COSTA RICA – BIJAGUA

February 23-28, 2024

We arrived in the small town of Bijagua. Some people on the bus let us know this was our stop. If it weren’t for the kindness of strangers, many times we would have totally screwed! A great reminder how we should always treat others.

We had to walk a bit to get to our guesthouse, but not too far. Rio Celeste Dreams looked like a motel, but our room was actually a small suite. It had a nice kitchen,

wash area in the back,

and 3 beds. We had lots of room to spread out. There was a garden with picnic table and chairs to eat under the cocoa tree. There was even a hammock outside our door that came with an alarm system. (the dog never once tried to come into the suite)

We had booked a night time jungle walk with Jungle Life Rainforest Tours. It was only a 20 minute walk out of town. We got there early so I had time to snoop around and take pictures of some nice flowers.

Our guide, Fernando, started the tour by pointing out a toucan in a tree nearby. We could barely see it, but could certainly hear it. Fernando had a telescope and let us look to see what he was seeing. Then he took my phone and took a picture of the bird through the telescope. OMG! It looked fake! The bird was perfectly focused and the colours were unbelievable.

He then took us into their butterfly garden. There were a few blue morphos and a couple other colourful butterflies.

We went around the sawdust path about 3 or 4 times. Each time we saw different creatures. We saw a wild turkey, which cannot take flight from the ground. It has to jump from branch to branch to reach a height to leap from.

We went to a lookout point to see the distant volcanoes and sunset.

We saw lots of big trees, funny trees with above ground roots for stability

and twisted vines.

He pointed out how to tell a parasitic vine and an symbiotic vine. The parasitic vine actually looks like it is choking the tree. He said it takes decades for it to finally kill the tree. Then the termites move in and eat the inside of the tree, leaving the outside intact. He said there are tours where one can actually go up on the inside of the tree.

He showed us a huge termite nest. On the nest was a small yellow hole. He said there is a certain kind of bee that shares the nest with the ants. These bees make a special honey that is considered medicine to the indigenous people. It is called Mareola honey, and is available to buy in certain shops, but very expensive. He said his Dad had cataracts and he would put a small drop of this honey in his eyes every morning and night for about a month. He claims the cataracts went away.

Every time he would hear a sound he would get excited and look around to see where the sound came from. He knew what made the sound, so he had an idea if it was a bird or a beast. It was nice to have a guide as excited as us.

He told us about Mareola honey, which is a special honey that is purported to cure all kinds of infections and even eye problems.

He pointed out a motmot bird. It is blue and has a long tail. Part of the tail looks bald only to have a small tuft at the very end.

We saw a Montezuma Oropendola bird. He had me watch it for a long time because apparently it does a fancy dance. However, this one did not dance. Fernando said he must be a young bird and not ready for mating. It was that time of year, which is why we saw and heard so many birds.

Every time we made a loop on the circuit it was darker and darker, and different creatures come out. We saw the masked tree frog – in a pond.

We saw the red-eyed tree frog, on a leaf. I had seen pictures of this cute little frog (the size of my thumb) all my life. I cross-stitched a picture of one for my daughter. I was so excited and it made Fernando even more excited to help me get some good pictures. He had us shut out flashlights off for 2 minutes. He said it was for the frog to re-set itself and we could see the blue stripes once we turned our lights back on. He was right!

He spotted a viper in a tree. Even when he shone his flashlight, with cross-hairs, we still had trouble spotting them. How he ever spotted some of these animals was a miracle.

He pointed out a 3-toed sloth (Mona Lisa smile)

and a 2-toed sloth. (piggy nose)

They looked like a termite nest on the tree.

Although both called sloths, they are not even related! They evolved separately from two different ancestors. (think of shark and dolphins) They have been around since before the dinosaurs. Their diets are different. Their mobility is different. Their skeletons are different. The 3-toed Bradypus has 9 vertebrae and 28 ribs and a tail. The 2-toed Choloepus has 6 or 7 vertebrae, 46 ribs and no tail. They are both slow moving, only about 36 metres (118 ft) per day. They sleep about 20 hours a day. They both live in the canopies where they can more from tree to tree without having to come down. They only come down about once a week to poop. The 3-toed sloth digs a little hole with his tail then poops in that. They move so slow, they are easy prey. If they were to poop in the tree, which sounds easier, it would alert predators with the smell. Also, the moths that live in the sloths fur lay their eggs in the poop. The green algae that also live in the sloths fur gives them camouflage. They only have one baby every 3 years. Deforestation and human encroachment has seen a sharp increase in rescue centre admissions. Sloths are decreasing faster than they can reproduce. I love sloths 🙂

While we were walking along, in the darkness, with only our flashlights, something BIG made a crashing noise beside us. We all turned to see what it could be. All we saw was a broken banana stock still bobbing. Fernando was just telling us how he had hoped to see a jaguar some evening. We all agreed that was the story we would tell about this incident. LOL It made for an interesting walk back to town, in the dark, when our two hour tour was over.

We walked 4 kilometres (2.5 miles), uphill, to the Heliconias Rain Forest Lodge to see the hanging bridges. However, we were informed that the trail was closed because a huge (2 metre) venomous snake was seen on the trail. Until they found and relocated it, the trail was closed. OK. Not a problem. We walked back to town.

We called the next day and were assured the snake was found and relocated. The trail was open. We walked the 4 kilometres back up the hill, paid our entrance fee and headed out for the 90 minute hike.

There are four hanging bridges, about 100 metres (328 ft) long and about 25 metres (82 ft) above the ground. We went across three.

One was very unique. It went half way across the ravine, circled around a tree, then continued on.

The forest was so beautiful. The colours of the foliage was do diverse, it seemed fake. All we could hear was the sound of the trees in the wind, the sound of birds singing and the soft muffled sound of our footsteps.

We could understand why the trail was closed looking for a snake once we saw the mish-mash of snake-looking roots on the trail. That said, the trail was by no means hard.

I felt it was much needed time spent in nature, after being on so many buses, walking around cities, seeing garbage on the streets and smelling burning garbage in the evenings.

We caught a bus to Tilaran….