Day 19: Back to San José

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Even though we have already spotted a Quetzal ourselves, we thought it would be nice to just get out early and go together with a guide to see more of them!
So, here we are again, at 05:45 in the morning gathered with our gear to go out and find something.

Today, we didn’t have to travel far: we found an adult male Quetzal in the tree directly adjacent to the restaurant!his tail feathers had not reached their maximum length yet, as the male quetzals loose the long feathers during the nesting season and regrow them each year. The nesting season lasts until June, and this guy was clearly not done yet.
He was sitting in the tree, peacefully digesting his wild avocado and didn’t mind us buzzing around the tree trying to get a good shot in the difficult morning light. We hope it worked out well!

Right after this, the guide took us a few hundred metres down the road to an area where loads more fruiting wild avocado trees were, and we got lucky. Eventually, we encountered 2 more juvenile males, and two adult females for a grand total of 5 quetzals! If you ever want to see this bird: go to San Gerardo de Dota, it seems to be Quetzal Capital.

After returning to the lodge, we had breakfast and immediately went out again to find some more wildlife. The guide’s main interest were hummingbirds and smaller vocal birds, and boy did we see a lot of those! In total, we have seen about 25 different species, all with long unpronounceable names and who all have at least 1 different specie of bird which looks virtually identical! The guide could tell them all apart. (or pretended to be able to really well)

We then packed our bags, loaded up the car, had one more meal and went out on the drive down (literally, from 2200 to 1200 metres) to San José. Without any major setbacks, we handed over the car to the guy from the rental company who actually was waiting for us, about an hour early. The Toyota Rav4 has served us well!
In anticipation of tomorrow, we are now waiting for things to happen.

Tomorrow, the transfer will pick us up from the hotel at noon and will bring us and our luggage to the airport. From there, the journey back begins, and before you know it, we’ll be back home! Looking back on these three weeks was quite simply put amazing, Costa Rica is awesome. Pura Vida!