Yesterday we woke up at 5:30am, yes AM, to get ready for our tour on the river. Luckily the tour starts right outside our door so we didn't have to go very far. We met up with our tour guide and we jumped in the boat. The sounds of the rain forest at 6am are just incredible. Everything is so alive!
When you look at the river from where we got in there is a fork to our right and a straight away to our left. We started on the right side of the fork down to a dead end. There was almost a full canopy of greenery and bamboo where we saw a lot of birds and lizards. Upon turning back we then went down the left side of the fork which was a bit deeper and took us under a few trees that we had to duck under. The guide was amazing, he was constantly slowing down for us whenever we pointed at something or he would make sure that we had a chance to see what he was seeing. Once we turned around and started back on the main river things got a bit louder. There were tons more birds in the open river and several that seemed to be having what looked like a heated discussion about who the leaves on the river bed belonged to. Just a guess but I feel an educated one.
We coasted down to a point where we could no longer make it through the leaves on the river and turned back. The view from this point was just amazing:
When we were on our way back the guide pointed out a wild sloth up in the trees which was much bigger than the sloths we'd been seeing at the rescue. Upon returning to Aviarios we had breakfast and had a great day of driving around and learning more about the area. We had an amazing dinner in Cahuita and have met some really great people. I'm always surprised when we meet people who are traveling alone. I don't know if it's just because I'm not the type of person who could do it or if it seems unsafe to me but either way, I'm very curious when we meet them. It's also amazing the type of people you meet here. Usually while on vacation we meet people from the states and they are there for a relaxing time. This time, it's been completely different. We've definitely met people from the US but TONS of other places as well. Also, every single person we have met here is a traveler. I'm learning that there really is a huge difference between vacationing and traveling. We have not met anyone here who is vacationing. All of them are either here after being several other places or are on their way to several other places. It's been a lot of fun to be part of that category this time around. I have a feel that this trip may end up changing our traveling/vacation style.
Today we relaxed for a good part of the morning just enjoying the grounds here. There is a path that leads into the forest that we walked through which was really nice until we got kicked out. There was this sound, which I thought was a motorcycle we could hear from the road. Mel turned around and said "motorcycles don't growl" and then we heard it again but louder. That's when we just started walking at the fastest pace we could. Didn't ask any questions, didn't look back. Word to the wise: When a howler monkey says "i don't want you here, go away" you just listen and don't ask why.
We also had the opportunity to see a sloth getting released into the wild which was a lot of fun too!
After lunch and a fun little drive into town we met up with Dominique and Jeremy who are two people here that are volunteering with the rescue. Dominique is from South Africa and Jeremy is from the states. We all drove into town tonight to a local bar that has a happy hour of 2 for 1 drinks that was a lot of fun. We then ate dinner and made a plan for tomorrow. We're heading to a chocolate farm tomorrow morning where you see how they make chocolate and then you get to taste some :) Also we're going to go to the beach in Punta Uva where there is also a resort made completely out of tree houses.
Tonight when we got back from dinner we were greeted by several large and LOUD toads/frogs (not sure which one they are) which you can see a video of on mel's facebook page. They are so loud, just typing now I can still here them all the way in our room.
I have posted an album of facebook of pictures from the trip (these are far from all of them but they give a good idea of what it is like here) So please feel free to check it out.
Just had to say I like the whole traveler/vacationer part. I definitely agree. I've only been a vacationer, but I bet you both will do so much more traveling, especially after this. Awesome!
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