Tag Archives: Travel and Tourism

Counting Birds in Tambor Bay

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It’s before 6am in Tambor Bay, Costa Rica. The sun has just risen and the air is calm and cool, the sky a pinkish haze dusted with a few low clouds reflecting in the nearly silent bay; silent that is, all but for the songs and calls of hundreds of species of birds that inhabit the area.

group_birdcount2On Friday and Saturday, January 10th and 11th, Tambor Bay Birders association hosted one of their many bird counts in the area.  With a regular base of about 12 birders in the association, they form groups with other members and volunteers who then split up and explore trails surrounding the bay to identify and record the names of any birds they spot. We had the honor of sharing in the count on Saturday, setting out from the Tambor Tropical Hotel with a group of about 20 participants; a combination of professionals, avid bird watchers and novice bird lovers both from the area and abroad who excitedly point out any fluttering wings or brightly colored flying objects. After a day of meandering through various trails the groups reconvened to determine the collective results of their findings. In this case the count totaled nearly 200 bird species, ranging from more common ones such as the Long-tailed Manakin, to more rare species such as the Mangrove Hummingbird endemic to only the Pacific of Costa Rica.

group_birdcountTambor Bay Birders not only host these bird counts for reports to the Costa Rica Ornithological Association for official records, but also for local educational purposes. With a noble cause to promote education about birds, nature and conservation, the aim of the association is to involve local residents and students, as well as visitors and volunteers, to help spur greater interest and awareness about Costa Rica’s biodiversity and its valuable place in our world. If you’re interested in joining the association on their next count, you can follow their Facebook page here. You don’t have to be a professional or have your own equipment necessarily (although a good pair of binoculars does help), just bring your curiosity, keen eyes… and of course a little bug spray. 🙂

*Special thanks to Juan Carlos Cruz, Nick Hawkins and the rest of the Tambor Bay Birders for inviting JC Aguirre of JC’s Journeys to participate in this count.

*Be sure to check out our bird watching tour Bird Lover’s Morning.

www.jcsjourneys.com

The Experience of Living Abroad, in Just 1 Day

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So you’re not a student anymore and you don’t have a semester to spend living abroad. Who really has the ability to do that anymore anyway? It’s challenging, even if you are a student, let alone an adult with family, career and other responsibilities. But let’s face it, living abroad for study or other reason has rewards and lessons that are hard to replicate by any other means. If you’re one of the many who wants to experience those things, but you’re short on time (and/or cash for that matter), don’t worry! You can still experience local living in Costa Rica, even if you have as little as one day.

organicfarm_costarica

Finca Integral Didactica

What you’re probably looking for are those experiences that make you feel like you’re in a different  place. You want to see what a typical home is like (one of my personal curiosities when I travel), taste real local food, and meet people from a different culture. Vacationing may not always feel like it allows for such experiences, with all the obligatory water sports and whatnot, but you can certainly change that. A ‘tour’ doesn’t have to be just transportation to the topmost attraction that showed up on your TripAdvisor search of things-to-do (don’t get me wrong, I use this method too ;)). With a little extra research, you can find the ones that offer a bit more perspective on aspects of regional and local culture, and allow you to engage in activities that make you feel like you’re a part of someone’s home or family for a day. Usually, the investment in a professionally guided tour will do just that. You’ll get someone who knows the area, knows the people in it, and has greater insight on the unique characteristics that may make it different from where you’re from, thus highlighting things that you’d likely find out from living there versus just taking a vacation there.

We’re trying to create that kind of opportunity for visitors here in Montezuma, perhaps like yourself, who want the experiences one would gain living abroad for a period of time. Offering a peek into local living is a way for visitors to better connect with the country and region they are visiting, even if they have very little time, or simply want to enhance their tropical vacation with something a little more educational and enriching. We keep adding more components to our Let’s Get Local tour too, such as a visit to Finca Integral Didáctica (a local organic farm) because the truth is we keep finding more interesting things in the area we never knew were there, and we live here! So we hope it will provide a few things you may not have gotten to see otherwise. It may not be a semester or summer abroad, but we’d like to think it can still be rewarding and offer valuable exchanges between visitors and residents, just like living here would be.

www.jcsjourneys.com