Back to homepage


Monte Alto, near Hojancha, Guanacaste

This little park is nestled in the hills around Hojancha. It is a wonderful place to visit not least because of their fantastic cook Cecilia, who prepares food for all the visitors

This was our first encounter with local wildlife, especially with the monkeys known as "Congos". They are little black monkeys who make a giant roaring noise like a hungry monster coming to get you. They have special digestive systems to cope with eating leaves so they have big, droopy-looking bellies. The males also have fantastic, enormous snow white testicles which look just like two grade AA large eggs. We were so relieved to get away from our friend the rooster in Nicoya, but the congos also get up at five a.m. so the only answer was to go to bed early.


We also got to see an armadillo there, they have little tiny eyes and the poor guy didn't notice me until he sniffed my shoe, he got quite a start at that:

Large iguanas are also common in the park, these were maybe 2/3 of a meter long



We also saw what is known as an agouti paca, one night while we were watching the stars in front of our cabin we heard a loud rustling noise in the bushes and when I shined my flashlight in that direction, there stood an alarmed agouti paca. Agouti paca in Wikipedia
Agouti paca-- nice picture



At the park Rincon de la Vieja, we didn't see the famous volcano because it was wreathed in clouds and high-velocity winds the entire weekend, but we did get to see some unusual animals (a giant toad the size of your head and a funny blue bird called a motmot) and to go in the hot springs there. The pools had been constructed in a stream around a hot vent by filling old flour bags with rocks and stacking them together. It stunk terribly of sulfur but was beautiful and relaxing.



To see more drawings and read about our trip, just click the links below.

1st week: Nicoya

Upala in the north

Corcovado in the south

Back to homepage