We had made an arrangement with a guide Juan Rios to take us out in his boat along the river at 7am for a bird and wildlife spotting trip.. weather permitting! We have had rain nearly every day since we arrived in Costa Rica. Here in Caño Negro they say that since Hurricane Otto swept through on 25 Nov, it has rained every day since the hurricane . Very unusual weather for this time of year. Unfortunately it lashes down all through the previous night, bea...

We are eager to explore our new surroundings having arrived in the dark the night before. We are not disappointed. Our garden cabana room opens on to an Orchard of tropical fruit trees, all labeled, some we have heard of such as mango, rambutan, tamarind but many are new to us. The orange trees are heavy with fruit though unfotunately too sour to eat as they are. The tropical trees sweep down to a lagoon with boats to hire. Several times a day, the garden...

Elaine had us booked in to a nice wee guest house in La Fortuna called Cabanas Las Tinajas. A friendly place with 3 or 4 rooms run by mother and daughter. Rocking chairs outside the rooms and 4 friendly dogs. They even offered us coffee and complementary tacos such is "Tico" hospitality. "Tico" being the colloquial name for Costa Ricans. An added bonus was lots of birds coming to the garden bird feeders too. While I prefer to eat local food when abroad,...

Elaine had our first 3 weeks accommodation kinda booked up then we discovered that Hurricane Otto (November 25th) had caused problems in a village we were heading to ie. bad damage to houses, floods washing away bridges, huge trees coming down - we had planned to go to this small rural town to get bus to our next pre-planned hotel....we had visited this remote area 8 years ago and it was great ....lots of wildlife and birds and not many people. We contacted our...

Today we leave Manuel Antonio, first of all catching the local bus to Quepos, which is 20 minutes away then we catch another 3 hour bus north to Punta Arenas. Unfortunately we arrive in PA a few minutes late and miss the connecting bus north to Cañas so we have a three hour wait until the next one. Eventually we get to Cañas where we take a taxi the 5km to Hotel Hacienda where Elaine has booked us in for three nights.