National Geographic Sea Lion

Here's a pic from last Saturday as we were boarding. Our room is ready, and I am getting out our passports. Lindblad Expeditions/National Geographic do a fine job on the National Geographic Sea Lion cruise. From our dock, we are about to cruise down the coast of Costa Rica, visit some islands in Panama and go through the Panama Canal. As you can see, I've got the right had on, at least for now!

Saturday, a travel day

(Most of these posts are a week delay from the activity as we had limited access on the boat). Please see previous posts for some additional updates including some pics recently added.

On the Pan American Highway headiing south towards our ship.

Monteverde was beautiful and amazing. Shoul be a part of any extended trip to Costa Rica as should Tabacon near the Arenal volcano which we visited on an earlier trip. (Tabacon is a Leading Hotels of the World resort. It bills its

elf as a grand spa and thermal resort which it definitely is. Check out the exotic heated pools, natural, heated by the Arenal Volcano. This place is as beautiful as the web site in

dicates and you can go for a day visit too.)

We did a couple of tour things in a

ddition to the cloud forest visiting bats and butterflies, both of which contribute to biodiversity in ways I never imagined. In fact, Costa Rica's reason for being seems to be biodiversity. This country has no army. They understand clearly their place in the world ecosystem and protect their land, watersheds, etc. There are a lot of federal initiatives that encourage the setting aside of reserves, in addition to many national parks. In the next several days we'll be visiting many of these lo

cations along the Pacific Coast. As I wrote this, we were headed towards out ship, the National Geographic Sea Lion, which only holds about 60 guests.

But first, a few more pictures from MonteVerde:

The first is the face of a three toed sloth.

This was a rare sighting, rare in that they are almost always curled up and you cannot see their faces. This was taken at from the world famous MonteVerde sky bridges, the first of their kind in Central America.

The next two pictures are for Karen and I on the sky bridges. I talked the other day about the constant horizontal rain in the cloud forest from the clouds. Well, on this day, we had horizontal AND vertical rain, sometimes quite heavy. The animals were all huddled up under the leaves, and we were bundled up pretty well. The people who did not read the literature about gear and came unprepared were pretty unhappy this day. But it was still wonderful, with five sky bridges through the canopy, seeing the orchids and other tree top plants as well as the sloth and a family of howler monkeys from above.

Coast of Costa Rica

Not able to post much due to poor internet access via satellite. Stay tuned this weekend for pics and videos and stories.

Cloud Forest-revised

Here is an update of this post which has the promised humingbird video which Karen took on her iPhone 4Gs in the wind and the rain at 5,000 feet. There were multiple feeders and they were all around us.

Cloud Forests are rain forests at a mountain elevation. As they are up in the clouds, the rain is called horizontal rain, and the leaves are always dripping, rain or not. Very much like the coastal forests of the Pacific Northwest only no fir trees, all broadleaf. Yesterday we walked through the Monteverde Reserve at 5,000 feet. The birds were mostly small and yellow or green I'm not a birder and don't remember all the names but there was a flycatcher among others. We have a great hummingbird video we'll post later. This morning from the hotel we saw bright yellow and black and bright orange and black birds. An easterner might think Baltimore Oriole, but I think it is an SF Giants bird. The walk through the cloud forest was wonderful and calming, especially I'd you gee up in Seattle rain.

This morning we also saw some watusa (think big rat or guinea pig) and some coatimundi on the grounds of the hotel. Pics to come, really.

MonteVerde

After quite the trip in our small bus, we are up in the clouds. Saw howler monkeys along the way. Two nights in the cloud forest. This afternoon we take our first naturalist hike. We hope to post some pics later.

And here are more pics:

This is an owl butterfly.

A Brahma Bull from the roadside. Imported when they thought they could get into the cattle and dairy business fifty years ago. They cut down a lot of forest in Costa Rica before they realized the value of the forest. Fortunately, this has turned around in the last few decades. They support the forests which are growing back quickly through carbon offsets and tourism.

Seems to be working.

One Day to Go

Wrapping up some things at Mediasmith. Major presentation today. This afternoon we begin the big pack and prepare for the load out tomorrow morning at 0 dark hundred. Stay tuned to this blog for postings and photos.

Two Days to Go

Just two days before we leave. We are trying to concentrate on work while doing those last minute checklists. Stay tuned for this great adventure. Lots of blog entries and pix anticipated.