Costa Rica Day 11 - Corcovado

Today we left Manuel Antonio and drove for a couple of hours South though some towns and villages seeing small holidngs, a large mountain range to the left and some banana plantations but the main crop in this area seems to be palm oil.  Rows and rows and rows of palms on either side of the road.  When we reached a small riverside town of Siepe, we left our driver there, checked in, and watched our bags  being put into huge dry sacks and then loaded on to the boat (first extra).  My word that boat had some power as aside from some bird spotting and snake (a mangrove boa) spotting, when it idled along, it went at a rate of knots like a jet boats in the Shotover river..  After an hour or so we came out of the river into the sea and motored (rather bumpily) across Drake Bay. When we got closer to where we are staying in the Wilderness Lodge, we had to transfer to a smaller boat which then took us to shore.  It was a wet landing with a showeer/tap to wash your feet and then we hopped into a cart attached to a tractor which took us up the hill.

Mis amigos, we have landed in heaven here.  It was welcome drinks and then lunch followed by being shown to our rooms where our bags had magically arrived before us.  This place, unlike Tortuguero has airconditioning so while the humidity is oppressive, there is at least an escape.  We will try the pools tomorrow after our walk though the forest into the National Park.

To cap it off, we had cocktails and dinner at a place they call "the kitchen' which has wonderful views out to sea where we watched the sunset.

So the main is a Spider monkey showing you how to relax here.  Note it is not his leg holding onto the branch to the left but his tail.  Second and third extras are of a tapir which was wanderng around the gardens of the lodge,  fourth extra is of a hummer and the last is of the sunset before dinner.  What a day!