Month: April 2024

We woke up with the birds again this morning, nearly an hour before the 6am sunrise. The instant hot water head for the shower proved to be finicky for me, so I took a cold and minimal shower. It was sunny by 7am when we walked up the hill for breakfast. As we ate, our guide from Friday, Alex, came in after guiding a French couple and he greeted us warmly. We returned to our cabin and packed up in preparation for a 9am pickup by a driver to take us to our next location, Bosque de Paz.

We were worried when the driver hadn’t shown up by 9:20, but he came a few minutes later, apologizing because he went to the wrong place in San Gerardo. Carlos helped us load up the large tourist van he was driving with our bags and we departed.

I was especially anxious that we depart on time because today was the day we had arranged to meet my longtime Costa Rican Spanish conversation partner, Yeinel, and his wife Laura. We were set to meet them for lunch at a San José restaurant at 11:45. It all worked out and we got there on time and Yeinel and Laura arrived soon after. We invited our driver Carlos to join us too.

We had a very pleasant lunch together, speaking nearly totally in Spanish. It was so very nice to meet Yeinel and his wife in person after talking to him via Skype for about 4 years. After lunch, we both drove to a nearby shop for some ice cream and a little more conversation. Then we said goodbye and Carlos, Stephanie and I got back in the van to continue the trip to Bosque de Paz.

The nature reserve of Bosque de Paz is northwest of San José and is located in a cloud forest at lower elevation than San Gerardo de Dota. It’s a private reserve, lodge and restaurant located quite a ways from any city or town. The temperatures are warmer and it’s more humid, resulting in different vegetation, birds, and animals than where we had last been. We were greeted by the owner, an older man. Immediately after we got settled in the room, we went outside and saw new birds, bugs and some agouti animals. Then after dark, while we were waiting for a 6:30pm dinner, we saw fireflies and pacas, which are bigger animals than agoutis. Our room was nicer than at Miriam’s too.

Dinner was very good: chicken with gravy, fries and green beans plus fresh juice and a pastry in syrup for dessert. There was only one other couple in the dining room, indicating that only two of the rooms have guests.

As I write this, we can hear frogs croaking outside our room in the small pond. Very relaxing!

Today, Saturday, we spent the day in and around the cabin at Miriam’s Quetzals. We woke up before sunrise, got dressed, and walked up the hill to the restaurant about 7am. We were the only ones there and took advantage of that to watch the birds at the feeders on the deck after eating. I took a video of the scene.

Returning to our cabin, we decided to hike the loop trail through the forest on the property and look for birds and animals. We saw three additional bird species that were new and some interesting animal scat. Just as we were returning to our cabin it started to rain.

We managed to mostly dodge the showers on our way up the hill again to eat lunch and return. We bought a few snacks at the mini market on the way back down. Then we spent the rest of the day in the cabin reading and resting. Dinner required another walk up hill to the restaurant, but it was no longer raining. We both enjoyed arroz con pollo (chicken and rice) that came with fries, salad and a dessert of half an ice cream sandwich each. It was a relatively restful last full day at Miriam’s in the cloud forest.

Overnight on Thursday, a dark and very quiet night resulted in a really great night’s sleep for both Stephanie and I, which made us really happy. We woke up at 5am to get ready for a birding trip with a guide named Alex who was going to pick us up at 5:30 to go and see the Resplendent Quetzal, a spectacular bird that many birders come to Costa Rica to see. Alex drove us down into the valley below Miriam’s several kilometers to a known spot for the quetzals. When we got there, all three of us were unhappy to see a crowd of people on the road already looking at the birds. But Alex parked a ways away from them and found both the male and female quetzals for us through his spotting scope. And they are beautiful birds! Google them to see a photo of the gorgeous long-tailed turquoise and red male.

Alex was a really great guide who spoke good English, was very knowledgeable about birds, plants and the area, and had lived in San Gerardo de Dota for more than 20 years. Plus, he was patient with our slow and mistaken Spanish as we used it for much of the conversations. He answered all our questions about birds, nature and living in Costa Rica.

