Roseate Spoonbill

We had a leisurely start, not leaving till 9 am for the 4 hour drive, partly on the Pan-American Highway, then on a minor road till we reached a rough track for our next rainforest (rustic) - Esquinas rainforest lodge, near Golfito.

There wasn’t a lot to see today but it was interesting in Its way. The lodge is quite basic but that suits us. A wooden cabin with no TV, a ceiling fan, pretty gardens and ponds with caiman. WiFi at Reception only. The cabin is so surrounded by the jungle it feels like it’ll be in our room any minute. The noise of the insects and other creatures is so intense. There are very venomous snakes around that can kill in 2 hours if you don’t get the anti-venoms in time. We’ll be sticking to the paths!

. There is a swimming pool which is fed from the stream - however it goes through a filter before it goes in the pool otherwise it would be full of snakes and frogs. The place was set up by an Austrian musician who started raising money to save the rainforest as a lot of it went for logging in the 70s.

The guide wanted to take anyone interested to the little town of Golfino where he was born. It was a town set up by the American banana company company after WW2, building palatial houses for the US management and small places at the other side of town for local workers. There was a port from where the bananas were exported, a golf course, cinema, 10pin bowling, school. However they used dangerous chemicals to spray the crops while the local workers were there. Consequently there were health problems after a while, the workers had strikes, the Costa Rica government wanted more of a share of the wealth, so imposed taxes, and the US company decided to leave and start up in Ecuador. The town was just abandoned and left to its fate. Our guide’s father had to move to San Jose to try to find work. The government is trying to help the town and has set up a duty free zone there. If you have a Costa Rican identity card twice a year you can spend up to US$1500 on goods there, but you have to stay at least one night there, helping hotels, restaurants etc. The guide wanted to go to the duty free alcohol shop for his Xmas shopping, so we had a wander amongst the shops selling enormous TVs, fridges, cookers, washing machines, perfume, assorted toys, bikes, Black and Decker tools etc. When we got back to the bus we found the driver had locked himself out so we had fun breaking in with a bit of wire. The guide was not happy - I had just been remarking how Spanish sounds quite a cross language, and it turned out he was cross.

Then on the way back to the lodge by a Back rough road, we were stopped and searched by Polisa controle fiscale who were looking for people who were doing a fiddle from the duty free by buying stuff to sell on.

On the 1km dirt track up to the lodge we stopped to see about 6 or 7 Black mandible toucans in a tree.

I had a problem with my iPad - everything went Palembang the text scrambled up, and lines appeared all over the screen. Turning it off and on didn’t fix it, so I couldn’t post yesterday. It seems ok now. Maybe it doesn’t like the damp - even the bedding felt damp and my joints are aching for a hot dry climate!