Real Toucans in the wild!

Fruit loops will never be the same. These toucans were magnificent.

For a trip down memory lane: the original Fruit Loops commercial from 1975.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVHvrsoy9P0

Manuel Antonio Bugs & Snakes

Things we would have walked by and never seen, had our guide not pointed them out and put the scope on them....

Dragonfly, boa constrictor (we were about a foot away), and a 4 inch long grasshopper.

Manuel Antonio National Park Nature Porn

Manuel Antonio is the crown jewel of Costa Rican National Parks, a tiny park with only about a one mile trail through the jungle. You hire a guide at the entrance, and they have telescopes which they carry and set up whenever an animal or insect is spotted. These are things that you would almost NEVER be able to see with the naked eye. You could walk through the park by yourself and not see a thing. The jungle is amazingly dense with seemingly invisible life, until they point out a sloth here, or a monkey there. We got some great photos by putting our camera up to the telescope lense.

Our squirrel monkey observation here? What our guide called "nature porn".

Native sloths

The three toed sloth and the five toed sloth. Takes a sharp eye to tell which is which, look closely!

What a day

We were greeted in the morning by a flat tire in the parking lot. The attendant (with Spanglish and lots of sign language) helped us put on the spare and directed us to a gas station so we could get our tire repaired. Too bad it went flat again 20 minutes later, on a hilly gravel road. We trashed that tire in the process of driving to a flat area. We then spent the morning going to 4 different places to buy a new tire (tiene llanta nueva, por favor?), but no one had the right size. We drove the rest of the day with no spare on very sketchy dirt roads.

Came upon a bridge where everyone stopped to look at crocodiles. HUGE... 19 on one side of the bridge and 17 on the other side. With a skimpy walkway, damaged guardrail and traffic whizzing by. (Pick your poison: get hit by a car, or eaten by a crocodile?)

Conchal Beach, Costa Rica

Conchal Beach or Playa Conchal doesn't actually have sand. In one of Mother Nature's bizzare twists, the beach is made up of millions of seashells (conchas), partially broken but definitely not sand yet. Made for very clear water, and was quite comfy to walk on.
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Leaf Cutter Ants Working Hard

Leaf cutter ant facts:

They have powerful jaws that vibrate up to 1000 times per second.

They can lift over 20 times their body weight (that's the same as one human lifting a TON).

They don't eat the leaves. They compost them back at the nest to grow yummy fungus, which they eat.

Each colon y of 3 to 8 million leaf cutter ants will move about 20 tons of soil in its lifetime.

And you think YOU work hard, huh?!

Slapping on the volcanic mud, Costa Rica

Costa Rica has plenty of volcanoes, including Rincon de la Vieja National Park, where there are natural bubbling mud holes called fumaroles. This sauna is naturally heated by extremely hot bubbling springs underneath.

Rincon is also known for its therapeutic mud. The good news? we no longer have any toxins left. Bad news? I had to buy a new swimsuit, this one was a wreck by the time Mike was finished!

Arenal Volcano Activity

We've tried to see Arenal on prior trips and had it completely obscured by clouds, but this time it was out in all its glory. It's somewhere in the top 10 most active volcanoes in the world (lists vary). We hiked up a trail in Arenal National Park for the best view. While we were sitting there quietly, you could hear cracking and hissing, followed by rockslides visible with the naked eye.

The macaw did a good job of posing right in front of the mountain during our lunch, don't you think??

Zip Lines and Tarzan Swings in Costa Rica

Zip lines? Done that. Tarzan Swing? Done that. Longest/highest zip line ever? OK, now they have our attention! It was 750 meters long (1/2 a mile) and about 150 ft. over the canyon. In a gusty wind. With a good Tarzan yell, of course!

Hey hey, we're the MONKEYS

So far, we've only seen the white faced monkeys (pictured here), but every night at dusk we hear the howler monkeys. They are small, only about 15 lbs. each and they sleep most of the day. When they wake up, they do a territorial growl that is quite intimidating, especially in a group. They have sort of a natural amplifier in their throats, and a saggy mouth shape that makes their sound acoustically LOUD. Check it out, it's weird...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdnwLX5m3G8&feature=related

Hot volcanoes and Hot Coffee In Costa Rica

AM: We got up early to catch Volcano Poas, an active volcano with fumarole (sulphur gas) steaming from the center. In 1910, it erupted with a column of steam & ash over 8,000 meters in the air. Apparently the outlook is frequently clouded over, so we were very lucky to see in on a clear day.

PM: We toured the DOKA Coffee Estate - about 70% of their coffee is sold to Starbucks. Interesting stuff we didn't know (OK, there was a LOT we didn't know about coffee!) The best coffee is picked by hand, to discern the ripeness of the berry. Raw coffee berries are sweet and taste nothing like coffee at all. Arabica beans are the most premium coffee. Coffee beans are shipped internationally after they are washed, dried (see Mike raking the beans?) and dehusked. Roasting is done at the packaging source. Coffee is roasted in light, medium and dark versions - all coffee is a mix of light, medium or dark blend. French roast, for example - has no particular bean or roast, it's just up to the retailer what they want to put in. Coffee is the #2 product in Costa Rica with 20% of the GNP, right behind bananas. We liked the dark chocolate covered beans the best!!

Bienvenidos a Costa Rica!

We're not in Kansas anymore. And certainly not in the desert. What a refreshing change to be in humid air with flowers everywhere. For example: wild pink and yellow orchids, gigantic elephant ears, and best of all...the HOT LIPS plant.

The Panama Canal!!

Amazing to see, the Panama Canal was completed in 1914. It cut 8,000 miles off the route, avoiding the treacherous trip around Tierra Del Fuego in South America. The Canal is 50 miles long with 3 locks, a feat of American engineering. Tolls for the canal are based on type of vessel, cargo, etc. The most expensive? $490,000 USD for a cruise ship. The cheapest? 39 cents for a guy who swam the canal.

The locks are almost @ capacity, running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It takes 8 to 10 hours for a ship to go through, not counting waiting time.

Expansion is in the works, newer wider parallel canals are set to open in 2015. The new ships that will be able to go through the canal will carry as much cargo on one ship as 570 Boeing 747s. Whoa....

Panama Street Life

A morning stroll through the neighborhood. A big attraction here was Lotto tickets, sold not by computer but by individual. Table after table with numbered tickets - people wander around until they find the ticket they want. There must have been 50 different ticket vendors, each with a table.

The women in black & green skirts and orange scarves are the last of a native Panamanian tribe. So colorful!! They even put glass beads around their calves.

Mike tried on a traditional Panama Hat. Did you know that they are really made in Ecuador? All of them.