hey little bat!

I woke again to the howler monkey alarms that were going off. It was a bit before 6, and I heard the coffee carafe being delivered to the shelf outside of the room. (You can have this service for an additional $3 per day.) We had our coffee on the deck then went to breakfast. Of course, I had to snap more shots of our super cool bungalow! Hopefully it gives you a good impression of what it was like. There's an indoor shower... And an outdoor one... The hammock on the upper deck. The lower deck. * * * For breakfast, Nick had an omelette and I had the Tico especial. I can't remember exactly where, but we observed this colorful, handsome fellow. next post > day 11 - Lapa Rios Osa Trail previous post > day 10 - Lapa Rios Observations first post > day 1 - Adventure, Exploration and Relaxation

After the lunch and the lizard-watching out on the main deck, we went up the really neat spiral staircase to the observatory deck. The Brisa Azul restaurant... Our observations: one large and lazy iguana, one tree-climbing iguana, several toucans, and bats! About 10 or so were roosting at the apex of the hut. They would occasionally stretch their wings and flit about. Here's the Green Iguana - he didn't move for hours. Chestnut-mandibled Toucan . There's another iguana crawling up the tree, right in the center of the photo. There he is again. The bats ... * * * On our way back to our #16 bungalow, also known as Tijerilla - which I have just looked up, and it is an earwig. Well that takes the mystique out of it! - we saw this mammal about the size of a raccoon all hurriedly go to this wall of rocks and dig out something like a madman then he proceeded to eat it, making great crackling sounds. It turns out it was a crab he was eating, a land crab ...

We were on our way to Lapa Rios, a luxury ecolodge that has been featured in numerous travel articles and best hotel lists. This was our honeymoon splurge of the trip. After arriving in Puerto Jiménez, it was going to be a forty minute 4x4 ride into the remote jungles of the Osa Peninsula. A forty minute ride from the nearest phone, internet connection and civilization. It sounded like paradise! The Nature Air flight left San José at 8:30 and arrived in Puerto Jiménez at 9:35. It was quite smooth. Hey, that's us! The Lapa Rios Puerto Jiménez office was right there at the airport. (Also, right there at the airport, just off to the side of the little runway - I so wish I had taken a picture - was a cemetery and three downed planes. Hmm... Now that's...not where I would build my airport. But that's just me.) Anyway, the Lapa Rios staff that greeted us were warm and accommodating. They offered us cold drinks, and we could use their bathroom before the ride to the lo...