Anyway I decided to rent a car and tool around CR, I was so excited when the guy pulled up with a Jimny, the tiniest little 4wd, stick shift and a spare tire bigger than it. Off I went to Tempiste river valley, on the other side of the peninsula. Over dirt roads, up mountains, and through gullies. I had a blast and arrived at a nature reserve for native animals of Costa Rica.
I must make a disclaimer. My camera does not have zoom, so all of these pics are the actual distance I was from these ferocious animal, hence this would never be allowed in the U.S.
This ostrich followed me around and even nipped at my back luckily I had my backpack on (ostriches cn be extremely dangerous) and held an ostrich egg.
Tapirs and the baby tapir has a very distinct coloring with a series of stipes and dots that hanges after 6 months
I think this is an ocelot and endangered cat that is a cousin of the leopard
Maybe their version of a deer and some other odd piggy animal
Also saw some emus, large ostriches and peacocks and of course a Toucan!
Capuchin monkey and Spider monkey
More Monkeys!
The Spider Monkeys going crazy!
Peccary - a prehistoric hog that is native to this rain forest and makes an awful sound!
Faced all my squeamish fears however I declined to go inside the monkey cage but held a baby iguana and a baby crocodile (there was tape on its mouth)
Never been fascinated by birds, but the colors were pretty incredible of the parrots and toucans. There were these beautiful black birds, that had white shiny dots and red heads, a big black bird with a yellow puffy mouth, and then the Rosette spoonbills, pink ones that had bills that were shaped like serving spoons, skinny and then a big wide piece at the bottom.Big tall bird Jaiburu (almost extinct) made the weirdest sound and it puffed up a big red thing around its neck - like a woodpecker sound and the beak looked like wood.
There are also lots of crocodiles in the rivers, I declined a boat ride (it was very pricey) but also seeing how big these animals were and how quickly they ate a whole chicken, made me not want to get in the water with them.
Feeding Time!!! Remember no zoom!!! And never would be allowed in the U.S.
After my private tour, I headed over to the Chorotega (an indigenous community) village of Guaitil, which is famous for its pottery. It looks like most little Costa Rican towns, a soccer field in the middle, houses around the field and a white open air catholic church. The art of pottery has been in the family for hundreds of years and the families still work together, in fact the women are the matriarchs of the businesses! Every family has different designs and techniques, but they make a clay mixture from the earth that includes using the sand that an iguana has used to bury their eggs in, mixing it with their feet, and eventually carving it. There are only 3 colors they use white, reddish/orange, and black, zinc, iron and magnesium, all found in the earth. They paint their colors and etch in their designs, then use quartz rock to smooth over and give it a natural high-gloss shine, and when its all over it goes into the middle of clay over. Around the sides is a wood fire that creates a fire over 1000 centigrade! After 45 minute it comes out and voila!
After treating myself to a piece of pottery as I now felt like I could buy a souvenir since I only have to lug my backpack t the airport, I headed to very touristy Tamarindo for some pizza, salad and ice cream as I was in need of something a little different than rice and beans.
A perfect end to my last weekend...
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