Wednesday 16th November - She's Fallen in the Water

Our current digs are only a few minutes drive from the entrance to the Carara National Park where we have a bird watching walk booked for this morning. Our instructions are to meet our guide, Enrique at the park entrance. We get to the gate 10 minutes early to find it locked but our man is there with his Royal Enfield motorbike. We introduce ourselves and briefly discuss Enfield and India. The gate is opened just after 8 a.m. and we are admitted. Enrique starts proceedings by finding half a dozen species in a tree overhanging the car park. At this point D discovers that he has failed to replace the memory card in his camera after transferring yesterday's photos to the tablet. Muppet! D drives back to the hotel to pick up the missing SD card. This delays proceedings for twenty minutes but he does get back in time to see a Purple-crowned Fairy Hummingbird.

The trail through the forest starts as a hard surfaced path but as we get deeper into the forest the surface deteriorates and in some places is just mud. We are kitted out for this so have no problems. Enrique has good English and clearly knows his stuff, not just about birds. He spots a Black and Green Poisoned Dart frog in the undergrowth.

We see quite a few different birds which he tells us are only found in the forest, not in hotel gardens. The bird spot of the morning is this Pale-billed Woodpecker, high up in a very tall dead tree by the river.

We also get a decent sighting of a juvenile Spider Monkey high in the trees.

This is just as we turn back for home and things go rapidly downhill from here. There is a bridge across a stream and somehow R contrives to fall off it into the water below. We manage to rescue her binoculars and phone before they are submerged but she is drenched from feet to shoulders.  If this incident sounds familiar it is because it is almost an exact repeat of the time that she fell into a dry riverbed in Bangladesh three years ago. She is able to carry on but this has put a bit of a dampener on proceedings. Back at the car park we thank Enrique and he gives us a tip on where to see Scarlet Macaws. D uses the facilities at the car park before we leave and almost trips over a sunbathing iguana.

After a diversion via the hotel to get R some dry clothes we set out to find the Macaws. "Drive into Tarcoles village then take any turning down to the beach. Look for them in the almond trees." Sounds so simple. We drive into the village and eventually find a dirt road that heads towards the sea. After a couple of wrong turns we park up and and take a walk on the beach. Lots of Black Vultures and Magnificent Frigate Birds but no almond trees and no Macaws. 

We turn back to the car and fall into conversation about Macaws with a local man who suggests another beach about 20km to the south. As an afterthought he suggests maybe just turning right in the village. We try this latter suggestion and immediately hear our quarry although they take a bit of spotting. As they break cover it starts to pour with rain and we have to run for the car.

Back at the hotel the rain catches up with us and we take shelter in the bar. Poor R's ankle has swollen up and she is in some discomfort walking. Various quack remedies are tried including a bag of ice and iboprofen gel applied externally, then margaritas and chilled Merlot taken orally. For the second night running we have noisy neighbours. We hope that they enjoy our 05.15 alarm call tomorrow.