From the middle of the jungle in Tortugua National Park, awakened in the morning at 5:30am with the screech of the howler monkeys. To compensate for the early rise, the folks at the nature resort deliver coffee to our cabin!
The temperature is as hot as we have experienced and the humidity a little over the top, but shade and swimming pools make it all bearable.
The three canal cruises over the last two days have yielded so many animals and birds that we had not seen before, the sounds and sights, very exciting.
To backtrack a bit, we have been to Poas Volcano and are part of the thirty percent that get to see the crater. The clouds cleared just as we arrived and the steam from the crater rose to meet the passing clouds. From there we did the hike to 8000 feet to see a lovely lagoon.
 Driving through banana plantations has made me appreciate the morning snack I have at home. This is a very labor intensive industry. Hand picking, put on a zip line and dragged by hand to the packing plant.They are dumped into a water bath, sorted for the best, handled by at least twenty people, sprayed with a gas that delays ripening, put in plastic bags and then the cardboard box.
 Then the ride to the jungle!! Aside from going aground on unexpected silt, the boat with the 40 of us aboard was a "three hour tour"! Birds, cayman, turtles and monkeys provided entertainment enroute.This Tortuguera National Park is unlike anything we have ever experienced, our cabins extend along the canal and the swimming pool is shaped like a turtle

Entering the park to climb to Poas Volcano

very fortunate to have the clouds move out so we are in the 30 per cent who get to see inside the crater

the lagoon at 8000 feet, huff and puff!

Looking down on the San Jose Valley

Our welcome ritual, dance and blessing

The newest staff at the coffee plantation

Yup, the coffee is the best here!

Natural mineral color

One of the forty varieties we have seen

Hot lips flower

Fire in the forest tree

getting a push when we went aground on unexpected silt shift

Raffia palm, this one is for Sue from Dave

Just watching people float by

That is the Carribean  out there

Pathway to our cabins in Tortugura Park, staying at Pachira Lodge, named after the pachira tree

That little white dot is me absolutely dwarfed by the kapok tree which is 400 years old

Arenal Volcano, once again we get a view which doesn't happen that often

Our little cabin at the base of this active volcano

Leaving the jungle and heading to the Nicuraguan border, then to a cloud forest and La Fortuna where we stay at the base of an active volcano, Arenal for two days,  soak in the hot springs and cross hanging bridges   after a little hike.