into the selva...

My primary intent was for research (carried my little "all weather field book" everywhere)...

 ...but no one told me I would fall in love with Costa Rica.

 I wasn't prepared.  

Oh, I had my camera and multiple lens and equipment for uploading, downloading and transferring from one to another, but wasn't prepared for being taken aback by what I saw.  It was way too much to process - the colors, the activity, the wonder of how alive everything is and how it all depends on one another for survival.

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Our first sighting sat right above the road on some wires as we drove by.  This white faced monkey or capuchin seemed to be the most popular inhabitant in these parts.  Very easy to find along most any path, rope, or wire.

 While we had many impromptu meetings where ever we went, our trip to the National Park Manuel Antonio found us learning about iguanas...

 ...that turn BRIGHT ORANGE when looking for a mate.  This guy was definitely presenting himself to the first girlfriend he could find!

 

Typically, iguanas stay a healthy camouflage green at a young age due to their size and the many predators that like to feast upon them (Man, I'm lucky to have spotted this dude as an example), but the HUGE orange guy was probably nearly five feet long and could still grow up to 7 feet in length.

The guy I wanted to see MOST was this three toed friend...

 of which Manuel Antonio had PLENTY of!  Now, skip past this info if you don't want to deal with the teacher in me.  

Sloths

 They are the most populous animal in Costa Rica.  They are New World mammals and there used to be 60 different varieties.  Today, there are only 6 - two of which can be found in Manuel Antonio - the three-toed version above and the two-toed variety.  Sloths are arboreal spending almost all of their lives in the canopy of the rainforest.  Their biggest predator is the harpy eagle.  Crazy, right? This bird of prey seeks the sloth's marrow bone and swoops down to snap the sloth from the tree so that they may fall from their perch to their death (typically 100+ feet in the air).  Now if the sloth is awake (they CAN sleep as much as 18 hours a day) they can avert the eagle by using the algae that uses their coarse fur as a host to camouflage themselves amongst the greenery or if they are above a body of water they can release and drop to ravine or estuary where they can hold their breath up to seven minutes long!  But most likely, these slow moving guys cannot get away fast enough.  It takes them a WHOLE week to lower themselves to the ground just to relieve themselves. Now that is SLOW.  Thanks to Elias, our guide...I had a lot to write down into my book.

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We encountered many a HOWLER monkey. 

 

Not all of them were seen by us though!  These guys would CRY out nearly every morning by sunrise @ 5:15am to ensure you knew they were "king of the jungle".  Since their sounds can carry up to a mile away, there was no telling just how near or far you were from one.   Thankfully, Elias found this one sleeping and was able to use his scope to zoom in for us.  That amazing little scope allowed us to take pictures of things at such a magnified rate using the iPhone!!  And the pictures above (iguana, sloth, and howler) were all taken using the iPhone!  I thought that was so cool.

This was the best I could do with my 18-300mm lens:

 

...and he was about 500 feet off from us.

Howler Monkey info?  But of course...

HOWLER MONKEYS

They are herbivores.  They DO NOT clean one another as most other monkeys do.  Individualistic and self centered little guys!  VERY competitive and this was evident to us when a local plane flew over head and one started yelling his head off thinking he was being upstaged!  Males are the noise makers, not the females.  Just like a guy, right? :)  The guys also have very light colored undersides to aid in keeping them cool, but fertile. Aly learned NOT to antagonize a Howler or she would be faced with a poop throwing monkey.  She still cracks up thinking back to how Elias told her the story.

We also met the Spiny tail Lizard, who turns blue when mating.
 

These guys were in mass numbers all over the beaches of Manuel Antonio.  They also eat manzanillos (poisonous apples) and are the ONLY animal able to digest the toxic fruit.  The Manchineel trees line the beaches here.  

 

Check out the ground.  It is covered in the fallen fruit.

You gotta be one tough skinned guy to eat THAT stuff...

 

We met face to face with some more capuchins right at the beach.  We even watched this guy break into someone's picnic and take a banana!

         

 I'm sure I have enough info to do a whole other post on just the flora and fauna, but this one snuck it's way in here so I'll tell you that this Indian cane (the sour version of sugar cane) is everywhere in the National Park.  Elias told the kids that it has toilet paper leaves - so soft to the touch (you'd be surprised!) that you could USE it if you just happened to be in need....!!!

 Being a non-friendly serpent lover, it was hard for me to use Elias' scope to get a view of this Garden Tree boa asleep in a tree...so Chato snapped the pic with the iPhone.

 God, I could so live here....

 ...and I think Aly would agree with me.  The boys loved the trip too, but I think the animal treks and tours were a bit too much for their liking.

 

 If you ever make the trip to Costa Rica, and I hope every has the opportunity to NOT PASS this country up, take it all in.  Just watch where you step...

 ...there might be a leaf, err.....bug right beneath your step!

I promise your world will be too colorful to breathe in all at once.

We are home now.

I don't think we will forget any of it any time soon.

What an adventure.

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I'll be back to hand out some more Costa Rica adventure stories soon.  I'm very overwhelmed with it, more so than I ever have been with any other trip.  It has so many purposes to me for school and research, for downtime and extravagance, and finally for the gypsy soul I am developing.  :)

Next stop: The Prado family ZIP LINES!