While in Costa Rica we would go to new locations every few days to try and find new species of birds. Every trip was a new adventure! Most of the roads in Costa Rica are only wide enough for 2 cars and are gravel. Since the country is very mountainous and hilly many of the roads were very curvy and always seemed to have amazing views. Several of the roads we traveled were so high up in the mountains that you could see all the way into Nicaragua. The roads in the cities were packed with cars, and every few minutes a dirt bike would squeeze in-between the many cars that were stuck in traffic. The main highways in the cities were the only ones paved. It was also very interesting to see what the people on the sides of the roads, and in the road, were selling. They would walk right up to the car in traffic carrying fruits and things they had made to sell.

One night after dark we were riding down a dirt road and a road slide had occurred because of the rain. We had to stop the bus, after trying to ram through the mud a few times and wait on a tractor from someone that lived nearby to clear the road. Little did we know the inconvenience ended up being one of the most memorable things from the trip. While we were waiting for the road to be cleared we looked out of the windows into the pitch black fields and you could see lights flashing. The flashing lights were blinking so fast they looked like strobe lights. It turns out the flashing lights were thousands of lightning bugs! On many of the excursions, we would pull over on the side of the road just to see what kind of animals we could spot in the jungle. We also passed over a bridge that had a river that ran under it that was so blue it looked like toilet bowl cleaner. The water was this color because of the large amounts of aluminum found in the ground at the top of the mountains that the river ran from. The roads of Costa Rica were even beautiful and no matter where we went there was always something beautiful to look at.