To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect when we landed in Liberia all those days ago.

Costa Rica wasn’t on my short list of places to go — Iceland and Andorra were ahead of it — and neither of us spoke any Spanish.

I was too busy to do much research on the country — save for pick up a few phrases like “No hablo español” and “¿Dónde está el baño?” — and we didn’t prepare much for our first trip to Central America.

So I was a bit, well, worried.

Turns out, not knowing much — meaning, not having any expectations — worked out. We could learn about Costa Rica as we experienced it, open to what it had to offer. We had no preconceived ideas, no false hopes.

So we weren’t disappointed.

Here’s how we spent our last day in Costa Rica:

Birds

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Every morning Mark slices plantains for the many birds that live in the forest surrounding the property. The larger bird — the clay-colored thrush — is the national bird, partly because of its importance to Costa Rica's harvest season; it's mentioned in folk songs and stories.

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