While this does sound like a very good cause, there might be a caveat in there. More about that at the end of this post.
There is a trail that leads you through the park, from one sanctuary to the next. Our guide led us throughout the park, so we went first to the bird house. There was a gray hawk, a few vultures, and even a falcon. There were a bunch of green macaws, of the smaller variety, as well as a bunch of smaller birds that I couldn't get the names of. There were some scarlet macaws too, but again, not the really large ones.
The really exciting part was the toucan house. This is the where they let tourists take pictures with the toucans. Here's mine:
I know that there is a whole bunch of animal exploitation issues to explore here, but I do have to admit, this was really cool.
Next we quickly ran through the monkey house, where they have two of the three endemic species to Costa Rica. (I won't name them, because I've already forgotten...oops!)
From there it was the butterfly house. I have very mixed feelings about this.
First, it was super cool. Butterflies. Everywhere.
But that's where the mixed feelings come in. They literally were everywhere. Including on the floor. You really have to watch where you walk in here if you don't want to kill a butterfly. It made me a little anxious the whole time, watching the floor while at the same time wanting to be all excited by the butterflies flying around my head...
[I have to download pics first before I can include them here. I'll update this post once I get back home.]
I think overall I'd have to declare that "cool" wins out over "anxious," but still, I would have liked to enjoy without worrying about murdering an innocent and beautiful butterfly.
From there we went into the hummingbird sanctuary. Those buggers fly so fast that you need extra special camera equipment to catch a still shot! So I just took a couple of short videos instead.
They've got all kinds of hummingbirds, and they whiz past your head like miniature airplanes! It is very exciting.
After that was our lunch stop, just in time after a long and exciting day. You could tell that they cater to tourists a lot, because they had mostly food that Americans respond well to, like hot dogs and french fries, along with other higher class fare. But there wasn't any local food, except for plantains.
I must take a moment to mention the bathrooms. The sinks are designed so that the faucet water looks like it's coming out of a stone face, like a waterfall. And the knob to turn the water on is disguised as a rock. It was very creative.
After a much needed food and rest stop, we continued on. There was a snake house, but we skipped it and went straight to the wild cats. They had a cougar there who was not too happy about getting its picture taken. There was this woman who kept following it around with her iPad...and it was obvious that she had already gotten either a lot of pictures or a lot of video of it, but she didn't move away! She kept standing there, inches from the glass, with the cougar just inches way from the glass on the other side.
There was a large crowd of people waiting to see the cougar, but this lady just refused to move. And the cougar was getting angry. Its ears went flat back and it started to growl, but that lady just would not move.
This is one of the downsides to a park like this. I understand that these animals have been "rescued," but how much better are their conditions if now they are to be entertainment for humans who have no sense of how dangerous this situation might be under other circumstances?
From there we went to see the jaguars, and this question became more prominent than ever. They had a male and female jaguar, but they were in separate enclosures (a.k.a.cages), and the female was definitely bothered, maybe in heat. She kept pacing back and forth across the front of her glass, growling, and looking across at the male. The male was looking back at her, holding her gaze. Then the female lept up to the upper level of her enclosure, where there was no glass, only bars. It was pretty incredible, because those bars were not that high up, and any human over 5' 10" could have simply reached up to them. The female was sticking her paw out through them, and I could just image some stupid guy taking that chance...
Although I truly did not enjoy seeing these magnificent creatures locked up and on display, I do have to admit that I might never have seen a jaguar otherwise. A lot of the indigenous people in the Americas worshipped the jaguar, and now I know why. You can just see the power in them. I can't even explain how it felt to see them up close...
I did not take any pictures of them. It somehow felt wrong to do so. There were crowds of people around them, all acting like spoiled children trying to get the closest shot, and I did not want to join those ranks. I simply wanted to admire these jaguar, and honor them for what they were.
After that excitement, we went last to see the frogs. It must have been the wrong time of day, though because I only saw a green poison dart frog.
There were others to be seen, but they all hid from us.
It had been pouring over us since lunch, so everyone was rushing through the sanctuaries a bit faster than they otherwise would have, and I was no exception. The thing about rain, though...is that it makes for a spectacular waterfall.
There were four waterfalls in the park, and we went to the two tallest. The first was called [name] and the second, and tallest, was called White Magic. Here's my money shot in front of Magia Blanca:
[Sorry! You'll have to wait for the camera download for this one! I'll update this post as soon as I get home.]
This was so worth it.
After this we were soaking wet, from both the rain and the spray from the waterfall. And I was super, super exhiliarated.
I am so glad we did this tour. We had a long drive home - over an hour - and we were all soaking wet, but no one really complained. It was a great group, there was a lot of cameraderie, and even though thigns didn't turn out perfectly, they did turn out well. And I had the time of my life. :)
Aloha!
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