This was a day basically for getting back to San José airport and our plane home, a journey of some 140kms. All three of us were on the same Air France flight to Paris leaving shortly after 19:00. From there I had a connecting flight to Heathrow, Herr German would connect to Frankfurt and Mr. Leader to Sweden (not sure which airport). Naturally, it wasn’t quite that straightforward. To maximise our time in the field, Mr. Leader had planned a stop or two en route.

The first place to call into was a spot beside a café, a potential breakfast spot, with a rocky river running beside it, a potential dragonfly spot. We arrived at about 07:00. The café opened at 08:00 and the dragonflies weren’t open for business yet either with the river being entirely in shade, though the sun was moving towards it. After an hour, Mr. Leader and I went to investigate the now open café; Herr German had not yet returned. The restaurant was something of a trendy vegan establishment and its menu  looked a bit odd as we searched with difficulty for anything that resembled breakfast. The menu did not impress Mr. Leader so we left the menus, got up and walked back out to meet Herr German.

Moving on we found a very pleasant little “mom and pop” restaurant with an outdoor terrace and an excellent last Gallo Pinto traditional Costa Rican breakfast. “Mom” was cooking while “pop” proudly showed us their free range chickens that were the source of our breakfast eggs. Fuelled with our breakfast and coffee and ready for the journey ahead, we set off.

Our last planned stop in the general direction of San José was a bridge over another rocky river near a town called Sardinal. The sun was definitely open for business now and when I wasn’t actively chasing dragonflies I was looking for spots in the shade to sit down. I did manage, in my walking boots, to pick my way over some of the rocks and bag a couple of last day additions to my catalogue, though I had to wait for my camera lens to clear – it had misted up with the sudden change of temperature and humidity taking it out of the car.

Costa Rica has four species of pond damsels with brilliant red eyes and a coppery thorax. I’m pretty sure this one is the Fiery-eyed Dancer (Argia oenea), though there is a tricky look-alike but with much darker mouth parts. My impressive new dragonfly is a White-tailed Sylph (Macrothemis pseudimitans).

Once again, without my Wellington boots my opportunities were at an end long before those of my two companions but eventually they stopped snapping away and we got on the road again. Our journey was basically two sides of a triangle: south down route 606 from Monteverde, then hang a left along route 1 east towards San José. Not too long after we hit route 1 the accursed Costa Rican traffic came to a grinding halt. The nightmare of our initial journey west out of San José recurred. This time we could see what was causing the hold up but it still wasn’t obvious why it should be causing such mayhem – there were roadworks but they were beside the main carriageway and not in the main carriageway. Nonetheless we alternated between endlessly sitting stationary and crawling along a few hundred metres. Our alternating once again lasted for over an hour during which time I began to see us missing check-in and our flight. I’ve been in this situation twice trying to get to JFK airport in New York, delayed by a mixture of flat tyres and weather. These are some of the reasons why I never plan to do anything when my main goal is getting to an airport or a ferry.

Eventually, with great relief, we crawled our way through the several kilometres, which really did feel like miles, of roadwork disruption and began moving at something resembling a reasonable speed. Mr. Leader books an airport hotel room for the last day to shower before boarding a plane. We checked in to a Holiday Inn Express overlooking the airport at around 14:00. Mr. Leader went first with the shower so he could return the rental car. Herr German and I took the hotel’s shuttle bus to the airport.

Finally able to relax, I unwound in the airport lounge with a beer or two to slake my thirst followed by a G&T or two to hit the spot. The G&Ts were interesting. the barman asked me if I was flying on Air France., “Yes”, I said, “why, does it make a difference?”. “Yes”, came his jaunty reply, “you can have a double”. This seemed to be some special drinking arrangement between the SJO airport and the Air France/KLM combination. Odd. The barman was amazed when I told him that we could just pour our own drinks in the lounges back at home.

The return flight went much better than had my outbound flight. First of all I slept for the majority of the 10-ish hours. Secondly, my luggage came with me. I breezed through immigration and baggage reclaim at Heathrow Terminal 4 in no time and was pleased to be greeted by a smiling Francine to welcome me home. Even the drive around the jaM25 was straightforward.

This was our last full day in Costa Rica. Tomorrow we’ll be heading for San José airport.

