San Juan

Sun 22 Oct: Today we are moving on from the Cloud Forest to Manuel Antonio on the Pacific Coastline. First we were considering going back to Curi Cancha to see if we could spot more birds, but in the end decided on going to the Butterfly Garden. This was again guided by a volunteer guy from Canada who was there for 10 weeks. Already since he arrived only 4 weeks ago his knowledge and presentation was very good. Really enjoyed walking through the enclosures photographing and learning about some of the different butterflies. And as a bonus when walking between 2 of the enclosures we spotted a real cool looking bird. There were also scorpions, tarantulas, stick insects, cockroaches and the enormous Hercules beetles - well dead ones but still amazing to see. So a pretty cool few hours spent there before we started heading south. We stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch, and after that a brief stop when we first hit the sea at Caldera. I thought it was the Pacific Ocean but looking at the map it was the Gulf of Nicoya. Next stop was at the "crocodile bridge" near Tarcoles, where we saw five crocodiles. And of course with all these tourists stopping there was an array of souvenir shops and restaurants, which we had a quick look in. Then we carried onto our hostel at Manuel Antonio, arriving at 5 pm. When we went to pay for our 3 nights, we found our wallet empty of cash. After travelling for 14.5 months and not having any unsavory issues, with only 10 days to go, some time after lunch someone must have got my wallet pocketed the money and put it back, taking a mixture of US and local currency, probably less than US$200 but still annoying and we can't understand when, only way was Doug must have left the car unlocked at one of our two stops. At least they left the wallet and the Wise Card, and didn't take tablet or anything else. And then after discovering that, when walking up to our room I put my hand on the handrail and felt an intense sting - my introduction to a bullet ant, apparently an insect with one of the most painful stings around, which I can attested too. After getting our bags up to our room, we then were considering what to do for dinner when it started pouring with rain, neither of us were keen to go out so a bag of corn chips had to suffice for our dinner.Read more