A few of us met for an optional early morning walk around the lodge before breakfast.  Shortly after breakfast our group departed for the Central Pacific Coast stopping around the Cerro de la Muerte area.  Cerro de la Muerte is the highest point in the Costa Rican section of the Inter-American Highway.  Its name means "Mountain of Death" since before the highway people had to cross the mountains on foot or on horseback for a three or four day journey.  Many of the ill prepared voyageurs died from the cold and rain.   Fortunately for us we didn't have to worry about rain or cold as we  had a beautiful travel day and the scenery was spectacular.

I don't remember the name of this flower but I thought it was pretty.  

A close up of the pretty purple section of the plant.

We found these flowers along the river.

On the route we stopped to look at the view of an active volcano in the background- you can see the steam rising up if you look closely.

We stopped in the mountains to admire the scenery and go on a short hike  just off of the Inter-American Highway.  The clouds were amazing.

As you can tell I was very taken with the scenery.  It was such a perfect day.

On route to the Pacific we stopped off at a few places, one of them being  a road side restaurant with some bird feeders.  Here is  a Speckled Tanager.

I'm thinking a Golden-Hoosed Tanager

A Blue-Gray Tanager?  As you noticed I'm not up on my birds but hope to improve.  It was hard enough focusing on them from so far away  let alone  memorize what kind they were!

We stopped at a typical road-side fruit stand.   

A close up shot of some bananas.

Around 4.30 we arrived at the hotel on the coast.  This image was just to show my room for the next two nights.  It was very comfortable.  I wasn't sure what the point of the netting was since it didn't go all the way around so perhaps it was for decorative purposes.    Fortunately I didn't notice any bugs.  It was  warm here but  I still managed fine without putting on the air conditioning in the room.   

While I was waiting for my luggage I took a few shots around the hotel gardens which were lovely.