May 19
If you’ve been paying attention to our blog of late, you know we’re just about ready to close the book on our Costa Rica assignment. Having passed the midway point of May, we now have less than one month left in San Jose (and entirely too many things we still want to do).
“So…what are the coolest birds you’ve seen in Costa Rica?” D’s friend, who is not a birder but who quickly cottoned on to the hobby’s appeal, asked on their walk down to the San Gerardo biological station in Monteverde. That outing during Semana Santa, which proved a bit more adventurous than D had bargained for, ended with sightings of two incredibly hard-to-find birds, including one of D’s all-time favorite Costa Rican species. It also got D thinking about his most memorable birding experiences during our two-and-a-half years here. Some of the birds that made this list are truly remarkable mega species; others are not that uncommon, but we saw them under circumstances remarkable enough to fix the experiences in our memory.
After climbing Chirripo, the country’s highest peak, there was not much left undone on our Costa Rica bucket lists. D joined a couple of bird researchers on a pelagic trip to do an oceanic bird count, checking a small item off his personal list. Immediately after, we took advantage of the local May 1 holiday to raft the Pacuare River, crossing off the largest must-do item that had lingered on S’s personal bucket list.
When D mentioned pelagic birding to his regular birding buddy, the latter scoffed. “Esos pajaros no tienen nada de gracia,” he said, meaning he would much rather walk through the woods in search of colorful songbirds and delight in their dulcet tones than spend a day on a boat squinting to try to tell apart various fast-moving, drably-colored gulls. For D, on the other hand, an oceanic birding expedition held undeniable appeal, not least because it promised the opportunity to see birds he had never glimpsed before.
One of the reasons D angled for us to visit Boca Tapada last weekend is that for weeks prior he had been seeing a wide range of amazing bird photos posted by other visitors to the area’s two primary birding lodges. Toucans, parrots, tanagers, and all manner of other colorful birds posed in postcard-perfect portraits while raindrops fell behind their perches. While D still prioritizes seeing new species over nailing the perfect picture, photography has always animated his birding passion. As we get closer to closing the book on the Costa Rica chapter of our lives, the idea of capturing perfect images of some of our favorite local birds has gained greater appeal.
Feb 13
After three glorious weeks to start the new year, two of which we spent exploring Belize before returning to check the biggest pending item off our Costa Rica bucket list, three idle weeks followed. We don’t mean we were idle. On the contrary, returning to work after a three-week vacation is a surefire recipe for being busy. And in our case, preparations for our forthcoming move added to the hectic pace we’ve maintained since the end of our trip. However, we are also keenly aware that our remaining time in Costa Rica is all too short and shrinking by the day. We work to live, rather than the other way around, so three weeks without any travels or adventures when we only have four months left at our disposal felt idle indeed.
Feb 6
We’ve reached the point of our assignment when ordinarily we would be compiling a bucket list of must-visit destinations and must-have experiences before packing out and doing our final farewells. In Kenya, our last safari included a walk through the bush with African wild dogs, an experience whose memory still sends shivers down our spines. In the Philippines, a tour that was interrupted by the onset of the pandemic, we took advantage of a brief relaxation of coronavirus restrictions to enjoy once-in-a-lifetime visits to Coron and El Nido in Palawan — typically overcrowded postcard-perfect destinations that we explored in near total solitude. With little more than four months left at our disposal, how should we bid adieu to Costa Rica?
Some fifteen years ago — right before we started dating — we hiked the Peak Bagger’s Delight trail in Acadia National Park. We ascended Bald Peak, Parkman Mountain, Gilmore Peak, and Sargent Mountain in quick succession that day, none of the summits exceeding 500 meters above sea level. It was our first time seeing each other after our initial chance meeting on a bus in Ecuador two years earlier. A couple of weeks ago, we reprised the peak bagger’s delight in Costa Rica, ascending Chirripó — the country’s highest peak — before bagging a couple of other summits on our way back to base camp. These peaks were considerably taller than the tiny mountains in Maine, and the hiking significantly more demanding, especially considering how many years have flown by since our first hike together.
Beautiful beaches in Belize. Exotic birding in far-flung locations. Caving explorations and mountain climbing misadventures. If you’ve been following our blog of late, you’ll know that January was kind to us. We still have a handful of posts in the works to catch up on all our travel tales. But while our blog enables us to daydream about our adventures and live a bit longer in our recent past, time simply won’t stand still. We’ve been back in San Jose with our noses to the grindstone for a week and a half now. Schools are mercifully back in session after the long holiday break. Meanwhile, we are entering the final stretch of what has been a dream assignment to Costa Rica.
The trail from San Gerardo de Rivas to the Crestones refuge beneath Chirripó takes no prisoners. It ascends from 1,523 meters above sea level at KM 0 to the high-altitude páramo at 3,393 meters of elevation some 14 kilometers later. There is no easing in and no warm-up period. The ascent starts immediately and continues relentlessly for much of the hike. Some relatively flat parts appear like a mirage midway through the hike, but they are few and far between. By far, the hardest part of climbing Chirripó is making it through this slog of an approach hike. If one has the time to spend a night or two at the refuge, the actual summit push is a cake walk compared to the effort required to reach base camp.
towels packed, will travel 