After several days on the ship we were all ready to put our feet on solid ground when we docked at Puntarenas. This little town is really just a port, there is little or nothing at this location except a few tent vendors selling their handcrafts and a couple of bars. The travel vendors, taxis and anyone else ready to make a few bucks from the ship’s tourist are ready and waiting on the pier as we disembark
Celia and I decided not to take a paid excursion but to just “go on our own”. As she is fluent in Spanish we felt no need to pay for the guided tour bus and the typical “cattle call” of a tour excursion. We quickly found a solo taxi driver that was willing to take us to various locations on the island for the day for a fair price. We were off in no time heading south toward the rain forest.
We stopped at a typical tourist trap for souvenirs and a bathroom break and then we off trying to find some wild monkeys. We stopped to view some cashew trees; I had never seen cashews naturally so that was very interesting (image below). We also chased down some wild Macaws and with my long lens was able to get a couple of shots of them high in the trees.
We never made it into the rain forest, something that perhaps I’m regretting, but we did stop at the “Hotel Villa Lapas” and tour the gardens. Below are several images of our stroll through their grounds. But the best stop was at the Crocodile Man Tours which will be the next post.
#JeweloftheSea, #Puntarenas, #HotelVillaLapas, #TerriButlerPhotography
