While Away...

Up until now, our travel has mostly focused around culture, food and activities so Estación Biológica Tamandúa was the first place we went herping (looking for reptiles and amphibians) and wildlife watching properly. Therefore, here follows a blog post purely about wildlife! Birds in particular, are extremely diverse in Central America. Unfortunately, Greg and I are not bird experts and our interests mostly lie in reptiles and amphibians. However, I think we both appreciate birds a lot more now. A common feature of Estación Biológica Tamandúa, was the hummingbirds which flittered around the flowers planted around the buildings. We did not realise how angry, noisy and territorial hummingbirds are. We would constantly hear angry squeaks and a sound like a hover craft and a pair of hummingbirds would chase each other through the room, close to colliding with our heads. The hummingbirds were also extremely inquisitive. They would fly towards us and hover at eye level for a few se...

We set off from our Hotel at 5.30 in the morning and met a quad bike who took us up to the Lodge. The Biological station is about 4.5km from Drake Bay along a muddy track which crosses 5 rivers and two streams. Although it is a fun quad bike ride, during the rainy season, the station is often cut off due to road conditions and high river levels. Upon arrival at the station we briefly met the volunteers we were replacing whom had stayed for 2 weeks and assured us we would have a great time. They were then quickly whisked away by the Quadbiker and we were left on our own. Now for a little more on what was our home for over a month and a half. Estación Biológica Tamandúa   is a jungle lodge set in the tropical rain forest next to the Corcovado National Park. The Corcovado is the largest park in Costa Rica and covers about a 3rd of the area of the Osa Peninsula. The only potential drawbacks with the secluded location were the lack of internet and hot water. The latter is true of ...

Again apologies for the lateness of this post. In the jungle it is easy to lose track of time! Continuing from last time..... Time was ticking- we were aiming for a volunteer project in Costa Rica, so it was soon time to leave Nicaragua. We decided to skip Isla Ometepe (one of the most popular destinations in Nicaragua), as we would be returning to Nicaragua after volunteering in Costa Rica. So we headed off on a chicken bus to Rivas, with hordes of other travellers mostly on their way to Ometepe. A couple of French girls invited us to share their taxi to the border and caused us a great amount of stress when we found that they were heading to Ometepe instead. Needless to say, we wasted some money, half an hour and many frustrated/angry words on the taxi back to Rivas and were unceremoniously dumped on a street next to a man selling puppies in a cage, to wait for the next bus to the border. Great Tailed Grackles at dusk in the central park of Liberia Once we got on the b...