We spent 2.5 hours birding in the valley and finding lots of birds that neither of us had seen before. Along the way, we also saw a small group of horses being herded on the road by a man in a pickup truck, which looked strange but worked well. They were being brought from their pasture to a place where tourists would be riding them on trails through the forest, according to Alex.

Stephanie and I also wanted to see birds in the páramo, the highest part of the mountains at about 12,000 feet of elevation. Alex had told us that viewing would be best there in late morning after the clouds burned off. So we ate breakfast with Alex at Miriam’s restaurant and then he drove us up to the páramo near Cerró de la Muerte. There we saw the Volcano Junco (a bird) and a couple others plus great views of the surrounding forested mountains and the high-altitude, low-growing vegetation. He returned us to Miriam’s about noon and after we thanked for a wonderful morning of birding, we bought ice cream bars at the mini market that Alex and his wife Liliana (daughter of Miriam) run.

We then spent the afternoon relaxing and talking in front of our cabin, reviewing the birds we had seen. For dinner, we walked up the hill to Los Colibríes Pizzaria, run by a friendly man named Victor who we had met the day before when we made the evening’s reservation. Los Colibríes means the hummingbirds in Spanish, and Victor had created a flower garden with a feeder to attract the birds in front of the restaurant. So we sat at a table next to the windows overlooking the garden to enjoy beer and pizza while watching the hummers. It was a very pleasant dinner.

As we walked back down the hill in the dark to our cabin, we wanted to spot Dusky Nightjar birds, owls, or other night creatures using our flashlights, but disappointedly we saw nothing. Back in the cabin, we heard what sounded like an owl outside. So we rushed outside with binoculars and flashlights to see if we could find the owl, only to encounter a man who apologetically said that he had been playing an owl recording to see if he could attract one to the area of our cabins. It was a funny moment since he had attracted us instead of the bird.

My friend Stephanie and I have arrived in beautiful Costa Rica for a trip focused on birding and nature that we started planning over a year ago. We flew in to San José yesterday evening, coming via Los Angeles, on Alaska Airlines flights that were full but on time and trouble-free. My checked bag even appeared on the airport baggage carousel relatively quickly.

We traveled to the San José hotel via taxi and Stephanie had a good conversation with the taxi driver, mostly in Spanish, along the way. I was too tired to function in Spanish because I hadn’t slept well the night before, so I was happy she could carry on the conversation. We spent the night at Hotel de la Rosa de America after a late dinner at a nearby restaurant recommended by the taxi driver.

We woke up early this morning to singing tropical birds and were excited to go out into the hotel gardens to see them.

The hotel breakfast buffet started at 7am and we enjoyed gallo pinto, scrambled eggs, fresh fruit, coffee cake and guava juice. About 9:40 our driver came from Costa Rica Drivers. Rolando greeted us and loaded our suitcases into the SUV car for the 2.5-hour drive into the mountain village of San Gerardo de Dota.

During the congested drive through San José and into the Talamanca Mountains, both Stephanie and I conversed in a mixture of Spanish and English with the very friendly and knowledgeable Rolando. We arrived at Miriam’s Quetzals restaurant and cabins about noon and we invited Rolando to have lunch with us there. Just outside the restaurant, on a deck overlooking a forested valley shrouded in clouds, were several bird feeders that attracted a swarm of hummingbirds and other birds. We learned that Rolando loves to watch birds too, so before and after eating, we enjoyed the birds together with a couple other groups of birdwatchers and photographers.

Our cabin for the next three nights was 500 meters down a steep and winding road, where Rolando drove us and Liliana, an employee of Miriam’s. She checked us into the cabin and explained everything we needed to know.

It was cool and showery in the cloud forest, so we added a layer of clothes and then explored the area, finding some great birds along the way.

Then we walked up the hill to the restaurant about 4:30, enjoyed fruit batidos (milk shakes) while watching and photographing the birds on the deck. When it began to get dark, about 6pm, we went inside and ordered a delicious dinner of trout in passion fruit sauce with French fries. Afterwards, we returned down the hill in the dark, guided by our flashlights.