Up fairly early as usual now. First thing in the morning it is a bit cooler and the birds are all on the move!
We left the hotel at around 08.00 and headed for Curu, this time armed with all the correct beach equipment!. It is only about 16km, but the roads have a maximum speed limit here of 60kph. To be honest, you'd struggle to drive this fast most of the time even though the roads are metaled. They are still pretty bumpy and narrow, and some parts wind up through the hills and the road edges are a bit dodgy. Some of the bridges are a bit worrying too. One, near Tambor, is made of metal plates, one of which appears to be adrift. Another further down the road is very narrow and the road surface appears to have disappeared and there is just enough room to get the Jimny over - the buses must just bump through it.
When we arrived at Curu National Park, we had to pay $10 each or 5,500 Colones to get in. We had to sign the visitors book, I looked back through it and couldn't find any British visitors recently.
Once through the gate it is a 2km drive through a cattle ranch to the car park next to the beach. We parked up in a shady spot and headed through the palms to the beach. It was low tide and the sea was a long way out - shades of Western-super-mare, but it we are at spring tides.
We found some picnic benches set up in the palms in the shade and set up shop. I went for a wander along the beach and came across a Mangrove Hawk eating small crabs on the beach. It had plenty of choice as there are thousands of small crabs darting around on the beach. I then continued on round one of the trails in the park and found several large iguanas. The walk through the edge of the mangrove swamp into the jungle was rather pleasant, but because of the thick vegetation it was difficult to see any wildlife although I could hear lots of birds.
Back at the beach, we splashed out for lunch and had two bags of chips, one was the usual maize/cheese and the other yucca chips. We could have had lunch but didn't fancy a full meal.
We went swimming a couple of times in the early afternoon and could hear Howler Monkeys quite close. We sat on the beach and watched the tide come in until it was almost touching our feet. This was the signal to move and we decided to walk along a trail behind the beach and almost immediately came across a troop of Howler Monkeys which we could clearly see, but proved to be very difficult to photograph.
Whilst we were watching these monkeys, we realised there was something else in the jungle canopy. On close inspection they proved to be a family of White-face Coati. This is a tree-living animal that has a face something between a fox and a badger with a big, long, bushy tail. Whilst we watched, around eight of them scurried down one tree and perhaps went for a drink in the mangrove swamp.
We went back to the car and found one last mammal, a large family of White-faced Monkeys. We watched them for a while before heading out of the park. On the way out, we found a group of three White-tailed Deer!
We stopped at Tambor for an icecream before returning to the hotel and the nice cool swimming pool.
It seemed rather decadent this evening eating baby back ribs by the swimming pool sipping cold white wine!
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