Costa Rica
Visiting Costa Rica has been high on my wish list since early childhood.
After being diagnosed with cancer mid last year I decided it was time to make the long thought about trip and start ticking off some of my bucket list items!
After doing considerable research about places to visit, travel companies and wildlife guides I decided to take the advice of some www.mammalwatching.com members and book a trip with Luis of https://www.wildlifebyluis.com.
My request to Luis was to put an 11 day itinerary together that covered several of the many habitat types present in Costa Rica and to see a diverse range of wildlife, covering all of the animal classes.
The only specific target species that I was desperate to see was the Resplendent Quetzal.
I was travelling with two of my kids and their only requests were to see snakes, macaws, sloths and a tapir.
This wasn’t intended to be a hard core mammal watching trip where I was up spotlighting all night, mist netting for bats and joining research groups setting small mammal traps, but more a relaxed tour of the country, enjoying the scenery and culture and seeing as much wildlife as possible along the way!
We weren’t disappointed and had a fantastic trip. We were Luis for the entirety of our adventure, from being picked up at our hotel in San Jose to being dropped back off at the same hotel 11 days later.
We saw everything we wanted to and more, Luis had great knowledge of where to go and when he didn’t he employed the services of local guides.
This was our rough itinerary:
28 Centro Manu
29 Centro Manu
30 Boca Tapada
31 Boca tapada
1 San Gerardo De Dota
2 San Gerardo de Dota
3 Puerto jimenez
4 Corcovado sirena station
5 Puerto jimenez
6 Puerto jimenez
7 Orotina ,Cerro lodge
On the trip we saw:
23 species of mammal
250+ species of bird, including 25 different hummingbirds
30+ species of frog and a salamander
10+ species of snake, including Fer De Lance and Eyelash Pit Viper
20+ species of lizard
2 species of turtle
50+ species of fish, including sharks, eels and rays
The mammals we saw were:
1). Common Opossum
2). Brown Four-eyed Opossum
3). Northern Tamandua
4). Brown -throated Three-toed Sloth
5). Hoffman’s Two-toed Sloth
6). Red-backed Squirrel Monkey
7). Central American White-faced Cappuchin
8). Mantled Howler
9). Central American Spider Monkey
10). Red-tailed Squirrel
11). Variegated Squirrel
12). Black Rat
13). Central American Agouti
14). Northern Ghost Bat
15). Greater White-lined Bat
16). Proboscis Bat
17). Honduran White Bat
18). Northern Raccoon
19). White-nosed Coati
20). Kinkajou
21). Baird’s Tapir
22). Collared Peccary
23). White-tailed Deer
We also saw many unidentified species of bat and an unidentifiable dolphin in the distance.
I’m not a photographer but have included a small selection of the many species we observed (most photos taken with iPhone).
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