Retired Nomads - Part 2 : Puntarenas, Costa Rica

Puntarenas, Costa Rica - Jan 11

This is our third time on this coast of Costa Rica. We have been to Limon a couple of times and once to Puerto Quepos. Last time we did the crocodile river cruise and got a tour of the countryside. We were supposed to go to the National Park, but our guide wouldn’t take us. So, this time we booked a birding tour with Nestor who was recommended by the guide we used in Puerto Quepos.

We were off the ship and waited for Nestor. We finally called him to let him know where we were. He was watching the port gate for us to come out, but we were already out. We let him know we had to be back earlier than planned. Felix was our driver.

restroom stop (Felix in blue shirt & white pants, Nestor closing the door and Greg's back)

We drove to Carara National Park, and Nestor wanted to see if a section was open as he wanted to start there. The Laguna Meandrica Trail was open, so we drove there first. Very muddy and not well maintained but otherwise fine. We saw a lot of birds and heard way more. The Army Ants were there so that produced some Antbirds and other birds that follow them. The mud got too deep in one section, so we turned around and hiked back out. The highlight for me was seeing lots of Marbled Wood-Quail. We could hear the rustling in the forest and finally we started to see a bunch of birds on the ground. Very hard to get pictures of since it was really dark and they kept moving.

Carara National Park entrance

Red-legged Honeycreeper

Laguna Meandrica Trail

The Carara National Park trail was about a mile and a half.

part of the trail

Greg & Nestor on the trail

Ovenbird

Marbled Wood-Quail

Streaked Woodcreeper

Tarcoles River

Poison Dart Frog

Black-headed Trogon - male

Black-headed Trogon - femlae

Black-headed Trogon - female & male

Crane Hawk

Blue-throated Goldentail Hummingbird

Chestnut-backed Antbird

Orange-billed Sparrow

front of the park so I had to pose with it

I thought the iguanas were stone like the huge Macaw, but it moved just before I stepped on it.

Lunch was large empanadas & yucca fries. The beef one was really tasty, and the chicken was good, just not as flavorful. There was a buffet there, but we weren't that hungry, and the empanadas looked good. We were going to buy the guide and drivers lunch, but Nestor said our lunches were included in the price of the tour.

chicken empanada & yucca fries

beef empanadas

Streaked Flycatcher

Social Flycatcher

After a relaxing lunch with some birds for company we did some road birding.

Yellow Warbler

Tropical Kingbird

White-winged Dove

Hoffmann's Woodpecker

We were supposed to visit a wetland, but it was too dry, so we headed back to the port. On the way we stopped to get photos of 2 beautiful Scarlet Macaws. The driver saw them flying and stopped and they landed very close to where we were.

Nestor

So, we were back by 3:30 and went to get some ice cream and came back to get showered and ready for dinner. We figured we'd be late and would need to eat the buffet.

Roy & Rondi said they had a long tour and probably wouldn’t make dinner. We sat at a table with 7 other people. Most were going to be doing the full 111 days. It was an interesting group and of course most of the conversation was about travel.

After dinner we went to half of the Majority Rules game before going to get seats for the evening show which was another comedian Phil Tag. He actually made us laugh out loud. Only a couple of the jokes were ones we had heard before. He was interactive with the audience and quick thinking.

It was a productive day as we saw or heard 64 different species with 8 new birds for us. Quite a few endemic species that we hadn't seen before. Bringing our life list to 1,581 birds.