The Quetzal Search

Saturday, February 4, 2017
As I gaze out at the another in a long series of snow storms, I can't wait for our next Costa Rica adventure, now just over a week away.  This will be an extended trip and one of my goals is to see and photograph a resplendent questral, considered one of the most beautiful birds in Central America.    This has been in the planning stages for over a year when I first started looking into accomodations. This was almost in jeopardy before the quest began, since I receive notice yesterday that our accommodations in Monteverde, home of the questral, was cancelled due to legal issues.  After quite a scramble at the last minute, this reservation having been made early due to the popularity of the region, I did mange to find a rental near the cloud forest reserve.  So, arrangements are made, most of my clothes and assorted supplies are laid out on the bed, and it is a waiting game until I can escape to warmer climes.  Since early December, we have had so many snow storms and sub-zero temperatures, that it reminds me of the sixties.  The forecast calls for several more snow storms over the next three days.  Maybe its time to move to Costa Rica.

Monday/ Tuesday February 13 & 14
Its finally here! After a year of planning and wondering who was going the day arrived.  After a long day of cleaning, packing, and just killing time, we left at 8:30PM for the airport and our red-eye flight to Montreal.  The airport is much quieter after 9PM.  The flight was only half full and went on time.  Service was minimal as expected.  I discovered that it is difficult to sleep for more than a few minutes, unless you are like some people I know, when you are slouched forward and your head is dangling in front of you. Perhaps I got an hour or so sleep all told.  We arrived in Montreal at 7AM local time and since we weren't sure how long it might be before they served us a meal, and we had over an hour between flights, we picked up some breakfast at Tim Hortons.  We ate quickly and arrived at our gate to only a few people sitting around.  We leisurely took turns using the washroom and then we noticed that the gate was almost empty. Just as we decided to investigate, we heard the announcement for final boarding call, and our names mentioned. Perfect. No need to sit around needlessly at this time in the morning. Our flight from Montreal to Liberia, Costa Rica was on Air Canada Rouge, which we discovered was your very basic flight.  Not only was there no meal, unless you wanted to pay double to buy it, but there were no tv screens either and we were too tired to bother renting a ipad.  Further attempts at sleep were marginally better but still I was groggy the rest of the afternoon and evening.  We left with snow on the ground in Montreal and arrived to 32 degrees
C.  We found our driver who drove us the 85 km. to Samara Beach, which took two hours of slow driving.  I tried to make conversation but soon decided I was far too tired to work at it, and I didn't understand a word he said.  I often nodded when I actually had no clue what he said. At one point I think he said something about Winnipeg and ice trucks and big women you could snuggle up to!? 

Our 2nd floor condo was a little farther from the beach than the photos indicated and involved walking down hill a ways.  The safe I thought we had did not exist, so my millions of colones had to be hidden. After stripping of the home clothes for lighter items, we walked to the beach, enjoyed a happy hour offering of two half pints of beer and a pizza (the men drank the beer and the women had margaritas), picked up a few groceries and headed up the hill for an evening of zombieing.

Wednesday, February 15

Today was a travel recovery day. We all zonked out instantly when going to be at the unearthly hour of 11PM.  I was awake at 7AM, and went for a stroll around the general neighbourhood, looking for birds. I did find a few, although most I had seen on our previous trip.  We had a leisurely breakfast and walked into town to see what there was there. It was already very hot at 11 o’clock. We went to a bar where the women had margaritas and I had a nice, manly creamsicle concoction. Since we have not completely acclimatized to Costa Rican time, we were drinking at 9AM PST. We did grocery shopping and found someone to drive us home for 2,000 colones, $4. After lunch it was off to the beach. Despite Samara being quite protected by a reef, there were some pretty wild waves. It sure was nice to be able to walk right in the water and not even feel a chill when the waves went higher than my shorts. We returned to our condo, which overlooked the beach, and spent time in our infinity pool, which also was nice and warm. There we, the men, got into a conversation with a American from Cincinnati who soon started espousing the virtues of Donald Trump and the fact that he is unjustly persecuted by “fake news”. Apparently he is just enforcing laws that have been on the books but not followed by that incompetent Obama guy. His also thought police should shoot to kill rioter as a lesson to others. It took me quite a while to make my way to the shallow end and out of the pool, since there was never a break in the lecture.  Bedtime again came early since we needed to be up and out of the house by 6AM for an excursion. Surprisingly, I did fall asleep.

