The Rubber Tree

In Costa Rica the family Moraceae has two species of rubber trees. The (Castilla tunu) and the (Castilla elastica) in the Peninsula de Osa. This tree is one of the most common trees in the Lapa Rios Reserve located between the Golfo Dulce and Corcovado National Park. You can find it both in the primary and the secondary rainforest.

In the past this tree was used to manufacture al kind of rubber products. Nowadays most of the rubber used is sintethic rubber. The saps of this tree witch is called latex, is extracted by making an zigzag incision in the bark of the tree, this latex is boiled and mixed with sulphur. The tree itself also attracts a lot of birds and animals in times when it produces fruits.

Special Lapa Rios Cooking Lesson

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Starting this year, upon many requests and suggestions of former guests, we decided to share a bit of our culinary skill with our guests. Staying at Lapa Rios is a unique experience, not only because of the amazing views and the different creatures you will see while you’re here, but also the different tastes you will be treated to and specially because of the people you will get to know. To connect some more with these ingredients, last night we had a special Lapa Rios cooking lesson in our restaurant area. Two of our kitchen members, Olger and Diego, who normally do not speak that much with our guests took this opportunity to practice their English, while 6 of our guests combined learning Spanish vocabulary with typical cuisine. Together they prepared two very Costa Rican dishes, ceviche and picadillo de papa. It was a great success to see our staff teaching their daily tasks to some of our guests who truly enjoyed this exchange, finishing with, of course, a tasty bite!

a Tayra?

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What a great wildlife picture from Lapa Rios! This is a Tayra (Eira barbara) or Tolomuco in Spanish. This mustelid (weasel family) is sometimes confused by guests with a yaguarundi or even a panther, but in fact is much smaller growing to a size of about 60 cm, not including a 45 cm long tail and reaching a maximum weight of 16 pounds. The Tolomuco is not that common but every so often our guest have the treat to see one, especially on the Osa Trail where this picture was taken. This beautiful animal both diurnal and nocturnal is a great climber that feeds on pretty much anything from fruit to rodents, invertebrates, eggs and honey.

Pig-like Rodent on the Ridge Trail

This Pig-like rodent is Costa Rica’s largest rodent. It measuring up to 75 cm in length and can weigh up to 12 kg. It feeds on seeds, roots, fruits and tubers. The Paca or "Tepezcuintle" as we call it here has traditionally been one of the favorite game meat for its excellent taste but the excessive hunting and loss of habitat threatens its survival as a species. The Osa Peninsula and Lapa Rios Reserve is one of the few places where it is still common. The fact that they are nocturnal and hides in borrows during the day makes it difficult for our guests to see, unless they go on the Night Walk. This picture was taken on the Ridge Trail showing a mother and its little one.

A Puma on our Medicine Trail!

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A few months ago, we have started to install camera traps in the Lapa Rios reserve to support the ongoing research on large cats in the Osa Peninsula. The picture below was taken on the medicine trail a few days ago of a Puma. This is a female in the picture, but we have also recorded a very big male around. It’s almost impossible to spot this animals in the wild, but the constant presence of their tracks in the mud and the pictures like this from the camera traps show us that this guys might be more abundant than we had previously thought throw out Osa peninsula.

During her recent visit at Lapa Rios, Karen Lewis, the co-owner of the lodge met up with Alfredo Rosales again. Alfredo was the mastermind behind the construction of the suita palm roofs at Lapa Rios during its construction in 1993. During this encounter, old stories were shared and remembered. Alfredo, despite being well over 80 years old, still is involved in the repair work of the Lapa Rios Suita roofs. Thanks for your support and we hope to have you with us for many more years!

A curious visitor: a three toed sloth!

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Sitting on the deck at Lapa Rios, we had a curious and quite active visitor this morning: a three toed sloth. In the 1000 acre rainforest reserve around Lapa Rios our guests can observe both the three and the two toed sloths. It is also not uncommon for guests during a 4 night stay to see all four species of monkeys that live in Costa Rica. Howler monkeys (if you don’t see them, you will hear them for sure), Squirrel monkeys, Spider monkeys and Whiteface monkeys. The other day a guest told us that he has seen more wildlife sitting on our deck at Lapa Rios than during the rest of his two week stay in all of Costa Rica.

More pictures of the sloth here.