We’d done the various cloud forest sites that Mr. Leader had planned, so today he thought we’d head down out of Monteverde further into a valley. He was in search of gomphid dragonflies for which he has an obsession.

Mercifully, instead of the usual stodgy panaderia breakfast, of which even Mr. Leader was tiring, we stopped at a very pleasant proper restaurant for a traditional Cost Rican breakfast of eggs and their rice/bean mixture. What a relief. Frankly, I don’t rate the Costa Rican baked goods – not a patch on the French.

Then we headed down out of the clouds towards a valley and into some sun. Passing a couple of mountain runnels, we stopped at a couple of bridges over rivers with some bank access. It was still early, about 08:30, so we had to wait. Eventually there was some activity but nothing we hadn’t seen before. This Slender Clubskimmer (Brechmorhoga praecox) posed favourably for us, though.

We continued, stopping at likely looking habitat spots. For me, the most interest was provided by butterflies, Orange Daggerwings (Marpesia berania), getting salts off the road, and a basking Boa Constrictor beside the road, which we did our best not to upset. I just love its eye.

We went ever higher up the other end of the valley and encountered little of interest except a few more butterflies. Dragons were there none and the clouds were beginning to move in.

We began retracing our steps, calling in on the runnels we had passed on our outbound journey. The weather had collapsed and the story remained the same; we saw little, though I did snag one more butterfly. I think this is Gmelin’s Banded Skipper (Autochton bipunctatus).

‘T was now gone lunchtime. We clambered back into the thick cloud blanketing Monteverde. Mr. Leader opted for his standard chicken and chips in a box. Herr German and I went for what was supposed to be a safe option of burger and chips. Wrong! The bun, which I left, was utterly dreadful; this rated as the most dire burger I’d experienced in Costa Rica. Chicken and chips would have been a much better option. Lesson learned.

I treated myself to a bottle of wine to sip for the afternoon. I’d also bought some cashew nuts to help it down but they proved to be unsalted. Bother! It was clearly not my day foodwise.

I received my “check-in is open” email and against all of today’s odds and using just my phone, I think I’ve managed that. There are some website activities that just feel very awkward on a small mobile phone screen.

At 14:00 the thunder and rain began.

Mr. Leader had suggested a last supper this evening out at a restaurant. We returned to the restaurant that had provided us with today’s enjoyable breakfast. From my viewpoint, it turned out to be a good choice; I enjoyed the best Shakshuka that I’ve ever had. At last I’ve had some success today on the food front.

We’re staying in a 3-bedroom house above Monteverde. I know I’m getting repetitive but I just have to show you our shower; the wiring to the shower head is particularly inventive, I thought. Can you imagine wiring like that in the UK where not even a 13amp socket is permitted in a bathroom? Once you’ve figured out that to get hot water it must be turned on only slightly, it does work and so far nobody has been zapped. [Try to ignore the pink.]

Mr. Leader spent his morning cup of coffee getting online and booking our tickets to the Reserva Biológica Bosque Nubosa Monteverde. Tickets were a stiff $29 each. The difficulty is that you have to book for a specific one of their three trails. Knowing nothing about the trails, it’s a bit of a crap shoot but surely not that critical.

After our usual crack of sparrow-fart departure to take in a panaderia, we duly arrived at the reserve car park, which is a 15-minute shuttle bus ride away from the reserve itself. We boarded the bus and arrived at the entrance shortly before 08:00. The weather was grey and overcast so things were not looking great. Now the importance of trail selection when booking became painfully obvious. Once on site with descriptions, we realized that our chosen trail was “sub-optimal” for odonata. Once you’ve coughed up your not insignificant entrance fee, can you opt for a different trail? No! Can you do your chosen trail and then do another? Well, yes, but that’s another whopping $29. You have to be friggin’ kidding. $29 is not the entrance fee to the park but to a single trail. Jeez! Nowhere else works like that. This place is a complete rip-off, plain and simple. I couldn’t give it few enough stars.

In a somewhat irritated frame of mind at the way this reserve was “run”, we set out on our 3.5km trail. They at least allowed us to start before our appointed time of 08:45 [amazing, really, given the other restrictions]. At Mr. Leader’s meticulous pace – three steps, examine every leaf thru’ binoculars; three more steps – we ambled our way around in about two hours. Mind you, there was clearly no rush. I did see a handful of uncooperative butterflies but other than that, just leaves and very many of them. It was still overcast so the concept of shelling out a second extortionate $29 each for the more appropriate (shorter – 1.5km) trail, one with water, was a non-starter. We boarded the return shuttle bus.

