Today we visited Refugio de Vida Silvestre Junquillal. (Junquillal Bay Wildife Refuge) It’s an animal refuge and also a campground. Junquillal is a type of plant that is very common here. They are the home of Howler and Capuchin Monkeys as well as Coatis, Iguanas and several types of nesting Turtles.
At the entrance to the park there were a few picnic tables as well as kayaks for rent. We saw a ton of Iguanas here. They would sometimes scamper into their holes if we got too close.
The beach here was beautiful and we had it to ourselves. It was about 2 km long. We walked down to one end and then spent about an hour boulder hopping.
The Brown Pelican is common a long the coast. It is fun to watch them dive into the ocean to catch fish.
We passed a small river with a few different kinds of birds. I identified one as a Black-necked Stilt.
The plant life was quite different than what we experienced on previous trips. It seemed quite dry here. We saw several kinds of cacti and the land seemed more barren. This is also the dry season.
We headed back down the beach in the other direction and then got in our car to go look for somewhere to eat.
Heading back towards our hotel, we found a cute restaurant called The Naked Indian. They had some interesting gardens and different places to sit. It was named after a native tree. The food was very good – Mike had ribs and I had nachos.
After lunch we sat on our patio to read. It was still too windy to sit at the pool.
These birds were a bit of a nuisance in the eating area- always trying to steal food, but very pretty. This White-throated Magpie-Jay is similar to the Blue Jay we have here in Canada.
Leave a Reply