Thursday February 16

We had an excursion booked by someone recommended by the manager of our condo, for a day trip to Monteverde, home of the resplendent questral. Emails to Daniel were responded to in proper English, but when he arrived at 6AM, he could not speak any English, except a word here or there. It was going to be a long, quiet drive as I had no desire to play charades to communicate. We had arranged to go to Monteverde, a very popular national park that included canope walks, hikes, hummingbird gardens, etc. Daniel as what we wanted to do in Monteverde, and rattled off some things in Spanish that I had no clue about. I said we wanted to walk on canope. He nodded and we were off. The drive took 3 hours, with the last hour being a very rough gravel road up the mountain. It took over an hour to travel 34 km. Daniel did point out a couple of toucans and a beautiful motmot bird on the way. When he drove us to the place for the canope walk I had my doubts that we were in the correct place as it had no semblance of being a national park, and there were no guides for hire. There was a name as well that was not Monteverde Park, but we really didn’t know better. We took the walk, which cost $35 each. We saw a few small birds but not the real exotic birds and beasts we hoped to see. First attempt at spotting the questral, failure. We did see an armadillo at the end of the trail which was exciting. The walk was beautiful through the cloud forest, over 9 bridges, but the lack of birds was very disappointing. We also went into the hummingbird garden, basically just an area with a bunch of hummingbird feeders. It was amazing though to see some many beautiful varieties of hummers there. We were home at 5:30, a long day, and when we checked the map, we did indeed get taken to a private facility, not the national park that we wanted. Daniel asked us to write on his website, I think because he said it in Spanish. Not a good idea.

Friday, February 17

Its birthday day for both Joanie and BIL. The early morning yesterday caught up to us and we all slept in, sort of.  I woke up at almost 9AM. We had a great birthday breakfast of one-sided toast, (only the burner on one side works), and a variety of toppings, including Nutella, jam or peanut butter. Okay, just 3 toppings and the bread here is very little. Yum. We are saving the few eggs for tomorrow. We relaxed for the morning and then took the city bus up the coast about 7 km. to Carrillo Beach, purported to be one of the most beautiful beaches in all of Costa Rica. It was very nice, with a huge sand beach lined with a strip of palm trees with lots of room for sitting in the shade. Whether it was the most beautiful may be debated, but it was great. The sand was super hot and G burned the bottom of her feet. We played in the surf for hours and caught the bus back home. Then we got a beer and hung out at our pool. Not a bad way to spend a birthday. In the evening we played a card game. Of course, a lot of time is also spent downloading and reviewing photos taken, posting photos on Facebook, etc.

Saturday, February 18

Another sunny, hot day. Today we just stayed at our pool, since we were getting a car dropped off in the afternoon. By now our food supply was drying up, so lunch consisted of a diabetic granola bar. The car came after 3PM, but we had an agent who was doing this for the first time, so it took forever, as he checked his notes and sample copies of completed forms. The vehicle was a seven-seater Mitsubishi SUV, a large car which could be a challenge when driving down some narrow, crowded small town streets or parking in the small lots. For dinner we went to a local Mexican food restaurant which was very good. We were approached by a very young Niko, or Nicaraguan, who was selling little items made from palm frons. Joanie of course could not resist, and for the next 15 minutes this kid hung around our table, looking for money. He joked around, offering to buy back the fron flower we bought for 1/10 the price, then offering to sell us the hot spices on the table, etc.  He just wouldn't quite until we left.      

Sunday, February 19

We left for Dominical at 8:30 after our traditional Sunday morning cream of wheat. The drive went smoothly and we arrived at our unit at 3PM. While there was no toucan to greet us, we did see a few different monkeys and later did see a toucan. The day was going very well, despite the leaky water bottle we bought after grocery shopping along the way, which dampened a few things in the car. Then it fell apart. We were warned by the cleaning staff who were still finishing up when we arrived, that there was a leak in the dishwasher and we should report it to Dave, the owner, who was in Colorado skiing, just don't let him know the cleaners told us about it. We each chose our bedrooms and later discovered that when G & BIL left their bedroom, they closed the door since they had turned the AC on. The doors had buttons on the inside to lock them, and you needed a key to unlock. They found two keys by the safe in the room. The button was in lock position, and they were locked out of their bedroom. Being Sunday, no one was around, and not only could they not get in to sleep, but all their belongs were in there too. On top of that, after dinner, BIL was rinsing dishes to put in the dishwasher, and in no time at all, we had a giant puddle, with water leaking out from under the washer. Someone was not pleased!!! I contacted Dave by email to explain the situation, and I got a response very quickly saying he would try to contact the manager in charge if he could be located, but otherwise he may not show up until tomorrow. Not good news. The manager did not drop by, so G & BIL had to sleep in the living room. I did meet our neighbour, a couple form Toronto, and the fellow did check the pipes under the sink, which were dry, before concluded the leak must be somewhere under the dishwasher. We spent the night on our patio enjoying the night air and bugs.  I did not tell Jo about the spider I saw walking under the roof. It was only slightly smaller than a tarantula but less hairy.