Costa Rica

From Jan 9 to Jan 23 [plus or minus a day or two on either side] 2009, MChes, Chuckwalla, Pummelo, Beerstraw's older brother and I will be in Costa Rica. We've hired a private bird guide to show us around for a week and then we're going to spend the rest of the time camping in Corcovado National Park ["the most biologically intense place on earth" according to National Geographic].

We will hopefully be sleeping outside for most nights, a good primer for Peru and New Guinea. It's going to be awesome! I can't wait.

Literally.

I'm pretty much just sitting around waiting for it to happen.

But there's a lot to do until then. We have 820 species worth of field marks to memorize, half a dozen books on neotropical ecology to read, tropical camping gear to acquire, vaccinations to receive, a camera and the Nikon 80-400mm VR lens to buy, and many other nouns to verbize.

The original incarnation of this trip was a two-week guided backpacking expedition in August 2008 in the western Amazon basin in Peru. After a huge investment of time planning that trip it pretty much imploded based on cost and safety concerns. Costa Rica will be half the price and much, much safer. And quite possibly birdier too.

So, imagine us with a nealy-3 Chuckwalla, a 16-month Pummelo, a 500mm f4 lens mounted on our antiquated but trusty D100, our tripod, a D200 with the 80-400mm VR mounted on it, a tent, sleeping bags, bug netting, food, field guides, baby backpacks, rain gear, binoculars, and possibly an infrared trigger for the cameras. Not exactly Chris McCandless, but worth it to us.