Day 7 - December 22 - Quepos - Parque Nacional Carara - San Jose
In the morning, we checked out of the Mariposa Hotel. Don left his
backpack in the room and had to get another key made to retrieve it,
sigh....
We then drove to Parque Nacional Carara:
After paying our fee at the park headquarters, we drove to the
trailhead
shown in red. This is an actual road that is used as
access for beyond the park. Even though it had been relatively dry, by
Costa Rican standards, the road had plenty of flooded areas that forced
us off the road and into the forest. Fortunately no snakes were seen.
On the way into the park, we took 2 hours and 15 minutes to reach the
end of the trail. On the way out, a group of us traveled much faster
and we returned to the bus in only an hour. The length of the trail is
estimated to be 3 miles. A point to point measurement as the eagle
would fly based on the gps shows it is about 2 miles in length.
A link to our turn around point is
here.
After we returned to the bus, we drove back to the beach town of Jaco,
where we had lunch. Then it was back on the road for our trip to San
Jose and the Bougainvillea. On the way, we stopped off at the Crocodile
Lookout Bridge, shown above. In days past, people would feed the
crocs from the bridge and the animals were trained to be by the bridge.
Feeding is now illegal but the crocs are still there.
We then finished the drive into San Jose. As we arrived in San Jose, we
did run into rain. The only other rain we had was during the nights at
the Mawamba. We were really lucky. By the time we got to the hotel, the
rain had stopped. At this point Jimmy left us for good, as the guided
portion of the trip was over. We ate that night at the hotel as dinner
was included in the package.
As we left the Mariposa:
The family pic
The group pic
On the way to the park we finally saw Tucans. This was taken from
inside the bus, so there is reflection from the windows
At the park headquarters:
Look carefully and you will see what appears to be a path running from
bottom to top. The path was made by cutter ants
A couple of areas of the road, we had to leave the road and hike in the
forest, all the while watching out for snakes
After we got back to the bus, we
found a tree with a number of Scarlet Macaws:
Finally the Crocodile Bridge:
and from the bridge looking back at the park
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This page last updated January 20, 2007