What is one to do with a late morning? Our scheduled kayak tour had a start time of 10:30, and with the sun rising at 5:00 each morning, that left a lot of time to kill. Ergo, the parentals and I wound up walking down the hill to look for wildlife. Right off the bat, we ran into a troop of white-headed capuchins milling about in an empty lot, followed immediately by a troop of squirrel monkeys running across a rooftop, concluded by a brown throated sloth taking his sweet time doing what sloths do best: lounging. So basically, in fifteen minutes, we saw more wildlife than we’d seen since arriving. Fortunately, it was just a taste of what was to come.
After a bus ride to the river mouth, we boarded some kayaks and paddled out into the mangroves, where the water never seemed to get above three feet deep. A group of friendly capuchins greeted us, jumping on a nearby tour boat. A small group of less friendly capuchins appeared a short way down, apparently a gang of outcasts. Yes, the monkeys have gangs, except that in the mangrove, it’s pretty much the Muds and the Drips. Anyway…
We stopped off at Gilligan’s Island. No, really, that’s what it’s called. While hard to tell that it was an actual island just by looking at it, the two lines of perfectly spaced palm trees gave it a definite Hollywood feel. Deceptive moss covered the island, forming hills that weren’t really hills, crawling with spiders that weren’t really spiders (sand crabs). We rested here a bit, while I watched a puffer fish browse through the shallows, and then we turned down a side river. There, we dodged boats and roots and encountered the rare silky anteater and less rare tamandua, the inconspicuous rainbow boa and the more conspicuous black iguana, all the while succumbing to the scorching rays of the sun, which penetrated our screens with ease.
Fortunately, the company treated everyone to a scrumptious lunch of chicken, rice, and tamarind juice, and then we had another half day to figure out what to do with ourselves. My brother and I decided to try another night tour and see if we could have more luck than with the last one, but since it wasn’t for another couple of hours, I decided to go for a walk to look for the sloth again. The trek took me down past an empty tree, and after covering twice the distance from before, I ended up, instead, at a narrow path through a market area. Finally able to speak nothing but Spanish without facing assumptions about my Gringo-ness, I had a marvelous time browsing the wares, asking about them, and even getting some grammatical assistance. One fellow even custom arranged a shark-tooth necklace for me and threw in a keychain as a perk.
When 5:30 arrived, my brother and I made our way to the Si Como No Wildlife Reserve, which at first seemed like a zoo. Fortunately, that was only half true. There were a few ponds set up to attract frogs, and our guide knew exactly how to take the extra step. Understanding every frog call, he was able to literally call frogs out of the undergrowth: tink frogs, glass frogs, rain frogs, red-eyed tree frogs, gladiator frogs, bullfrogs… the works, even once the downpour started.
We stepped into the reptile lagoon, which held a lot in common with Jurassic Park: night, metal enclosures, torrential downpour, giant, man-eating reptiles that actually roared… Oh yes. The top dog, er, crocodile, was in this enclosed area because it had a reputation as a man-eater. Needless to say, none of us were in a swimming mood. The best part of the tour, however, came from learning how to locate certain animals in the wild, such as the tent making bat, which creates incisions in leaves to hide under them, and the eyelash viper, which curls around heliconia flowers, waiting for hummingbirds to pass by.
After the night tour, we met up with the parentals for our last big dinner in Costa Rica, at Rico Tico, where we watched a spectacular lightning storm over the ocean, and toasted a successful trip. The chicken burritos were excellent, though when my brother ordered the Banana Flambé, things got crazy as the waiter brought out two serving dishes full of rum, lit it on fire, and poured the blue, burning alcohol all over the dessert… and the table… and the floor, all to Harry Belafonte’s Day-O. Whoosh!
After a bus ride to the river mouth, we boarded some kayaks and paddled out into the mangroves, where the water never seemed to get above three feet deep. A group of friendly capuchins greeted us, jumping on a nearby tour boat. A small group of less friendly capuchins appeared a short way down, apparently a gang of outcasts. Yes, the monkeys have gangs, except that in the mangrove, it’s pretty much the Muds and the Drips. Anyway…
We stopped off at Gilligan’s Island. No, really, that’s what it’s called. While hard to tell that it was an actual island just by looking at it, the two lines of perfectly spaced palm trees gave it a definite Hollywood feel. Deceptive moss covered the island, forming hills that weren’t really hills, crawling with spiders that weren’t really spiders (sand crabs). We rested here a bit, while I watched a puffer fish browse through the shallows, and then we turned down a side river. There, we dodged boats and roots and encountered the rare silky anteater and less rare tamandua, the inconspicuous rainbow boa and the more conspicuous black iguana, all the while succumbing to the scorching rays of the sun, which penetrated our screens with ease.
Fortunately, the company treated everyone to a scrumptious lunch of chicken, rice, and tamarind juice, and then we had another half day to figure out what to do with ourselves. My brother and I decided to try another night tour and see if we could have more luck than with the last one, but since it wasn’t for another couple of hours, I decided to go for a walk to look for the sloth again. The trek took me down past an empty tree, and after covering twice the distance from before, I ended up, instead, at a narrow path through a market area. Finally able to speak nothing but Spanish without facing assumptions about my Gringo-ness, I had a marvelous time browsing the wares, asking about them, and even getting some grammatical assistance. One fellow even custom arranged a shark-tooth necklace for me and threw in a keychain as a perk.
When 5:30 arrived, my brother and I made our way to the Si Como No Wildlife Reserve, which at first seemed like a zoo. Fortunately, that was only half true. There were a few ponds set up to attract frogs, and our guide knew exactly how to take the extra step. Understanding every frog call, he was able to literally call frogs out of the undergrowth: tink frogs, glass frogs, rain frogs, red-eyed tree frogs, gladiator frogs, bullfrogs… the works, even once the downpour started.
We stepped into the reptile lagoon, which held a lot in common with Jurassic Park: night, metal enclosures, torrential downpour, giant, man-eating reptiles that actually roared… Oh yes. The top dog, er, crocodile, was in this enclosed area because it had a reputation as a man-eater. Needless to say, none of us were in a swimming mood. The best part of the tour, however, came from learning how to locate certain animals in the wild, such as the tent making bat, which creates incisions in leaves to hide under them, and the eyelash viper, which curls around heliconia flowers, waiting for hummingbirds to pass by.
After the night tour, we met up with the parentals for our last big dinner in Costa Rica, at Rico Tico, where we watched a spectacular lightning storm over the ocean, and toasted a successful trip. The chicken burritos were excellent, though when my brother ordered the Banana Flambé, things got crazy as the waiter brought out two serving dishes full of rum, lit it on fire, and poured the blue, burning alcohol all over the dessert… and the table… and the floor, all to Harry Belafonte’s Day-O. Whoosh!
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