Trips, Pics, and Tales

After our visit to the Butterfly House it was lunch time.  We decided to go to the buffet restaurant.  We had a pretty good meal, at a reasonable price and everyone found something they liked.  The rain started during lunch, but that didn't stop us!  As my parents had come to realized, in Costa Rica, you don't let the rain stop you from anything - just just put your rain gear on and carry on!   We wanted to take full advantage of all of the other exhibits on the property, so we went to visit the snakes, the frogs, the Casita and the big cats! Alex and Megan at lunch The kids doing some chores at the Casita This is a replica of a traditional Costa Rican Casita Time to take the Ox out for a ride! The inside of the Casita, this is the dining room table set up for a meal This is one of the cats in the Big Cat area.  Each has a sign letting the visitors know its history, such as where it w...

We woke up after a wonderful night's sleep.  I love sleeping in the cloud forest.  It gets all misty at night and the clouds settle in the valley.  Our Villa had a wonderful balcony, complete with its own hot tub, and sitting out there first thing in the morning, just listening to the birds was a peaceful way to start the day.  Each balcony has it's own hummingbird feeder.  The birds would stop by often to have a little drink as I sipped my morning coffee.   Today our plan is to start with the waterfall hike and then to visit the other exhibits on the property. When we checked in, we were told that the trails to the waterfalls were all now opened again after the earthquake, and that the waterfalls were back to being visible.  And I suppose if you've never been there before, you wouldn't know the difference.  But from what I remembered from our last visit, the trail was much shorter.  The starting point was different, and there were few...

Another fantastic opportunity that The Peace Lodge offers guests is a night tour of their Frog Habitat.  We had reservations and shortly after our hummingbird feeding experience we were ready to see what the frogs were all about! We met outside of the Frog Building and our guide was named John.  He was fantastic!  The frog area is divided into a couple of different rooms.  We began in the area with the tanks that held the poison dart frogs.  He took out one of these frogs and held it.  He told us all about these colorful frogs and allowed us to take some pictures.   After learning quite a bit about the different poison frogs, we moved onto the middle room.  We spent some time here.  Actually a baby green eyed tree frog jumped right onto Alex's neck!  He wasn't too thrilled and had no interest in touching a frog from that point on!  We did get to see some frog eggs on the bottom of leaves in this room.   And then we...

One of the absolute highlights of our stay at The Peace Lodge in Costa Rica is getting to feed the Hummingbirds.  When you stay at The Peace Lodge you have access to La Paz Waterfall Gardens which is home to rescued wildlife, a butterfly garden, hiking trails to beautiful waterfalls and this wonderful Hummingbird Garden.  Twice a day you can visit the Hummingbird Garden and they allow visitors to hold these little red feeders.  There are seemingly hundreds of birds that will buzz all around and land right on the feeders in your hands!  If you like birds, or even if you didn't think you did, you probably will after this! Feeding the hummingbirds here is really a once in a lifetime experience! At first it can be a bit unnerving to have these little birds zipping right past you, but soon, before you know it, they will even land right on your fingers!  It's amazing really! We spent quite a bit of time out there, just enjoying the birds and relaxing. ...