Yikes, I'm falling behind. This post is about September 8th, and I have friends coming into town a week from today... Better get moving...

Our first day at Drake Bay was almost too good to be true. I woke up a little before 5am, just before the sunrise. I grabbed my camera and headed out for some early morning HDR pictures. I had briefly scouted the area the day before, so I had a good idea of where I was headed. The sky cooperated, and I am fairly happy with what I captured. I'll let you be the judge though.

I like the irony of this shot. The boat is called Wild Guy, yet its beached and looks like it hasn't been used in years. Although colors are very pretty at this time of day, I wanted to try a B&W picture using HDR, and felt this was a good candidate. The sky wouldn't quite cooperate on this one, but after a bit of tinkering, it turned out alright.

We had a quick breakfast back at the hotel, which was great, just like all the other food we would have at Drake Bay. We were headed to Corcovado, which was a half hour boat ride down the coast. This put as at the ranger station by 7:30am.

If you see something like this when you first walk into a tour, you can be sure that you're in for an adventure. In fact, we would be taking several tours that day. Our first began with a quick jaunt across a small stream, and into the tropical jungle.

Corcovado is a national park, and our tour was lead by a park ranger who was studying to become a biologist. This guy knew everything about everything, and really helped make the trip what it was. He could spot monkeys & other exotic animals from a distance that was hard to believe. I could barely see the trees he was pointing at most of the time.

Our first encounter of the day was with this strange looking bird. Its called a Curassow, and this one is a female. The male of this species is mostly black in color, with a bright yellow beak, and smaller. They inhabit all parts of the rain forests from Mexico to Ecuador, and pretty much every country in-between.

We continued along the trail, which lead us in & out of the forest running along the coast. It was turning into a beautifully sunny day on the beach, and a creepy sort of atmosphere in the jungle. It made for a nice dichotomy as we continued to walk, everyone keeping their eyes peeled for monkeys, sloths, macaws, toucans, basically anything that moved.

All four of Costa Rica's monkey species can be found within the Cocrovado National Park: spider, howler, white-face, and squirrel monkey. During my time here in Coco, I have only seen the howler monkey. There are rumors around town that we have white-faces here also, but I have yet to see them.

Of all four, the squirrel monkey is the most endangered, which also makes it the most rare, of course. Although this day in Corcovado would reinforce this, and although we had yet to see even one monkey, we were about to witness an amazing display of monkey shenanigans.


This was found at the far end of the hike, at our turn around point. My guess is that our guide planned it this way, and that these monkeys probably hang out in the same group of trees most of the time.

We saw two different types of monkeys at this location. Spider monkeys are what you see in the picture to the left, as well as the video above. However, in the same trees we also saw howler monkeys, but they were just a little too far away to get a good shot of.

Another shot we couldn't capture was that of a three-toed sloth. Apparently our guide could see this guy pretty clearly, and even setup the telescope he had brought with him for us to look through. I could barely make out the hair on its back, and that's all I could see...

For this picture, I leaned into the trunk of a tree, but only because our guide called us over to look at a bat. You read that right, one bat. It was not until just now, posting for this blog that I started my usual photo processing routine. Color correction, tone, contrast, all done, but when I adjusted the highlights & shadows, and all of a sudden the rest of the colony appeared. If I'm honest about it, it was a little creepy to see those other bats hanging upside down in there. Looking back on it, I'm not so sure I would have taken this picture had I known about the other guys...

The rest of the hike back was filled with odd fungus, giant trees with roots longer than a city bus, and smiles all around.

During lunch at the ranger station, our guide once again setup the telescope. He was able to find this Mantled Howler monkey relaxing in the trees. He asked to borrow my camera, and very carefully focused this amazing shot. It takes some talent to get this picture in focus, considering how far this monkey was from us.

My camera needed to be put into manual focus, and he had to adjust three different lenses just right: one in my camera, and two separate focal points in his telescope. I'm betting he has done this before, but I'm still impressed.

After lunch was an optional hike to a nearby waterfall. Only Mom, Dad & myself opted to go, so we got our own private tour. Unfortunately for the cameras, it had started to rain fairly heavily. Unfortunate for the cameras, yes, but we had a blast playing in the rain regardless. It absolutely poured in the middle of our hike, which was about a 45 minute trip each way.

As heavy as the rain was falling, I couldn't let this opportunity pass us up. Mom & Dad helped cover my head as I configured my camera for a quick assault on the water fall.

We counted to three, and jumped out for as many shots as we could get. I held down the shutter button, and snapped 24 pictures before we retreated to the relative safety of a nearby tree.

During our return from the waterfall, we were offered to go for a swim in one of the pools that had collected along the river. I jumped right in, and swam as close as I could to the little waterfall that created the pool. The current was strong, and I couldn't touch the bottom if I tried, but it was a fun experience.

We were now back at the ranger station for the final time that day, and they had found a couple of macaws very far off in the distant. This was another one of the telescope pictures, and has been cleaned up as best I can.

When macaws mate, they mate for life. We saw this couple, as well as another couple in the trees about two or three football fields away. Guess who pointed them out? Our guide of course. Apparently the trick is to look for the types of trees that animals are known to hang out in. Now you know.

Macaws are also easy to identify when flying, because they fly in a very specific flying pattern, one over the other over the other, like playing leapfrog. Both couples flew over our heads for about a half hour before heading off for more cuddling and grooming.