Sounds of the River

This was a very musical day as we heard three different styles of music besides the sounds of nature. We paid for breakfast at the hostel, as it was not included, and it was basic but they had a boom box playing some old pop or rock. The hostel owner let us move to their sister hostel around the block for our second night, and we got a room there with better airflow and fans that actually made a difference.

On our way to our new hostel we saw a sign of Leonardo tours outside a house and were greeted by Leo himself, who lives there. He facilitates kayak and canoe tours with local guides. We talked to him for a little while with our backpacks on, and got ourselves a tour for that afternoon.

Since we had some time to kill, we spent it hanging out in the hammocks by the beach, reading and writing, until it was time for lunch. We searched for and finally found a Caribbean restaurant called “Donde Richard”, at the other end of the village. They were playing Bob Marley and other reggae classics. The Caribbean-inspired Tico food, we found, is similar in style to traditional Tico (Costa Rican) staples but makes heavy use of coconut and spices, and is much more to our liking than the traditional food in the rest of the country. We enjoyed it here and at another restaurant in the evening.

Our kayak trip was with the young yet knowledgeable Elliot, who is a licensed guide and a second-generation local Tortuguarean. His father immigrated from Jamaica, like many people on the Caribbean coast. We were seated in a 2 person kayak and Elliot had his own kayak. We saw a crowded tour group of kayaks, but most of the time we were nearly alone there. He guided us through the reserve, where we got to see many wetland animals, and paddle up almost close enough to touch them. We saw caimans (like miniature crocodiles), river turtles sunning themselves on logs, full-grown iguanas with impressive orange crests, other small lizards, cute and colorful small birds including a tiny duck that the guide kept calling a “duke”, and many tiger herons and blue herons, as well as anhingas - black-feathered fresh-water relatives of the cormorant, that need to stand and dry their feathers before they can fly properly. We didn’t get a close look at any monkeys or see any sloths this afternoon, but we did enjoy listening to the howler monkeys and the parrots call. Howler monkeys sound like much larger swamp monsters when they roar; it’s kind of scary if you don’t know what they are. At the end of the tour we navigated around fallen trees in a small channel where we found a river otter, and chased the bubbles it blew until it briefly popped its head out of the water. This kayaking trip through the reserve was the reason we came to Tortuguero and it made the trip worthwhile.

The new hotel has a small pool, filled to overflowing by a running hose - we tried it upon returning from our kayaking and when I got in some people’s things by the pool got wet. We cooled down there for a while, then showered and went to dinner. We saved room for dessert and had a brownie with a mango smoothie and a beer at Budda Cafe [sic] after dinner, playing with a lazy cat named Ricky Ricon and relaxing to New Age music.