It rained solidly all night - so the 7am wander to breakfast was hastier on the uncovered paths so we weren't too damp. The plan was to pack up everything and after breakfast take our bags to the boat jetty for a 0900 departure. We left just about on time and the impact of the incessant rain was clear - the waterways were very high and fast running and some of the land was now flooded. You definitely needed good boatmen to navigate through the waters. Ours was, and an hour later we were at the other dock getting onto our own minibus,which will be with us for the rest of the trip, heading towards our lunch stop (the outward breakfast stop.)
Interestingly when we arrived at the dock two days previously we walked down to the boat - today the boat was level with the bank and it was easy to step off - a clear indicator of the depth change!
After lunch we made 3 stops enroute to La Fortuna....a local artist and naturalist, a fruit stall, and iguana bridge with its mass of iguanas.
Cope,was the Costa Rican artist, his art was even more special because he was self taught. We went to his humble home and looked at his art and watched his bird feeder. John and I bought a lovely picture of a baby turtle as a momento of yesterday and watching Trevor's first steps! We were all transfixed on the bird feeder where a
chestnut mandibled toucan ( the largest and today's photograph) was ruling the roost, initially he frightened all the other birds away - in the interludes when he was not there we saw collared aracari, green honey creeper, juvenile red legged honey creeper, palm tanager, blue grey tanager,male and female passerini's tanager, ruddy ground dove, elania. It was a very interesting stop and great to support a local talented artist and naturalist.
Next stop was a fruit stall where Juan Carlos showed us some of the local fruits and vegetables that we don't get to see and wouldn't recognise in the UK.
Back on the bus we made odd stops for birds on wires, spotted by our eagle eyed driver,eg a broad winged hawk or a hanging sloth -with the sloth I learnt how to open the aperture on my camera to let in more light to get a more detailed picture of the sloth (I hope I remember how to do it again as it worked well! ).
The stop at iguana bridge was well named as there we loads of male and female iguanas just lying around in the trees waiting to be photographed.
We arrived at the Costa Rican owned Hotel Bossca around 5ish, after a quick tour on the bus of La Fortuna to help us get the lie of the land. Even though it was Xmas day several shops and restaurants were open for tourists and locals. We showered and changed and at about 1815 we all made our way to a reasonably price local restaurant that could accommodate 13 of us plus driver and guide for an a typical Christmas meal - papaya juice and spaghetti with vegetables for me and papaya juice and chicken in mushroom sauce with French fries for John!
Enroute I used the cash machine - it gave out dollars or colones and as it is easy to pay in either currency I opted for dollars. I also realised that when they give you a choice of English or Spanish for the transaction it does not translate the services into English but it does say dollars and receipt in English instead of dollares and whatever the Spanish is for receipt - big deal!!!! But we (another Julie on the trip and I) got to the end of our transactions through a smattering of common sense and portion of good luck!
It was now dry so our walks to and from the restaurant were great - we have great hopes for tomorrow.