Into the Jungle

Tarzan would love Tortuguero.  It's his kind of place.  It lies in the jungle along Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. There are plenty of giant vines to swing from, canals to swim in, monkeys to befriend, critters to tame and another King of the Jungle – the Jaguar – to compete with.  There are no roads and therefore no cars.  Everything comes in by boat.  And the wildlife is up close and personal.

We came to the Mawamba Lodge as a group, first by private bus from Costa Rica’s capital,San Jose, then by boat when the road ended.  All our activities were done as a group too.  Some web commenter said the program was too rigid; that there wasn't enough down time.  And, oh God, there was no air conditioning.  But the pool was more for cooling off between canal cruises or nature hikes than someplace to work on your tan.  This is the tropics; there's no lying in the sun!  Lying in a shaded hammock along the canal between tours, long neck in hand?  Oh yeah.  

Besides, my group wasn't the lay around type.  Except for me, everyone was homogenous in age – they could all be my kids - and diverse in culture.  We had couples from Portugal, Spain, France and California, and one other solo traveler: a Dutch girl.   And everyone was multilingual.  The other Americans spoke English, French and Spanish.  The Portuguese couple spoke Spanish too.  The French and Spanish couples both spoke English.  The Dutch girl ... she spoke lots of languages.  And me, I spoke American dollars because everyone understands American dollars. 

Our tour boats were never more than half full, so there was no jostling over seating or big hats blocking the views.  And everyone was courteous.  If someone rode in front first, they'd move further back the next time.  Fran (Francisco), the Spaniard was always making sure I got a good picture of this iguana or that frog.  Tom and Lisa (the Californians) were great birders and quick to point out exotic spoonbills or toucans.  And Irene, the Dutch girl, would share her telephoto lens for looks at far off sloths and howler monkeys.  

    

When you come and visit the Mawamba Lodge, only the manicured lawns distinguish where the jungle ends and the eco-lodge comfort begins.  The wildlife ignores such boundaries.   At first, my group was snap, snap, snapping pictures of all the iguanas.  After awhile, we were chasing them around camp to see who could get them to run on their hind legs.  It was great fun!

And it wasn’t just iguanas.  On land, we saw three-toed sloths, basilisk lizards, poison dart frogs, river otters, salt water crocodiles, and howler and spider monkeys.  During our night walk, we saw evidence of either Baird's tapirs or Javelinas.  And there were giant spiders, tiny scorpions and enough snakes to make all of us watch where we put our hands.  We didn’t see any Jaguars, but were told to “stay in camp at night” just to be safe.  We also didn’t see any manatees.  But our motor-powered boats were prohibited from venturing into their sectioned-off canal habitats.

In the air, there were different kinds of toucans, trogons, Montezuma oropendulas, parrots, herons, egrets, kingfishers, anhingas, jacanas, grebes, spoonbills, hawks and kites.  There are over 300 different birds in Tortuguero.  I can’t even come close to naming all I saw.

But what really made Tortuguero special was Steven.  He was a guide-pool sensation.  A native Costa Rican and college-educated biologist, Steven gave extensive bilingual talks on the flora and fauna.  He went the extra mile in every aspect – jumping out of the boat onto a log to spook a green basilisk into running across water for us, knocking down a tree-topping chocolate nut so we could all have a taste, finding the beautifully colored dart frogs and coaxing a boat captain into muddying-up his outdrive to get us to his favorite spot for seeing the illusive Roseate Spoonbill.  Steven only does about one Tortuguero tour per a month.  We scored.