Sorry I’m skipping forward on my blog by about 6 months, but I wanted to write this out while it’s fresh on my mind!
I’ve been dreaming of taking my family to Costa Rica for a few years now. Friends of mine who’ve been there always rave about it, and their photos looked incredible. For us Texans, it’s closer than Hawaii and offers just as much—if not more—adventure and outdoor activities. We’re not exactly a sit all day at the beachy family, so Costa Rica’s variety of landscapes felt like the perfect fit.
As soon as we landed, we picked up our rental car and headed straight for Monteverde, the famous cloud forest. The drive there was unforgettable—Monteverde has the most winding road I’ve ever been on. It even beats the one near Morenci, and if you’ve driven that when you came to visit us, you know how serious that is!
Costa Rica is unbelievably lush and green, but Monteverde felt like something out of a fairytale. The cloud forest lived up to its name, with rolling clouds weaving through vibrant tropical trees. As we approached town, we were greeted by the most beautiful full rainbow I’ve ever seen. I kicked myself for not snapping a picture in time to see all of its glory, so this is all I got, but I swear we even drove right through it.
Only a few hours into our trip and Costa Rica was putting on a beautiful show!
Pulling into our hotel this was our view!
our first glimpse of the wildlife in Costa Rica! This guy welcomed us to Monteverede
our cute little hotel. Within 10 minutes of being there we saw some white faced monkeys in the trees next to our room. They were a lot of them and it was amazing to watch and they were oh so cute! Monkey's is the one thing Logan wanted to see while we were here, but while we all got to see them, Logan was in the bathroom and missed them. We never saw any more monkeys in Monteverde or on the next stop of our vacation, and we were worried he wouldn't get to see them, but fortunately our last stay we got to see lots! But thats in a future post.
That evening we went on night tour to see the local nocturnal animals.
It was so fun and we saw so much! I loved being able to catch glimpses of wildlife that you rarely get to see. Also going with a guide who knows how to find all these animals. I don't know how they do it, they have quite the eyes! And are also so knowledgeable!
We saw a kinkajou (aka honey bear because they raid bees nests) these animals are related to raccoons.
we saw these cute little mini frogs, Brad really wanted to see a poison dart frog, and at the end of our tour another group found a colorful frog so we went rushing to see it, but by the time we got there it had hopped away. Bummer.
and a stick bug
The coolest part was probably seeing the pit vipers! We spotted two amazing ones, and I wish I had taken a picture, but I was caught up in the moment—and nighttime photography is tricky anyway. Here’s a photo I found online that looks just like them. They were in attack position, with their tails wrapped around a tree limb, their bodies coiled into an S-shape, and their noses pointed toward the ground, ready to strike at any unfortunate creature that crossed their path.
some beautiful moths and butterflies
Not pictured, but seen: A Toucan sleeping and a Motmot aka Mango bird (the bird that greeted us to Costa Rica) its nicknamed mango bird because when its sleeping it looks like a mango! We got so lucky seeing so many animals!
after our fun night tour we went and grabbed some yummy traditional costa rican food!
after dinner we grabbed a treat at the store, Logan was expecting his candy to look more like the wrapper, but got this hilarious treat instead.
It was a fun first evening and our trip was just beginning!
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