet Sabrewing is the largest species of hummingbird in Middle America. It occurs in montane forests from southern Mexico south to western Panama, and also is found at forest edges, in second growth forests, banana plantations, and flower gardens.

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I saw this gorgeous hummingbird at the Monteverde Cloud Forest where they have feeders.  The photos don’t do them justice, they glow with iridescence that catches the sun.  A Central America award will get you to Costa Rica where you can travel to Monteverde and other great birding locations.

The food of this species is nectar, taken mainly from undergrowth flowers with Heliconias and bananas as favourites. The males are less aggressive and territorial at flowers than their size would suggest.

The call of the Violet Sabrewing is a sharp twitter, and the song of the male, given at leks of up to ten males, is a high-pitched piercing cheep tsew cheep tik-tik tsew.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS BIRD

Wikipedia

Birdlife

Cornell Lab of Ornithology (also has recording of this bird’s call)

VIDEO

Look fast, it’s only a short clip!

 

 

Traveling From Monteverde To Tarcoles Via Limonal

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Last week, I did a post about the various types of transport in Costa Rica.  In this post, I will show you in detail what the trip is like between Monteverde and Tarcoles (Carara National Park).

I really should have booked this online but I waited on purpose so that Cala Lodge could make the booking and get a small commission as it would have cost me the same in any case.  As it turns out, they don’t have that set up so I might as well have booked it online.  I chose Grayline because it had the latest possible departure from Monteverde and I wanted to have the early morning to visit Monteverde’s Cloud Forest Reserve.

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Although Jaco is the main tourist area in southern Costa Rica, birders would be heading to Carara National Park to see the magnificent Scarlet Macaws.  Carara doesn’t appear in the drop-down menu, nor does Villa Lapas Lodge or Tarcoles.  Just pick the closest drop-off point and explain to the driver where you really want to go.

The minibus was right on time picking us up at Cala Lodge.

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Not sure of the name of the place but we picked up some other tourists there and I loved the stained glass windows!

IMG_0754aI had been expecting that the same minibus would take us all the way to Tarcoles/Jaco and was somewhat annoyed when I found out we had to change buses in Limonal, a place I was not familiar with.

A – Monteverde
B – Limonal
Yellow circle – Palo Verde National Park

My annoyance quickly changed to excitement when we got to the restaurant at Limonal were we did the changeover.  It turned out to be a short distance from Palo Verde National Park and frequented by wild Scarlet Macaws!  Unlike the clipped-wing Yellow Naped Amazon from the other trip, these birds were free but chose to hang out here, probably to steal food left by passengers.

IMG_0769 IMG_0755 IMG_0763 IMG_0766 IMG_0767 IMG_0770I finally managed to tear myself away from them long enough to buy a couple sandwiches, chips & drinks to take on the next bus to Tarcoles.  This was a larger bus and had the free wifi which was good because the scenery wasn’t so interesting on this leg, at least not until Puntarenas.

A – Monteverde
B – Limonal
C – Tarcoles

You can see how twisty the road was from Montverde as we came down the mountain and I was really glad that I wasn’t driving.  The road from Limonal to Puntarenas was a typical highway which got narrower between Puntarenas and Tarcoles.  The driver dropped us off at Villa Lapas which is right next to Carara National Park.  I really liked the door-to-door convenience of these shuttles even if they were more expensive than public buses.  From Montverde, the public bus left way too early, around 6am so wasn’t an option.

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Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve

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I was up at the crack of dawn having gotten to bed early the night before and enjoyed watching the birds from the balcony of our room.  My husband decided to sleep in so I went to the reception to request a taxi to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve.

The bulk of Monteverde’s rain forest and cloud forest can be found in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, a private nature reserve created in 1972 by scientist George Powell and Quaker Wilford Guindon. The area around the park entrance is the most visited, though camping deep in the reserve is possible with reservations. Nine main trails, which total 13 km, are well-kept and easy to access. The reserve features a large network of less accessible trails and a number of rustic research stations, two of which house 10 persons each, as well as one research station that can house as many as 43 persons, though these can now only be used by researchers.

Admission for foreigners is $17 and you can also book a guided tour for $32.  After a 10-minute DVD presentation providing an introductory view of the cloud forest flora and fauna, an experienced nature guide will lead you on a 2 1/2-hour walk on MCFBR trails, where you can make your own in situ observations.  Schedule: 7:30 am, 12md, 1:00 pm.

Since we had booked onward transportation, I wasn’t able to do the guided tour and had to walk on ahead, hoping to see more Resplendant Quetzals.  The actual bird list is very impressive and they put out hummingbird feeders so it can be very enjoyable to just relax and watch the tiny jewel-toned hummingbirds come and go.  This time, I didn’t get lucky enough to see a Quetzal so I contented myself with the hummingbirds while I waited for the taxi to come back and pick me up which he did, right on time.  Next time, I would spend one more night here to allow more time for the guided tour as I do think the local guides are much better at spotting the birds than tourists are.

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Lodge Review: Cala Lodge, Monteverde, Costa Rica

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Cala Lodge was built on three acres of property or 1.2 hectares of forest right next to the world renowned Children’s Eternal Rain Forest which has an area of 52.800 acres and it is the largest private reserve of Central America.

What I really love about this place is that even though it is a short walk from town, it’s still in the cloud forest and feels like it’s out in the bush miles from anywhere.  The views are amazing and we saw hummingbirds, toucans and other birds on the property.  The staff are really nice & helpful!  Rates are very reasonable and you get a choice of cooked breakfasts in the morning, nice pancakes!

Monteverde town

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Gotta love a room with a view!

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Morning visitors!

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I must have accidentally messed up the white balance but those are toucans!

IMG_0712 IMG_0716 IMG_0715Cala Lodge will like to provide their guests with comfortable, reasonably priced and quality accommodations on a great secluded location with beautiful forest and easy access to the local areas of interest. The hotel offers advice from a professional naturalist guide that will guarantee a better experience in the Costa Rican Cloud Forest and its surroundings.

You can easily book this lodge on their website or use an online hotel booking site such as Pointshound, Expedia, Hotels.com.  Trip Advisor reviews are great!

How to get to Costa Rica with airline miles

 

Yellow-naped Parrot (Amazona auropalliata)

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The Yellow-naped Parrot or Yellow-naped Amazon (Amazona auropalliata) is an Amazon parrot sometimes considered to be a subspecies of Yellow-crowned Amazon, Amazona ochrocephala (Gmelin, 1788).  This one in the photo is a captive wild parrot who would have originated in northern Costa Rica.

IMG_0638 IMG_0635Amazona auropalliata is found in Mexico and Central America, occurring along the Pacific slope of the isthmus in southern Mexico (Oaxaca and Chiapas), Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and north-western Costa Rica, the Bay Islands (Roatán and Guanaja) of Honduras, and the Caribbean slope in eastern Honduras and north-eastern Nicaragua (Juniper and Parr 1998).

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Probably the easiest place to see them logistically is in the Guanacaste or Tarcoles area of Costa Rica.  Use a Central American award to get you here.  When I blog about Tarcoles, I will go into more detail about where to see them in that area.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS PARROT

Wikipedia

World Parrot Trust

Birdlife

VIDEO

Nice mini-doco with some interviews in Spanish with English subtitles.  I especially love how they are encouraging the local communities to support eco-tourism and leave the birds in the wild!