Pork and Apple: Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui

We weren't totally sure what we were going to do next but on the advice of Natu (Alex's Costa Rican friend) we ended up in the other Puerto Viejo - Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui. There isn't really much to the town here but there was some awesome wildlife spotting to be done in the area.

We had one full day in Puerto Viejo and we filled it full of animals. First we visited Frogs Heaven, a bit outside the town. It's quite a sweet place in local biologist Jose's backyard. We ended up getting a private tour of the garden which included flora (tropical fruits and medicinal plants) and fauna (so many adorable frogs and heaps of birds). We turned up the same time as a group of mostly American photographers. After our private tour we got to hang out with the photographers and watch all the birds. It was pretty interesting watching them work, they'd set up little photo shoots of the different frogs and most of the time I had no idea what they were on about. They had some of the biggest lenses I'd seen, our guide estimated the value of everyone's kit put together to be about $250 000. Our guide even showed us a macro function on Alex's camera we hadn't realised was there, so we can thank him for the awesome frog photos!

Blue Jeans Dart Frog - I'd really been wanting to see one of these

Green and Black Dart Frog

Gaudy Leaf Frog

Glass Frog

Masked Smilisca

Fake Toucans (Collared Aracari) - They are Toucans, we just started calling them fake toucans because they aren't "The Toucan"

Humming Bird - sitting still!

Black-cheeked Wookpecker - the first woodpecker I've ever seen!

After lunch we went on a cruise down the Sarapiqui River to try and find some more animals. We went with an awesome local guide, Rodrigo who had helped us get to Frogs Heaven (he even talked to the bus driver for us to make sure we got off at the right stop). We saw heaps of stuff on this trip - sloths, monkeys, iguanas, caiman, vultures, horses, and a few Jesuschrist lizards! At one point we even had local kids shouting "Gringos!" at us from the banks.