Thursday, 28th January 2016
So today is a happy birthday to my eldest sister Geraldine. Hoping she has a great day, but I doubt if she will be a blog reader.
 
Once more, we have to be up at the crack of dawn because we have our final wildlife tour of this entire trip. We rush breakfast not to be late as every single tour guide or driver has been totally and utterly punctual. Joshua our latest guide is waiting on the dot of 8.30 to whisk us to the minibus where our driver is ready to take us just 15 minutes down the very steep hill past the main touristy beach of Manuel Antonio to the nature reserve. There is a queue which we wait in, for 10 minutes. This is Costa Rica's smallest reserve but the most busy. It's open daily from 7am until 4pm and I think it's always quite manic by the gates but once inside, the larger groups disperse and we three find peace, tranquility and an array of different species as we walk extremely slowly along the gravelly road. What we didn't realise is, even though we brought our swimming stuff, the beach we are heading to is at the end of our walk, which is about a mile. Where once we've seen all there is to see along that main roadway, once at the beach we cool off in the water for around 40 minutes and then gently make our way back along wooden walkways at the side of the park. 
 
From the first five minutes inside the park, the crowds in front of us are all hooping and hollering as a family of Capochin monkeys are playing to the crowds. There are at least a dozen of them jumping from tree to tree, running down the phone wires like circus acrobats. They are having a terrific time and give us photographers plenty to aim at. It's great fun and a brilliant way to start our day. From then on Joshua amazes us with the creatures he manages to find up in the canopy or right in front of us, but because of beautiful camouflage we cannot see. Sloths, lizards, hummingbirds, a particularly unattractive spider ( yea ok so the guys found it fascinating, whoopy do!) and various other birds. The telescope is stunning at focusing on the most minute details of the animals we see.
 
When we finally get to the beach, its pristine. Yes there are a fair few folks who have all done the journey on foot like us, but the backdrop is stunning tropical forest and that's it. No sun loungers, no chairs, shops, umbrellas, just us and the monkeys that are having a rare old time trying to steal anything they think might be food.
 
We make our way back and see another sloth, this time a large male 3 toed one, these have black markings on their backs, he is moving from tree to tree, ok just at a Sloths pace, but it gives us more photo opportunities which is great, plus then we see a fantastic yellow and black Toucan (like from those Guinness adverts when I was a kid - alright, so I'm old!!!) but it's great to catch a glimpse of one in its natural habitat. Then as we are quietly wandering along a wooden bridge a Racoon just meanders from one side to another, without a care in the world. He wasn't worried about us, but he didn't stay long enough for me to get my camera primed! Oh, well as one of our guides said at the beginning of the trip, you don't have to capture everything on film, sometimes it's just good to watch yourself and enjoy, as they say in Costa Rica, PURA VIDA! 
 
This is one hot day as it always is here, we get back to our vehicle and our driver opens the cool-box and out he brings individual boxes of cool, juicy, pineapple and watermelon, cut into perfectly, delicious bite size pieces, complete with plastic forks. Also bottles of water and iced tea. They think of everything and with precision timing. These tours are immaculate in every detail. Sadly our final wildlife tour is over, but a stunning one with a midway interval of a dip in the Pacific, what more could we ask for?
 
We spend the afternoon chilling in one of our hotel's pools with stunning views of the Ocean, it's soon time to prepare for happy hour and a well earned dinner. Strawberry Daiquiri anyone? I don't mind if I do!