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we had breakfast at 6am, another early start. outside, maggie was feeding a squirrel monkey in a tree. there was a professional photographer there, taking publicity photos for the website and brochures. off in the distance, i saw two toucans fly by overhead, their silhouettes unmistakeable, a line of a beak seen from below. by 6:30am everyone who was going was waiting on the top of he dock, just ourselves and faye and jonathan. our guide would be manuel again. my father bought a cheap clear plastic poncho from the office while i wore the gerald's rubberized poncho from last night.

the boat trip down to sirena would take 1:20 hours through some very choppy water. our boat captain must've been a seasoned fisherman because he navigated the ocean as if he owned it. we were basically surfing the waves with the boat, steering in a zigzag pattern. it was raining like crazy, and i started to have doubts about if we'd see anything at sirena, whether it would be like yesterday, trudging through rain. the only thing poking out of my poncho was my head, and it rains so much i couldn't even breathe. it was a miserable hour and a half. when we finally got to the shores of sirena, the captain shut off the engine and slowly started attacking the waves, approaching the rocky shores. i felt really queasy, with the boat rocking back and forth. eventually we made it close enough for the beach landing, and fortunately my father and i decided to bring our tevas (we though about ditching them before we left, since the past two beach landings were on sandy beaches). the good news was the rain had stopped when we got on shore, and the weather was getting warmer and brighter.

we understood at that point why it had to be a guided tour: sirena is remote. at least san perillo had a ranger station. here in sirena, it was just nothing, one side of the the beach you had the rocks and the ocean, on the other side a dense rainforest. we all scattered to use the bathroom, then gave manuel our beach shoes so he could hide them and we wouldn't have to carry them with us. manuel told us about the swarovski spotting telescope he uses (he's been having some humidity issues and the people at the company won't return his call even though he calls them everyday) while directing our attention to a toucan sitting on top of a tree.


jacamar

scarlet macaw

scarlet macaw


collared peccaries


grey eagle

spider monkey

spider monkey


mantled howler

mantled howler

basilisk


tamandua

tamandua

crocodile

today's count: 274 photos and 6 audios