EC-Rider Travels

We voted to do a second morning boat trip and this time it was with Monkey. Monkey did not speak for the first ten minutes and I felt we had drawn a bit of a short straw, but how wrong was I. He was just the best, a local guy who had not grown up in the village, but in the jungle, before it was a national park. He told us how is father would hunt for their food and they would eat anything from iguana, to turtle, dear to monkey. When he was seven, his father bought home a baby monkey who became his pet for the next fourteen years. He was called Ruffino and used to go everywhere with Monkey, more than once saving his life in the jungle from dangerous animals. His grandmother was his hero and had bought him his first pair of wellington boots – he was enchanting and so knowledgable.

We had a much dryer morning which was a joy and although we did not see anything particularly different from yesterday, it somehow looked so much better without a curtain of rain between us. We saw much happier green ibis; more snake-birds, and an osprey; a rather sweet boat billed heron, hiding in the trees; northern jacana with their huge feet; more emerald basilisk lizard but different colours to blend in with their surroundings; howler monkeys and some striped necked turtles. We saw another two-toed sloth and its baby but it was again a long way away, high up a tree. But a great morning.

We returned to a delicious breakfast and then joined Monkey for a hike up Tortuguero hill. This turned out to be a wonderful walk through the jungle with Monkey telling us more about his life and interestingly a very different view on Archie Carr who his father had worked for. Maybe he was not quite such a squeaky clean hero as we had been led to believe. We heard more tales of his grandmother, whose husband left her to fend for herself, in the middle of the jungle, with three young daughters. How she continued to hunt for their food herself and had all the local men, who came to work for her, quaking in their boots with fear. At the same time he told us about the trees and vegetation, pointing out a lovely gecko on a pink leaf and a mother and baby spider monkey. Monkey was determined to find us some sloths nearer the ground, but sadly they were not at home. We walked the 400 steps to the top of Tortuguero hill to be treated to a spectacular view of the river and ocean, with black vultures circling below. Pretty awesome!

When we returned, the huge iguana who we had seen on the lawn yesterday had turned orange for the mating season and was sitting on the wall of the hotel with three lovely lady iguana’s around him looking totally disinterested – which was a bit sad! There was another one by the pool who had more luck with Emma!