JULY 2008 VISIT: (Pitilla Biogical Research Station - FIRST 19 PHOTOS) Finally, after years of wanting to explore this section of Guanacaste National Park, my friend Willy and I made the trip to Pitilla on the eastern side of the park. Unlike our visit Cacao Biological Station on the other side of the mountain range, we did not have the good fortune of meeting students or researchers. It was ghostly vacant. So Willy and I meandered the rainforest trails taking on anything that moved... insects, frogs, monkeys and of course my dogs. :)

AUGUST 2004 VISIT: Deb, Puppy and I returned to Guanacaste National in August. The park is just too beautiful to resist visiting again. The red centipede that we found on the trail has become one of my favorite digital photos ever. The centipede itself, being camera shy, coiled up making it an even cooler shot for the macro setting. This time there was a group of 15 students working on different research projects at the Cacao Biological Station. They were shocked to see us there. Guanacaste National Park is apparently rarely visited by tourists. I climbed solo to the peak of Volcano Cacao in 2 hours, sweaty, drenched and wind-beaten but thoroughly exhilirated as you can tell from the unflattering photo. :)

SEPTEMBER 2003 TRIP: This was a combo tour of three parks: Santa Rosa National Park, Junquillal National Wildlife Refuge and Guanacaste National Park. Jennifer (my secretary), her boyfriend Cristian, Deb and I camped Saturday night at Playa Naranjo in Santa Rosa the first night. A racoon entertained us attempting to tear open our neighbor's hanging bag of food. There were bunches of surfer bums at the campsite. That's no wonder as the surf at Roca Bruja, just off Playa Naranjo is simply rad. The next night we camped at Playa Junquillal. The ants were a menace chowing on the feet of those wearing just sandals. We were told by park rangers that it would be exceedingly difficult to make it all the way up into Guanacaste National Park during the rainy season, but we did! Four-wheel driving is soooo much fun! The park itself is rarely visited by tourists. It's more of a researcher hang-out. We hiked up to the Cacao Biological Station and had a grand butterfly tour by two Tico researchers. Funded through some bigwig professor at the University of PA, the aim of the research is to gather as much information as possible on the hundreds of butterfly species. Finally you'll see some photos of Costa Rica's September 15th Independence Day celebration in La Cruz.