Outside the gardens

Wilson's and surrounds was pleasant if quiet.  We were by now beginning to feel regularly under-the-weather, so took it a bit easier than we otherwise might have.

During a morning walk around the grounds we saw another Blue-crowned Motmot:

We couldn't go too far as we had to check out and move to a hotel just down the road from the gardens.  The location is like an out-of-town bar come hotel for the local American population by the looks of it.  

The room was pleasant, the kitchenette sparse though we catered for ourselves mostly anyway.  The immediate grounds held some birds though we didn't explore beyond our room much. 

The lack of a mosquito net bothered us especially with the enormous spiders above the bed.  I'd packed a four-poster net which we'd already used a few times (top tip buy one before you travel, you just never know when you'll need it!).  The high ceiling gave me few options but I found a large mossy stick and with this and some tip-toeing I got the thing set-up as you can see here:

As for those spiders Helen wasn't comfortable sharing the room with them, and she normally likes spiders, so I went and got a member of staff.  He shoved the largest one off the roof and it landed in our luggage.  He then collected it in a glass I provided and headed towards the microwave!  We ushered him outside whereupon he threw the tarantula into a bush!   A tarantula!   The second one got the message and climbed on the broom to be moved outside.

Over the next few nights bits of spiders dropped on the net but we didn't see any more giant spiders.  Made us use the light when we got up in the night though!

We did a walk into the forest from Wilson's the following morning, it was very hot as the Gardens don't open to guests until 7 am, but it was worth it.

By now for example I wasn't expecting to see a Brown-billed Scythebill:

The Green Hermit was delight too:

We enjoyed the walk and then enjoyed getting back to our room to rest as we were feeling progressively worse.  We assumed it was the food but by now we were beginning to wonder if it was something else...