And the birding begins!

What a FANTASTIC start to our Thanksgiving morning .... 50 feet off of the veranda we all spotted a Sunbittern!  Now .... we are learning as we go, but we were immediately told by the hosts that to see one of these is EXTREMELY RARE.

The thing about this bird is that if you see him open his wings, it is like a sunset on each wing!  I found a great website explaining more.  The video on the below page is great.

http://www.10000birds.com/the-sunbitterns-of-costa-rica.htm


Then we looked up and saw two Toucans!  It was too far away to get a good picture, but it was just SO EXCITING!


UPDATE:  Saturday, November 26th at 6:30PM

Well ... best laid plans.

Because we couldn't get online and do the blog, below is what we wrote, offline the next day about our Thanksgiving holiday.  We are grateful to share this with you now.

Thanksgiving

… just couldn’t have been more unique and memorable. 

We certainly did choose the right place to stay.  The Central Valley of Costa Rica was the ONLY Yellow Alert zone; everywhere else was Red.  We send healing energy to all those affected by Hurricane Otto and pray that they get back to normal very soon. 

This lodge and location is also perfect due to the lack of bothersome bugs and wonderful temperature.  Our room is open air, with both screened and unscreened windows.  It actually feels a lot like staying in a fancy tent, similar to our experiences in Tanzania.  The two rushing rivers create a constant supply of sound, and if only we could SEE the source of all of the insect and bird sounds.  Of course, if we COULD see everything living out there, we may not feel so comfortable!

We lost our power around 12:45 PM, the same time as the 7.2 earthquake hit on the Pacific side of El Salvador.  It is reported that it was felt in Costa Rica, but we didn’t feel it.  However, maybe that is what caused the large tree, on the other side of the river, to fall over the power lines and knock out the power and Internet to the entire sector.  It was quite the sound when the steel cable, which held the power line above our lodge and the river, snapped. 

Thankfully the river crossing was low enough that Josh could drive into town to report the outage.  The power company was already aware and very quickly we heard chain saws and saw work crews starting their work.  Even Josh and Ingrid (our hosts) were surprised that the work started so quickly! 

It gets dark very quickly here and without power, we had to improvise.  Wearing a headlamp, Dennis prepared special Southwest beans, cut up a local cheddar cheese block, served chips and salsa, and then opened a bottle of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon.

Right up our alley either here or at home!  Taking this out to our communal table on the veranda, Quentin, Clare, Ingrid and Josh did the same and we started our feast by candlelight. 

Our power came on around 9:00 PM and it was greeted with cheers from all, but then followed by a quick switch off of the lights.  It was just too special of a moment to ruin a beautiful evening with electricity. 

So once again, Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for so many things.  And this year especially, to be reminded again that there is very little that we actually NEED to be happy.   

Well, except for us Computer Nerds .... we do love our Internet.  It was Saturday morning, when we were leaving for our next destination, that the Internet connection worked again.