Links and Random Pictures

Flights
I always start looking a year in advance for tickets and have found amazing deals on kayak.com.  This time it cost of less to get to Costa Rica than we'd paid to go to California over the summer.

Accomodations
I adore homeaway.com, vrbo.com, and tripadvisor.com.  Here is the link for our rental in Pavones here http://www.vrbo.com/192416.  This is the link for our rental in Monteverde http://www.vrbo.com/106066.

Rental Car Company
This is our third time using Solid Rental Car and they are wonderful.   

Activities
 Santa Maria Night Tour
Selvatura Hanging Bridges
Curi-Cancha Reserve
Rosewood Souvenir Shop

Pictures that I don't think made it in other posts (and even if they did look at them again!):

We didn't see nearly as many of these in the house this year.  This one scared me first thing in the morning.  For something so small they are ridiculously loud.

Finally saw one of the toads on our last night.  In past trips you could always here them hopping on the deck. 

The leisurely stroll from our rental house to Santa Elena.

The most glorious plant in the world!!!!  I LOVE COFFEE!

Obligatory stop at the crocodiles under the Tarcoles bridge.

Second greatest plant.  I also LOVE chocolate!!!

Trying to eat like Ticos.  I always hated plantains until I had Patacones.  I tried my best to replicate them.  Freddy gave us "wild" potatoes to use in the soup. 

Freddy is the BEST!

Seriously I hate these bridges :(

Curi Cancha

We decided to go to Curi-Cancha Reserve instead of the Monteverde Cloud Reserve or Santa Elena Reserve.  After a breakfast of donuts from the panaderia we headed off at a reasonable time to get into the park.  Right when we arrived we saw a Blue-crowned Motmot.  Dan is now quite the birding expert and could not stop telling people about all the birds we spotted.  The man at the information desk recommended trails to us and said sometimes people catch a glimpse of quetzals along the trail we were taking.  I’m guessing those people are the ones who actually pay for guides.  It was a beautiful walk through the forest.  We were able to identify things we’d seen on the night walk.  We walked up to the overlook where you can see the Continental Divide.  We tried to creep up on other people’s paid tours to see if we were missing anything.  On our own we spotted a bird with an orange belly and Dan identified it later as an Orange-bellied Trogon.  We were informed by Richard that this is an impressive spotting and true birders have a hard time finding them.  We are the real deal even with two noisy kids.  After the park we stopped briefly in the cheese factory and saw them curds and whey.  We also bought some seriously overpriced ice cream.

Orange-bellied Trogon

This kid seriously lives up to her name!

Overlook at the Continental Divide

Big leaves

The two young explorers plotting our course.

We just learned that what Gabby is standing in front of is a tree that grows from the top down over another tree.  Eventually (150 years) the tree on the inside gets completely eaten away.

Motmot

Cheese making