Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge, Costa Rica

Please see the first post on Costa Rica for important details about this post.

At the time we were in Puerto Viejo, the Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge was all private land with trails leading through it and which almost required a guide due to the lack of signs. It seems that as of 2008, the refuge is now a national wildlife refuge with an entrance fee and (hopefully) better maintained trails. In any case, we hired a guide who was absolutely amazing (his name is Tino), could find birds by the sounds they made, and had probably memorized just about every inch of that refuge.

The diversity of wildlife in the refuge was extraordinary. Birds were everywhere and I was even able to get several photographs of hummingbirds:

Besides birds we saw poisonous frogs and snakes, sand crabs, howler monkeys, and interesting mushrooms: