Thanks to the combined efforts of the local cockerels and howler monkeys I was awake at 5:45, knowing that sunrise would be at 5:58 (thanks to the handy Sun Seeker app on my phone) I decided to head out for a walk with the camera, the sunrise from the hotel wasn’t the best, It is always a good thing to be up and about at that time of day for the good light, so knowing the sun would be positioned well, I took a stroll to the main beach in town, which was already fairly busy with fishermen, swimmers and joggers!

When I got back, Jen was just getting up, so we had breakfast at the hotel (Huevos Rancheros – yum!) and decided that we would get the public bus to Cabo Blanco national park. I’d never been on a Central American bus before, but it seems that posted times are guidelines, you can get on or off the bus anywhere on the route and you pay the driver as you get off the bus.

We were dropped off at the end of the drive to the park and after about a 10 minute walk we got to the ranger hut, to be told that the walk to the beach and back would take 5 hours, which we didn’t really fancy, so we opted for the hour loop instead, which actually took us 2 hours with stopping etc.

The first animals we saw were bats hanging in a crevice in a tree, which were annoyingly a bit too dark to photograph. Then trekking through the jungle we saw plenty of butterflies, including the Blue Morpho, which with electric blue colouring and a 15cm wingspan were both beautiful and easy to spot (also impossible to photograph as when they land they fold their wings & blend in with the jungle). The last 1km of the route proved to be the best for wildlife, with a lizard basking on a branch right next to the trails and a family of monkeys in the trees making a lot of noise feeding, then eventually coming down to only a few metres above our heads.

Having seen the monkeys we deemed the trip a success and headed back to the park entrance to catch the bus back to Montezuma, hearing, then seeing 4 Howler Monkeys on the way. The bus was about 20 minutes late, but that didn’t seem to surprise the locals who were also waiting, when we got back into Montezuma we treated ourselves to an ice cream, dropped our bags at the hotel, then went to the beach to relax after a tiring but enjoyable morning.

It was good to get in the sea again, there wasn’t much swell, but enough to body surf a bit, I can’t wait to get on a surf board in Malpais! While we were drying off in the sun I noticed a big splash near the horizon, then again but also noticed the huge tail causing the splash, after a day of searching for wildlife we’d managed to see whales without going anywhere!