Mr. Leader had been picking the brain of one of the local guides and had got a pointer to a road leading to another reserve: La Reserva Bosque Nubosa Santa Elena. [I’m sure you’ll have figured it out but all these Bosque Nubosa references mean Cloud Forest.] It was actually only about 6kms from our rental house with the pink, curiously wired electric shower. We set off a little before midday to get there.

Now, all the roads around Monteverde, which nestles beneath very many lumpy bits of land, must be 1-in-6 or steeper, and the majority of those are gravel/stone/rock with just a few intervening short runs of tarmac. We began climbing (slowly, the car is underpowered) out of Monteverde and fairly soon left the overcast murk behind. We had won some sunshine.

The road leading to our next intended reserve wound its way up the side of one of the local high lumps of land. Such roads are frequently crossed by “mountain” streams which provide good habitat for dragonflies and this road was no exception. Mr. Leader stopped our car three times beside such habitat. In the welcome sunshine, quite quickly our day went from zero to hero as we finally had subjects to point our cameras at. We’re very familiar with the Sympetrum genus of dragonflies in the UK, what we call the darters. this red job is an Americas cousin, the Cardinal Meadowhawk (Sympetrum illotum), meadowhawk being what Americans call darters. The blue and black damselfly is a Sky-blue Dancer (Argia medullaris).

Approaching 13:30 we still hadn’t arrived at our second reserve and my worms were biting. Being 6kms from our house, the thought of driving back down into town for lunch, then returning, didn’t appeal. There did, however, seem to be a restaurant of sorts at the reserve. We completed the climb to the reserve with hopes of food.

Sure enough, there was a restaurant within the reserve. Furthermore, there was no entry fee to a reserve with four trails. How different is that from the morning affair? We wandered in and my spirits soared at the sight of a hamburger on the menu. I have had nothing but excellent papas [chips] in Costa Rica and this basic greasy spoon restaurant was no exception.  Our substandard home chippie needs lessons from the Costa Ricans.

After our late lunch the boys hit one of the trails but I stayed to relax watching some of the England v. Croatia World Cup opener being screened on the restaurant TV, not that I usually find footie in any way relaxing. Looks like we won 4-2, after throwing the lead away a couple of times. I was waiting for the good old “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” scenario while I was watching but it seems we got away with it.

I didn’t miss much on the trail, mercifully. There was, though, a poor large hawker-type dragonfly – what the Americans call darners – trapped in the restaurant and flying around frantically looking for a way out. It eventually hung up in the roof and we managed to get pictures of it. It’s been identified by those in the know as Turquoise-tipped Darner (Rhionaeschna psilus).

Back at the house, the thunder and rain began at 17:00.

We are at 1500m in the town of Monteverde; actually we are a very slow couple of kilometres outside the town up one of the many steep gravel/stone/rock roads.

I had unwound from the slightly traumatic inbound journey using both beer and wine, before retiring early, as usual.

This morning, there I was having a relaxing cup of coffee when suddenly 15 minutes to departure was announced, that being 07:00. I managed to muster myself, mostly.

Once in the car, we were off initially to a panaderia to get the bake-a-holics some breakfast. I opted for a calzone ‘cos I thought it might be less messy to eat in the car than would be an open slice of pizza. Then we headed for the Curi-Cancha Reserve.

The weather was a little indifferent but dry, with occasional brighter spells. The entry fee was $25 each. Looking for dragonflies we seemed to be in a minority of three; everyone else appeared to be either armed with a spotting scope or part of a group with a guide carrying a spotting scope. Costa Rica being a Mecca for birders, these reserves are largely for twitchers for whom I’m sure the staff have more knowledge. For us, though, the reception staff professed a basic lack of knowledge of dragonflies but pointed us to a pond or two which weren’t actually marked on the trail map – there’s another clue. Off we set.

The first, larger pond did provide some odonata interest. I must say, though, that the highlight for me was provided by a stunning butterfly, the magnificent Morpho blue. There are some 30 Morpho species, all about the size of a side plate with wingspans touching 12cms. The exciting thing is that not only did it sit but it sat with its wings open and at an advantageous angle. We’d seen them quite commonly throughout our trip but always flying through, which is normally all anyone sees. It was a rare and special moment. I think this one is the Peleides Blue Morpho (Morpho peleides).

