virhua

Hello Fodorites! I have been lurking now for several years and have really enjoyed all of your detailed trip reports and helpful tips on Costa Rica. We started planning a trip to Bosque del Cabo over a year ago based mostly on the helpful comments made on this forum (and trip advisor). We finally made it to Bosque del Cabo for a 10 day trip of a lifetime in February and we are now officially part of the Bosque del Cabo fan club and are already planning a trip back there next year.

We stayed at Casa Bella Rita on our first and last night in Costa Rica. It is a beautiful bed and breakfast run by an american couple in Santa Ana. About 20-25 minutes from the international airport and the same driving time from Pavas. We then stayed for the next 10 days at Bosque del Cabo. The first half of the trip we stayed in Casa Miramar with some friends and family and absolutely loved this open house with its spectacular views of the Pacific. For the rest of the trip, we stayed in Congo and it lived up to its reputation of great views. One of the highlights of the trip was seeing a mother humpback whale and its calf playfully breeching and tail slapping from our cabina (I was able to get video of this). We saw just about everything we wanted to see (all 4 types of monkeys, red eye tree frog, poison dart frog, coatis, scarlet macaws and too many other birds to list, peccaries, and even a fer de lance!). We really enjoyed the primary forest tour and sunset tour with Philip and the birding tour with Carlos. Another must do is the sustainability tour. I put together a compilation of short video clips/still pictures of all the fascinating things we saw during our trip and wanted to post a link to it in this forum in the hopes that someone else will find it helpful in planning their trip.

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwl3N...4p8pOgD5_5-KKw

Again I want to thank everyone on this forum for their insightful comments on Costa Rica and Bosque del Cabo.

Virginia

xyz99

Wonderful pictures/video compilation...great memories. We want to go back, too.

tully

Welcome to the "club" Great photos!

volcanogirl

Beautiful video, Virgina - I loved it!

virhua

Glad all of you enjoyed the pictures. Can't wait to go back to Bosque del Cabo next year!

volcanogirl

I especially loved seeing the whales. I had never seen that before. Do you happen to know what months they're in that area? You had the perfect cabin for viewing! Great job.

virhua

Hi Volcano girl, we were there in mid February (just a couple of weeks ago), but I believe the peak months are August through November. We saw the mother and calf at about 4:15 pm. We felt so lucky to see them, that was the only time we saw whales from the cabina during our 10 day stay.

volcanogirl

That's amazing, v - thanks for sharing it.

xyz99

We were there in mid Feb in 2009, and saw a pair, too - I think they were 2 adults, my pic is nowhere as good as yours
http://ioana-mark.smugmug.com/Travel...4447&k=xJG4Vfs

But during a 6 days stay, that was the only time. And we stayed in Congo, too

Great memories, thanks for sharing yours, virhua.

virhua

xyz99,

Wow, that picture of the albino howler monkey is pretty amazing from your Cano Negro tour. We went to Arenal in 2012 but the volcano wasn't active. Loved your pictures, looks like it was a fantastic trip in 2009. We were using the Canon SX50 on this trip and the zoom came in really handy especially for things like the whales.

Thanks for the links to your photos

Virginia

Femi

Nice job with the slideshow. You've got some lovely shots.