I am planning another trip this spring to Costa Rica, at the start of the rainy season. I am thinking about taking a group of 6-10 froggers who are primarily interested in checking out areas of the wild (not some eco-tour stop along the way) in which we find dart frogs such as Auratus, pums, grannies, vittatus, and several rocket frogs and toads. The majority of the trip would be on the Pacific side of CR, the most beautiful side.
The exact itinerary would depend on those who want to tag along and where everyone agrees they'd enjoy checking out. I am thinking about a week long trip with stops at at least one dart frog locale a day, at times more than one.
I can go over a bit of info here via forum discussion and more over the phone or by emails.
The thread is to gage interest in an affordable trip to Costa Rica with the prime intent of 'frogging' , with myself acting as a guide. We can discuss more here or email me @

richfrye@comcast.net


Rich

A couple people have emailed about trip dates. Essentially the rainy season can start around March , but there are about three distinct areas and provinces we will travel to and each can have rain at different times. I am confirming when the rainy season has kicked into full swing in each/all areas over the last few years with friends and family. It is looking like an April trip will ensure we are there after the rainy season has started full swing.

Rich

Rich,
we have been wanting to do a CR and Panama trip with out all the eco tour nonsense (we wanted to do caribbean side). any plans of something like this happening later in the year?
Brian

Hi Brian,
We will be going on the Caribbean side also to check out pums and such , just most of the time spent will be Pacific . I don't plan on doing only a Caribean side trip , as there really is more to do , in more beautiful, safer areas on the Pacific side. We won't be doing any eco-tour traps unless it's on a day we all agree to do our own things and that's on someone's personal list.
Anyway, if Carib pums are what you are interested in, we'll be seeing those also.


Rich

ok, will there be anything later you may have planned in the year? march we have a new magazine ad that will be coming out and we'll need to take care of customers. we really want to do a trip like this and having a guide that is on the same interest level as us is invaluable not to mention impossible to find.

Optimally I'd like to go in April and then again later in August-ish (but the spring trip IS happening, the latter trip, possibly). Last year I wanted to go twice also, but when I checked late Oct- early Nov (close to my birthday) it was already drying up and the rainy season was gone. A friend who has property there said he had a great time then, but saw almost no frogs.
An experienced guide goes a long way towards safety, access to private property and actually seeing stuff we are looking for. Understandably , many of the property owners do not want strangers they do not trust tramping through their virgin forrest. One of my friends down there has picture worthy property that puts most Nat. Geo. stuff to shame. He's on the top edge of a dormant volcano and you can see about 100 miles of Pac beach from his property.
One thing to note, on the Pac side especially, you are almost never without web access. Cell phones, free wi-fi and web cafes are everwhere. Cash stations and banks are also easy where we will stay. So calls, checking emails and doing work via a good web connection is a daily doable. If you want or need such things.

A few pics. Nothing great. I'm keeping the really good ones (especially frog pics) for the new book coming out.

Rich

Rich you temp me with this trip!