The weather deteriorated; we deployed umbrellas whilst in search of the second smaller pond. There was a small amount of shelter from the elements which enabled us to snag an attractive red damselfly, the Montane Firetail (Telebasis garleppi), which is all we could see on that pond. It was, indeed, small.

It was about now, wanting to snap the habitat, that I realised that my trouser’s cargo pocket was empty; it should have contained my phone. Arghhh! I prayed that I had simply left it in the house in my rush to depart with the 15-minute warning, rather than dropped it somewhere. I couldn’t imagine that I had dropped it but doubt nags away.

Rain persisted. We retired to reception’s café to sit it out and hope for an improvement. We are essentially nestling up against the central mountain range, the spine of Costa Rica, and cloud and rain seemed to be drifting over from the Caribbean side. We must have sat for about an hour looking somewhat gloomy but at last it seemed to brighten a little.

We stirred ourselves again and headed back out, this time heading for a river viewpoint. The trail leading down was quite straightforward and we ended up on a metal platform overlooking the rocky river about 20m below. The river was narrower than I had expected, for no particular reason other than that this did feature on the trail map – maybe 4m wide.

At first there was little of interest until Herr German spotted one of Costa Rica’s splendid flatwing damselflies. A second was spotted in the trees of the opposite river bank. Being well above the actual river, we were up at tree canopy level so our access was pretty good. This character, the Blue Flatwing (Philogenia peacocki), caused a considerable stir amongst the cognoscenti so I imagine I’m lucky to have seen it.

At 14:00 we wandered back to our car to go in search of lunch. Our restaurant was pleasant enough; it had a children’s hamburger on the menu but completely lacked an adult burger. Curious. I settled for lasagne Bolognese with salad.

Driving back up towards our house we ended up in the cloud and rain. Yucko!

Once back at base, with enormous relief, I was reunited with my phone; I’d left it on charge in my bedroom.

We can’t see a darn thing but cloud out of the windows – we’re in it.

We left Liberia for Monteverde today. We were intending to spend the morning at another reserve southeast of Liberia before getting on the road proper to Monteverde, so we left our collection of bags in one of the motel rooms to be collected at around midday.

Where we ended up was down another makeshift road at the Lomas de Barbudal Biological Reserve. This country is certainly rich in biological reserves. No officials appeared to be present so we parked up and sauntered down the main track from the entrance. We were early, naturally, reaching the first bit of river but there were a few damsels which amused us awhile.

The next step to a signposted waterfall, maybe 1½kms distant, took forever with the boys minutely examining every stream/flush, of which there were many in the well forested surroundings, on the way. I did what I could without wellies but again, was a little hampered. We finally made the waterfall by about 10:30. It was OK – not spectacular but OK.

Having left our bags in one motel room, we said we’d be back by 12:00 to collect them. We made it with a little time to spare, not that the owners would have minded, loaded our bags into the car then called in to a local hotel for lunch. I went for a filet mignon to try Costa Rican beef. It was tasty enough but smothered in onion and red pepper gravy so I’m still not entirely sure. It was, at least, real food served with the inevitable papas [chips]. I am yet to have a bad chip in Costa Rica, whereas I can’t remember the last time I had a good chip from one of our own fish ‘n’ chip shops.

After lunch, I thought we were done for the day and were on the road heading for our last stop, Monteverde. Wrong! We fairly soon dived off the highway onto yet another gravel road heading for Catarata Llanos del Cortés.

Catarata Llanos del Cortes is a popular public swimming hole beneath a sizeable waterfall, much more impressive than the waterfall from our morning excursion. Despite the boisterous public though, there are odos in the waterside vegetation which, of course, is what we were interested in. It may not be spectacularly coloured but there’s something classily impressive about this Dusky Dancer (Argia translata).

After an hour or so, at last we mounted the steep staircase back up to the car park. I felt completely wrung out.

Now we were where I thought we were going to be an hour or so ago, heading for Monteverde. It was about 15:00 and we had 85kms to do. Easy, right? Well, the first part of the journey was easy, on a motorway. When we turned off, the fun began.

