While our hotel in San Jose was the best  yet, the Internet didn’t work too well so this is covering our last few days in Costa Rica.

We spent Saturday enjoying the grounds and food at the Arenal Kioro hotel in the morning and then a 3 hour drive to San Jose. We arrived at the best hotel yet – the Marriot. It is really more of a resort and spa with 3 pools, a driving range, spa, 2 restaurants and a couple of bars. We enjoyed a lovely meal at the Peruvian restaurant. Here are a couple of picture around the hotel. 

    
    
   
The next day we went on a 10 hour tour of the rainforest, complete with a tree top tram ride. Like the rain forest in Monteverde it was green. We had an excellent tour guide who took us on a walk through the forest. You cannot go alone due to the danger from snakes (if I had known that ahead I might not have gone at all). Luckily we did not see any snakes. 

   
This is a huge vine

   
A big Palm seed pod

We also saw a few critters like this tapir

   
 
The tapir is related to the anteater but looks like an overgrown pig. It eats bugs (which there are a lot of) and plants. It is a noisy eater!

A turtle

  
There are lots of ants like this bullet ant, the biggest ant in Central America. Called the bullet ant because the bite feels like you have been shot.

  
Then there were the leaf cutter ants. Each ant carries a leaf and another ant. The second ant is a lookout for predators. The leaves are taken to a nest where they are stored underground. The fungus that grows on the leaves is food for the young in the nest. It is like a bee hive with a queen (who lives about 25 years), worker ants who collect the leaves (females), a few males kept around to entertain the queen, and guard ants. A new nest is created when the queen selects 3 eggs to make new queens. They then move to another area to create a new nest. Along the walkway, up and down the trees are leaves walking in a line! They have been doing this for so long along the same pathways that there are very distinct paths that you can easily see. We saw the same thing in Arenal.

 

  
   
Then we came to the nest. It is 9 feet deep and covered an area of about 20 feet square.

   
 
We took a tram ride through the forest which went one way close to the middle and the other way though the tree tops, a different perspective.

   
    
A monkey ladder

   
The tram was basically a platform with benches on it.

  
   
   
I am sending this from the San Jose airport and will finish this blog when we get to Houston. Time to board the plane.