30th December 2013 Maureen much better, we rented a car for the day and went out to explore. First stop being the famous Milaflores locks on the Panama Canal. I have to admit, it’s a jolly big canal and those are jolly big ships going through jolly big locks! An impressive piece of engineering and » » »
Archive for December, 2013
31 December 2013
Bonus tamarins
29th December 2013 Not much to report today, as Maureen was out of commission so we stayed at our lodgings. At least our plans for the day had been fairly modest anyway: a trip to the Metropolitan Park, which is more like a slightly tamed piece of rainforest partly surrounded by the city, where we » » »
29 December 2013
City of Panama
28th December 2013 We left Bocas today after a relaxing morning of doing nothing. And I will make no mention of falling out of my kayak after the short paddle over to breakfast at the Garden of Eden. At least I somehow managed to keep my entirely un-waterproof watch out of the water during my » » »
28 December 2013
The fine line
27th December 2013 There’s a fine line between a good time and a bad one, just oddities of circumstance and preparation. Today was an example. A day out sailing on a catamaran around the Bocas Islands in search of dolphins sounds fun, yes? Perhaps a couple of days previously, when there was some clouds with » » »
28 December 2013
Maureen and wildlife
26th December 2013 Well, I can totally recommend Bocas del Toro as a get-away-from-it-all low key destination. It has oodles of sun, sea and sand but hardly any people. The pace of life is slooow but there are still enough things to do to keep you diverted for a week or more between bouts of » » »
28 December 2013
Sloth time
25th December 2013 It’s definitely been a non-traditional Christmas. Waking up this morning at the horribly late hour of 8am we found a tiny sloth had taken up residence in a tree outside our house. So we spent the next three hours watching him, with a break for breakfast of fried eggs and last night’s » » »
25 December 2013
No corkscrew!
24th December 2013 We’ve found an idyll, and a well-equipped one at that. With the notable exception of a corkscrew. Only a problem because I purchased the one bottle of wine in Bocas del Toro that hasn’t got a screw cap. And of course my Leatherman is much more manly than a Swiss Army knife, » » »
25 December 2013
Pizza in San Jose
23rd December 2013 So yesterday afternoon was a blissful unwind at Finca Maresia to shake off the rainforest (just don’t ask about the confusion over the payment to the tour guide company). Juan is a wonderful host. Turns out that in a previous life he was a tax lawyer in Valencia, but now spends four » » »
25 December 2013
Mammals in Corcovado
21st December 2013 It’s true, Sirena station is a great place to look for mammals. I think it beats all our other rainforest visits for number of species and quality of viewing, especially as it was all in daylight (the few hours of early morning spotlighting being very unproductive). Sometimes it is stupidly easy; an » » »
Tags: wildlife
25 December 2013
Rainforest experience? Right.
20th December 2013 We’re back from our two nights in the Corcovado rainforest at Sirena ranger station. We were slightly perturbed by the rustic accommodation, but Corcovado is one of the best places in the Americas to see rainforest wildlife so it would be odd to pass it by. Almost… almost wish we had. The » » »
24 December 2013
Finca Maresia
19th December 2013 We went out early to visit Manuel Antonio park in the hope of spotting some wildlife before it got busy. At 7am the place was quiet, although the usual crowd of pests had already gathered to try and scavenge money from the tourists. Some guy in an official looking vest flagged us » » »
24 December 2013
What price silky anteater?
18th December 2013 In fact about $140. That was the price of our trip in a boat through the mangroves of Isla Damas to find a small bundle of tawny fur curled around a thin branch asleep. To be fair, any wildlife tour is reliant on luck, and on a different day we might also » » »
24 December 2013
Bats in tents
17th December 2013 One of the great things about a wildlife holiday is discovering things that haven’t even (that I know of) been mentioned in a wildlife documentary. Have you ever heard of tent-making bats? In parts of the tropics where there are few caves, bats have learned to build their own shelters for the » » »
Tags: wildlife
18 December 2013
Sloth in the rain
16th December 2013 Today we took ourselves for another wander around the jungle trails of La Selva, with very modest success; a squirrel and some more howler monkeys. I get the feeling wildlife doesn’t like rain much either. So in the afternoon we decided on some reconnaissance and jumped in the 4WD to find Heliconia » » »
16 December 2013
Sticky business
15th December 2013 La Selva is a research station in the highlands north of San Jose. I was expecting “research station” to be a pseudonym for “jungle lodge” but I was wrong – this is definitely a research station and facilities are more rustic than most jungle lodges we’ve been to. No drinks available in » » »
16 December 2013
Ugh
14th December 2013 It’s been an exhausting month. Moving into our new house in Cheltenham, workmen everywhere, turning our house in Ludlow into a holiday let, plus loads of stuff going on at work. We really needed a holiday. We didn’t need to run a 1500m race through Miami airport, find that our luggage hadn’t » » »