I have been a little bit sick the last few days, so after the intensity of the rafting opted for a more relaxing day yesterday - working on my sun burn by the pool by day, and marching through the woods at night in pursuit of frogs. The whole day worked out rather well, although the evening wasn't the best for seeing frogs, mainly because it had been dry during the day (implying that good frog viewing and good sun bathing weather are somewhat mutually incompatible here, but anyway...)
At 7pm I set off into the woods next to the hostel for my private tour with the guide, and within about 5 minutes he had found our first tree frog. This rather cool green thing with red eyes and feet is the poster boy of Costa Rican tourism, although is somewhat smaller than I thought he would be. He seemed pretty happy to sit still for us and not too traumatised by being made to pose on a stick. The guide found him very quickly, I think partly through experience leading him to where the frog normally hangs out. There was then an interesting exchange of human-made croaks and frog-made responses before we managed to locate exactly where he was and get him onto my hand.
A few minutes later we found another tree frog, although this one didn't seem so comfortable under the bright lights of my SLR, so we left him alone after a few minutes.
And then finally we found this larger thing, sitting next to the hole he lives in. I cant remember what type of frog he is, other than hes much more shy than the others and the photos involved creeping up very slowly on my hands and knees, edging ever closer, before he jumped back in his hole.