First, though, soon after the turn off we found a town with the necessary supermarket for some beer and a panaderia for the baked goods fans. We’d be at Monteverde, our last location before returning home, for four nights so I bought two 6-packs of Imperial, my favoured local beer, and an expensive bottle of red wine in case the beer didn’t stay cold enough on the remainder of our journey. The expensive wine was expensive because it was an Italian import but it was the only one with a screw cap and, yes, I do have a corkscrew but I suspected I wasn’t going to want to faff about.

Back on the road with our purchases, we found the landscape leading to Monteverde not exactly mountainous in the Alpine sense but more of a a never ending collection of large, rounded lumps of land, the road being a collection of constant hairpin bends with steep inclines and descents making our poor little underpowered rental car struggle. The satnav suggested that 35kms was going to take 75 minutes. Suddenly, kilometres were ticking off slower than do miles. [I hate miles.]

After what felt like an age, we made it to within 10kms of our target. Then we really slowed down [!]; we left any tarmac behind and were once again on stony, rocky, steep tracks. It was raining by now, too, so the stony, rocky, steep tracks were becoming slick. Street lights began switching on; it was almost 17:00.

We still had 6kms to go – about 15 minutes said the satnav. Finding these rental places in daylight is hard enough but in the clouds, the rain and the dark, it would be damn tricky. We prayed that the location marker had been accurately placed this time. Mercifully it was accurately placed. At the pin location, Mr. Leader recognised our entrance from the description in the documentation. The owner, who lives on site, greeted us and showed us around. We have a very pleasant 3-bedroomed house with a view of the surrounding hills/mountains – when you can see them. Monteverde itself is down in the valley below us.

Having crossed to the Pacific side of the central backbone mountain range of Costa Rica, today we headed back up to the mountain range to visit another volcano: El Rincón de la Vieja. Mr. Leader had been disappointed at his two pretty much abortive attempts at the previous volcano courtesy of the weather and still wanted his montane species.

We set off at 06:45 and called into a coffee shop for a caffeine fix and breakfast, if something resembling a thinly meat-filled turnover can be called breakfast. Herr German is very keen on baked goods – at any time of day. Then we made the 25km journey to the volcano and its park.

There is a circular trail of about 3½km which we set off on soon after 07:30. The first thing of interest that we spotted was a Coati nosing around in the grass as we approached our intended trail. Coatis are Racoon family, I believe, and usually have more obviously ringed tails than this character.

Being so early (as usual) things began slowly but a damselfly did oblige us with some pictures. This is a Cerulean Dancer (Argia anceps). At least, I think it is. Argias are a bit of a bugger to identify. The Argia genus seems to take the place of our European Coenagrion genus – they’re largely blue and black and there’s a lot of related species.

The route provided some side shoots overlooking  fumaroles and bubbling pits of volcanic mud. This sucker was active. I was surprised to see a dragonfly or two flying about over such a toxic environment.

With Mr. Leader meticulously studying almost everything we passed, the going was slow. About 2/3rds of the way round, interest did pick when we found one of his favoured gomphid dragonflies. I can hardly bring myself to write this but this character is allegedly (I relied on Mr. Leader to identify it) a Lowland Knobtail (Epigomphus tumefactus). I think I’d change my name by deed poll given that handle.

A little further along, my two companions began minutely examining a mountain stream. I was ill equipped wearing walking boots (but my feet were comfortable and I could get my boots off at the end of the day). I walked on to the top of the next incline and sat down to wait. Whilst waiting, I was entertained by industrious Leafcutter Ants carrying what looked like impossibly large loads back to their nest. Ants really are amazing creatures.

Almost an hour later, the time had ticked well past midday and I was still waiting. We’d been on this 3½km trail for 5 hours and I could no longer hear my buddies voices. I knew they couldn’t leave without passing me but, having had enough, I began my own trek back towards the exit.

At the exit I found a tap to fill my depleted water bottle and a shady wall against which to lean. At almost 13:30 I spotted two familiar figures approaching.

I was mightily relieved that they decided not to do the second trail, which had been the original plan, before they’d spent six hours on the first.

Instead, we headed back down the mountain into Liberia in search of lunch – another roadside fried chicken and chips delight,though less delightful than the first.

I will not be sorry to get away from bakeries and fast food chicken, and back to some real, quality food.