Maquenque

The boys had a week vacation around Easter and we wanted to make a small trip. And besides the beaches get really crowded around Semana Santa, so it was either staying at home or leaving town.

A friend of ours recommended a small, family-owned lodge close to the Nicaraguan border. This time we made sure to take two batteries for the camera!

All things packed in the car (with the excitement of finding a leaking pipe in our storage room the night before) we hit the road leaving iPods and PSPs home. We did take our computer, but ended up not using it at all, since the lodge had no internet connection. Mobile phones didn't work there either. Risto packed a couple of board games and books.

We had driven the road to Arenal, our half-way point, the year before. Then the sky had been overcast and it had rained. This time the weather gods were friendly. We saw the volcano in all its glory.
Before Arenal we made a stop to have a snack and because Jaakko was feeling nauseous. A year ago he had recycled his toffee-filled doughnut in the car. This time he got out of the car to recycle some nachos. The road around Arenal lake is really winding, and I guess DH can't help his Finnish rally-driving genes hitting in. Maybe the third time driving to Arenal we remember to drive slowly and not to feed Jaakko anything!

From Arenal we continued past La Fortuna to Pital where we took the gravel road towards the Nicaraguan border and Maquenque lodge. The road was lined with hibiscus and dracaena hedges.
And behind the hedges were vast fields of pineapples.
I had to take a closer look to see if there were tin cans of pineapple hidden inside the plants.

After five hours of driving, the last 45 km taking the last hour, we arrived at the parking place of the lodge. We were picked up from there and taken on a boat across the river to the lush and tranquil premises. The rainforest was full of different sounds, birds flying in the garden. A paradise.
The water here is not the river, but a lagoon. The main building with the restaurant is on the left and you can see a few of the cabins on the right.
The cabins did not have a wall all the way up to the roof, but a meshed section of about 1 m tall. You could hear the sounds of the jungle all through the night. And the other guests could hear Jaakko wake up 5:15 the first morning full of rage because nobody wanted to play Monopoly with him. We had played it for the first time the night before and he was all into real estate and demanded a replay immediately!

This was the view from our balcony. We did go on a canoeing trip there with the boys. Just the thing Indiana Jones would do!

The full moon over the lagoon. With a flashlight you could get the eyes of the caimans shine like two diamonds. The first morning we went on a three hour guided walk in the rain forest and learned a lot about the plants and animals.
Izzy-Lizzy was kind enough to stay still so I could come closer and take a picture. Most of the birds were not as polite and it was frustrating to fiddle with my camera and try to take a picture in decent focus.
Tuomas spotted this lizard hiding next to a bush.
Emerald Basilisk basking in the sun.
This one is called the Jesus Christ Lizard since it can walk on water.

We started in the medicinal plant garden seeing in addition to numerous interesting medicinal plants
vanilla,
Ylang-ylang,
filipita banana which according to our guide grows faster and taller than bananas.
The colours, shapes and smells of the plants were amazing. And quite a few of them I remembered seeing in flower shops in Finland! This one, as far as I understand, is the Heliconia mathiasiae.

Our family on the rain forest walk. The tree behind us had a beautiful monkey ladder vine growing on it.

A closer look of the escalera de mono.
I was told that this one is a brown vine snake. First of all it's green and it doesn't look like the brown vine snake I googled. More importanly, it stayed put for a long time for me to take a picture!! And it wasn't poisonous nor aggressive.
Risto and Tuomas looking at a walking palm.
Fruit of Apeia membranacea that monkeys use to scratch themselves with.
A Green and Black Poisonous Dart Frog. It was difficult to take pictures in the quite dark forest with three, small, blond heads in front of the camera lens and usually making enough of movement and noise to scare all the critters away. I hate photos that are not in focus.
Tuomas trying to do as the native indians did, i.e. burn the fluffy stuff containing the seed of the balsa tree. The natives used the burning balsa fluff to transfer fire from place to place.

After relaxing in the pool after lunch we decided to go on a night walk after dinner. Due to the full moon most of the predators, i.e. poisonous snakes, were hiding. It would have been interesting to see the deadliest snake, Fer de Lance, but maybe it was a good thing that we didn't. We saw the eyes of the caymans shine in the lagoon, interesting fire flies,
a Central American Smooth Gecko,
another frog,
a cicada molting.

The next morning we went canoeing in the lagoon, and afternoon was spent on a boat cruise on the Rio San Carlos. A lot of birds,
a huge iguana,
a turtle,
bambu.

We stopped at Boca San Carlos, a stone's throw away from Nicaragua. The boys had a chat with the local policia
We walked through the village
spotting a cacao tree on our way to
the high-school. But what really made the whole trip worth wile in the boys' opinion was this
A crocodile!

The highlight in my opinion was my 1.5 hour bird watching tour the last morning. I spotted (with the help of my guide, and only due to the help of my guide) 24 different species. Again, not having good binoculars nor decent lens for photographing birds was slightly annoying, but I did see scarlet macaws fly right above me!

We learned a lot about the nature during our short stay!