Costa Rica April 17 - 28, 2003

This short trip to Costa Rica only covered the northern half of the country but took in a good deal of varied habitat types. Accompanying me on the trip was Barry Reed (who led and organised), Mick Ilett and Terry Goddard. It was tough going at times - eight hour hikes starting before 5am for example - but the birding was superb. See the Costa Rica Photo Site

Surprisingly, apart from the first afternoon (when there was an intense downpour for most of the afternoon), we experienced little rain. This was probably due to it being an Al Niño year (albeit a mild one). In many ways, this helped as, apart from the lack of rain, some areas that were notorious for being extremely wet and muddy and quite hard going (either on foot or by car) were, in fact, quite dry.

Monteverde
Here we stayed in the more down down to earth but pleasant Cabinas Tinas Casitas in Santa Elena. As well as the trails around Monteverde cloud forest, trails in Santa Elena forest and the 'Childrens Rain Forest' were also explored.

La Selva
The Organisation for Tropical Studies provided the accomodation at the Biological Station. This university in the Caribbean lowlands presented us with excellent and varied lowland forest trails to explore. An extra day here would have been useful although the canteen food of rice and beans (for breakfast, lunch, and dinner) was becoming a bit tedious!

Cerro de la Muerte
At 3200m, on the edge of the tree line, this was the highest place we birded. We stayed at the famous (in birding terms at least) Restaurant Georgina, which possibly servers the worst food in Central America. The nights were cold and, although we were lucky, thick fog can often be a problem.