Trip to Costa Rica and Panama

Tuesday February 17th we flew to Miami for the first leg of our trip to Costa Rica and Panama with Linblad Expeditions. Wednesday we caught the group flight to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, and spent the night in the Doubletree Cariari, a very nice hotel. We walked around the area in the evening and found some beautiful homes - with iron gates, razor wire, and armed guards. Needless to say, we didn’t venture very far.

Today we drove about 4 hours to the Monteverde Cloud Forest with our wonderful guides Jenny Villalobos and Willy Alfaro. Not only was Willy a terrific guide, but he is a great photographer as well. Check out his website.

We were surprised at the arid land between the lush Pacific coast and the cloud forest. We spent the afternoon walking in the cloud forest and visiting a “hummingbird garden” with feeders that attracted some beautiful specimens;plus an olingo, distantly related to raccoons and pandas, that was attracted out of the forest by the feeders.We also saw agoutis and coatimundis on our walk through the lush forest.Our hotel for the next 2 nights is the Hotel de Montana Monteverde. This evening we were treated to a beautiful sunset.