My Costa Rica trip – 18 days in Aug 2022

11-12/8 :San Hose – Poás Volcano National Park – La Paz Waterfall Gardens

13-15/8: Tortuguero

16-18/8: Arenal – La Fortuna Waterfall

19-20/8: Monteverde cloud forest

21-24/8: Tamarindo

25-27/8: Manuel Antonio

Tour was organized by Lior Esh – Lands in love: schedule, hotels, transportation, guides etc, helping us to make the best out of Costa Rica!

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Jaguar

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This solitary cat is America’s largest feline and the world’s third, after the tiger and the lion

Population 173,000

55% decline in the last century

Ideally, I’d list only animals observed in the wild, but I will make an exception here. On La Paz Waterfall Gardens Nature Park wildlife shelter, 1 hour of capital San hose, are three jaguars, freed from prison. A magnificent beast that should be protected better. Most guides in Costa Rica haven’t encountered a jaguar in the wild themselves.

Ondrej Prosicky

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Margay

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These wild cats are cute, intelligent, agile, and well-adapted to inhabiting tropical and subtropical forests

Population

Also there, we’ve had the pleasure of seeing a margay. It is an animal shelter; hence animals aren’t bred there for commercial reasons. I hate these “make-money-from-wildlife” so-called shelters.

Leonardo Prest Mercon Ro

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Ocelot

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They are picky eaters, often plucking off all the furs or feathers of the prey before start eating them

Population 800,000 – 1.5 million

Our third cat in the shelter, larger and heavier then the margay. All three are rarely seen in nature.

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Rufous-tailed hummingbird

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Like many of us, this bird loves coffee and feeds on its flowers

Population 50M

The most common of 53 (!) hummingbird species in Costa Rica, these little shiny gems can be seen everywhere.

Keven_Law

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Spectacled caiman

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You might get the worst scare of your life if you see the crimson glow in the eyes of these creatures at night

Population 1,000,000

Tortuguero: On a boat ride, on the way to our hotel, we got to see the two species of crocs of Costa Rica. The smaller (and greener) is the spectacled caiman.

Gareth Rasberry

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American alligator

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A conservation success story, this species was brought back from the brink of extinction

Population 5 million

Bigger and colored grey are American alligators. Huge ones can be seen on Tárcoles, where we took a short tour to see them. Being territorial, each alligator we saw has a name. Extremely touristic, canny jokes, but we liked it anyway.

Greg Schechter

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Common basilisk

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Also called the Jesus Christ lizard because of its ability to walk on water

Population

Boat-safaring, we’ve seen many of these unique lizards.

Korall

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Green iguana

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From the US down to Brazil, this trans-American lizard is the most common iguana

Population

We also met our first green iguanas there and saw them later in every place we visited. They don’t let humans interrupt them.

Hans Hillewaert

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Black wood turtle

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The largest of all wood turtles

Population

50% decline within the last 100 years

My daughter spotted this fresh water turtle.

Sakis Lazarides

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Green sea turtle

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Largest hard-shelled sea turtle on earth

Population 85,000 – 90,000

90% population decrease over the past half century

We took a popular tour at night to see a female green turtle coming out of the water, laying eggs, and returning to the sea. It was a bit rough but suitable for hard-core animal lovers. Feels prehistoric in a way, not sure why…