Costa Rica Trip Report: Day 4 at Bosque Del Cabo

We had an eventful night as we were woken up twice by some noise in our cabina. The first was a high pitched shriek that scared the crap out of us and caused us both to jerk awake. The flashlights came out but nothing was spotted. The noise definitely came from above our heads so at least we knew that nothing was crawling around. A few hours later, we heard a rustling in the thatch near the bed. Once again the flashlights came on (did I mention the importance of having these next to the bed?) but this time we saw the culprit. Squeezing into a small hole in the thatch was a butt and a tail. I got up for a closer look just in time to see a cute face look back at me before the whole creature disappeared. Most likely it was a rat but we didn't think that it was the shrieker from earlier. So, that mystery may never be solved.

Once the sun came up, we headed out again. This time we were in search of a Tamandua which was seen by the owner on the Golfo Dulce trail before dinner the previous day. Tamanduas are anteaters and are another cute rainforest creature. On the way, we stopped to see the sloth, but it had disappeared again. Hmmmm...this sloth moves a whole lot more than we thought they would. The quest for the Tamandua was equally disappointing but we did have some great luck with birds.





After breakfast, we decided to look for poison dart frogs again. But, this time we headed to the Pacific Trail. Two years ago, we found the rare Golfo Dulce Poison Dart Frog on this trail where the water crosses the trail. This time, we didn't find that frog, instead we found two Green and Black Poison Dart frogs.





The second frog was smaller and more yellowish which we thought meant it was a juvenile but maybe it was a female. In any case, it was nice to get better shots than I did last trip.

Re-energized by this find (which turned out to be the only poison dart frogs we saw the whole trip), we decided to hit the Titi trail in another quest to see a Puma. From the wild cat talk we had a few nights earlier, we learned that 75% of the camera trap shots of Puma's were during the daytime. And the Titi trail was a popular place to see one. Unfortunately, no Puma's were seen, but we did find ourselves another rare treat.





We had really hoped to get close to Squirrel Monkeys this trip and we finally had our chance. All told, there was about a dozen of them and we saw at least 2 with babies. They are very fun to watch and seemed as curious about us as we were about them. In fact, they had another fan watching their antics.



But, the Squirrel Monkeys seemed less curious about this Coati and showed it.



Eventually, the Coati just stopped paying attention to them and fell asleep in the tree instead.



We spent over a half hour watching the Squirrel Monkeys and it was definitely a highlight of our trip.

Our long days finally caught up to us and we decided to hang out around the cabina after lunch to relax a bit. Still, there is a ton of action around the cabinas and numerous photo opportunities.







After the sun went down, we decided to head to the bar for a quick drink and go out looking for the elusive Red-eyed Green Tree frog again. Once again, we had more chirping but no sightings. Our trek after dinner met with the same results. The pond was still alive with Smoky Jungle Frogs, toads, a snake and some small frogs so it was still worth while. In fact, a couple of the tiny frogs looked like juvenile Red-eyed Green Tree frogs but that's not as good as seeing the colorful adult.