my husband, being the kind and tolerant soul that he is, asked me
where i wanted to go to celebrate our anniversary. even though
TODAY is the big day, we are looking at possibly travelling this
december for five days (no more than seven), since that is my
christmas vacation. i have never been out of the continental USA,
except for trips to canada and a brief foray into mexico when i was
a wee child, and neither one of us has taken a vacation since our
honeymoon ten loooong years ago. so, after a moment's thought, the
first thing that lept into my mind was costa rica. would this be a
good place to go this december to see lots of cool birds? or is there
another, even more wonderful place to go to see birds? while i am
concerned about cost, i expect that we will live cheaply where ever
we end up going (is it safe to go camping in costa rica? or will the
little beasties bite us?). our main goal is to go see birds. i expect
that we will spend the majority of our time birding and hopefully
we would be able to interact with some of the local residents as
well.

so...let me put the question to you more succinctly; if you could go
birding anywhere in the world for five days this december, where would
you go and why?

thanks for your help.

deborah wisti-peterson
nyneve at u.washington.edu