c, me too! I have wanted to see a snake and get good pictures, and in all our trips, we only had one sighting of a teeny one, and that was because I specifically told the guide I wanted to see one. I'm sure they're out there, but they usually hear us coming before we get a chance to see them.

>> We also got to see a sleeping boa constrictor on the mangrove tour we took. That was cool!

Oh, I'm so jealous, that's one thing I really wanted to see and didn't get a chance to.

But be careful what you ask for. On our rafting trip on the Sarapiqui, one of our guides was looking for frogs to show us and came back to the raft white as a ghost; said he was inches from a fer de lance that had been hiding under all the leaves and brush.

We were in La Palma too. My son loved the loft -- that was all his "space". I guess the monkeys move around because the tree right in front of La Palma was THE howler tree this past February. Dozens of them slept in it every night. That 5 AM wake-up call the first morning was a shocker! We were really amused by the fact that when we finally just gave up and got up, we wandered outside and found all the monkeys ASLEEP in the tree!

All the cabinas are great -- you won't be disappointed with any of them.

Lol, VG. We think alike on these things! One of these days I'm hoping to get down to the Pantanal in Brasil to look for Anacondas. I would be so excited to see one (from a safe distance, of course!).

Costa Rica can save the snakes for us and keep them far away from plumboy's partner. We'll all be happy! :-)

Yeah sumi, a fer de lance I could probably do without!

Great story about the howlers. We had white faced monkeys several times <i>behind</i> Palma, but never any howlers that close by. Nature's alarm clock... :-)

BdC???!!!

sorry... newbie here. don't have the lingo yet :-(

chiefie, it's Bosque del Cabo - a very popular place to stay on the Osa Peninsula.

c, I'm with you - at a safe distance would be good for me. I remember reading someone's trip report that said a coral snake wandered into the dining area one night, and I remember thinking, &quot;Is this a good thing or a bad thing?&quot; Philip almost stepped right on a Fer de Lance when we were there; he was going back to his cabin late at night in the dark. Plum, be sure to use your headlamp. You might want to keep some of these stories to yourself!

plumboy -- Congrats on your bonus. I'm happy that you'll be able to extend your time in CR AND make it to BDC. Yay! Everyone else here's pretty much said it all...am I the only one here that actually likes bugs and snakes? Hee!

cam -- Glad to see you have June on your radar. ;-)

I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere - either on here or TA - that someone at BdC had a snake in their cabina - actually inside! Yikes. I guess all kinds of things can happen in the forest.

So, just to follow up, I switched our cabina to Tucan. I think a tub will be really nice - and we can forego the most perfect view, since we'll have that in MA. They did tell me, though, that they can't really guarantee a particular cabina - not sure why - but that's sort of annoying. But I can't control everything - gotta let some things go and just be surprised.

By the way, we will be bringing flashlights with us - but are the headlamps you mentioned provided?

Hi Hip,

I will be there with you on the Titi Trail, tuna melt in hand to entice the nice kitties if ever I can!

It seems that every time I think, &quot;I oughta just book a BdC cabin&quot; something expensive breaks at the house or the entire U.S. economy fails! :S

I'm optimistic that I'll be able to make BdC happen, however. I head to Peru next month (yeah!) and then I'll figure out how I need to budget for CR 2009.

plumboy,

I bet you'll get the cabin you want, and even if you don't, you'll be pleasantly surprised. BdC doesn't provide headlamps that I'm aware of. They're nice for hands-free illumination, but a flashlight will work as well...

Yes, it's ironic that I got a bonus for the first time (I work at a university and had no idea bonuses even existed here) the same week that the stock market basically crashes. Life is paradoxical, it seems.

I just feel lucky to be going, so whatever room they put us in, I'll deal!

Thank you all for your advice and inside info. It's really going to help us make the most of our limited time there - I appreciate it!

Nope, like c said, they don't provide them, but they are great to use when you want your hands free. I used mine as a flashlight as well. I even used it at our house after we got hit by the hurricane and didn't have power for 4 or 5 days. They do provide walking sticks though, which I recommend.

Enjoy Tucan!

Thank you for telling me about the walking sticks! This may sound crazy, but the walking sticks will make my partner feel a million times better! Whenever we go walking in the woods, he always finds one to use. They do make you feel better - about the snakes and spiders but also about not tripping.

That was me with a snake in my cabina, plumboy! I am repulsed by snakes, so it was not a fun thing for me. When I saw it, it was slithering down the sliding door - it had apparently been up in the ceiling area. But, we had left our sliding doors open all day when we were out hiking - something we never did again. It was a bright green vine snake. I tucked the netting around the bed a bit more tightly that night!

Thank GOD my partner does not haunt these travel sites! We'll be keeping the doors shut, don't worry! Glad to hear it was JUST a vine snake - they're non-venomous, right?! I can't wait for the adventure and surprises waiting for us...

We kept our doors shut when we left the cabin and also when we slept - seems like everyone else was braver than we were!

I probably should've confirmed this before, but I just want to make sure Tucan has a king bed. It is considered one of the deluxe cabinas, right? Just making sure - been reading other reviews, and now I'm not sure...

plum I'm pretty sure it's a king, I have a queen at home and it did seem a little bigger. There's also 2 beds up in the loft if you want to get really adventurous!

Yep, what tully said. :)

Thanks for the clarification. I did go back and re-read what's on the BdC website - I should've just done that first. But there is conflicting info on the site (for example, in one place it says there isn't hot water, but the descriptions of the rooms include &quot;hot water&quot; - either is fine for us), so I just wanted to make sure about the bed size. I figure since there's no a/c, we'll probably be sweating a bit at night and thought a bigger bed would give more dry places to move to! Thanks again!