Today we moved on from Iguanitas Lodge. It had a parting gift for me before we hit the road, though. One of Costa Rica’s nine species of Rubyspot damselflies was posing advantageously in the garden. This is a very clean example of the Red-striped Rubyspot (Hetaerina miniata).
We aren’t doing particularly long travel days, though on some of Costa Rica’s roads they can sometimes feel like it. Mr. Leader likes to maximize our time in the field by calling into places en route. This morning we left early to go via the Reserva Biologica Camino a San Juan. We thought initially that we had to arrange access from a lodge but apparently the gates were open and access was free. What we found was a very pleasant lake with a shaded jetty affair complete with seats for those of us who like to sit down and take the weight off.
Working around the margins of the lake in between spells on the thoughtfully provided bench seats, we found a lot of dragonfly and damselfly activity. For me, the most impressive dragonfly was the appropriately named Brilliant Redskimmer (Rhodopygia hinei). What seemed odd with this is that the red colouration covered the sides of the thorax, as well as the abdomen. The other intriguing subject here was a damselfly, the so-called Tropical Sprite (Nehalennia minuta). There is a Nehalennia species in Eastern Europe which I’ve never seen so this was a new genus for me.
There was also some entertaining bird activity on the lake. One bird, a Great Kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus) was flying sorties back and forth between the trees and its nest, which appeared to be effectively on the water’s surface. It must have been feeding chicks in the nest.
There was also a representative of the so-called Lilytrotters, the Jacanas, here. We’ve seen Jacanas in Africa on previous trips but I didn’t realize they were in the Americas. They are fascinating birds with enormous feet that allow them to walk over floating vegetation without sinking into the surface. This colourful chap is a Northern Jacana (Jacana spinosa).
Playtime was over and we needed to hit the road. Part way to our destination Mr. Leader took a short side trip to a restaurant for lunch. The restaurant is known for its local population of iguanas, which live in the trees alongside the building. We ordered lunch first and then I wandered out onto what I’d call a veranda. I was slightly taken aback to see, wandering towards me along the veranda, a fine looking specimen of an iguana.
As we neared our destination, I was very surprised when we lost any vestige of tarmac and continued our journey on, well, not gravel tracks but tracks made of stone and rocks with a much larger granularity. Some of the gradients gave me pause but our little Toyota rental car seemed to cope admirably. I must say that Mr. Leader drove with circumspection and well within its capability. This was no time for heroics.
Our destination sounded like something out of a Clint Eastwood movie: Santo Domingo. It looked even more like an Eastwood movie set when we finally found our accommodation; it was a wooden building with a corrugated iron roof and looked initially like a hill-billy shack. This was a Wi-Fi free environment. It was also a privacy-free environment with three beds in what was essentially one room, though one bed was partially screened off. My bed had no headboard so the pillow would have disappeared over the back; we had to engineer a solution using a bench seat twisted around as a headboard substitute. (You can see Mr. Leader’s Ikea wardrobe moth trap on the left.) It was a bit of a shock at first but the veranda being up at tree level was very pleasant. It would have suited a Jack Daniels and Coke – skip the corncob pipe, though – but I made do with some red wine instead, since I had no cold beer.
Santo Domingo has no refuse collection so we were instructed to take our rubbish and recycling away with us when we left. I know not why there was no waste collection since a school bus was parked in one street so they could obviously get those in and out of town. Town?
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