Our tour of Tortuguero National Park soon ended and we left the same way we had arrived via iver boat.
Our last day at the lodge, a Sunday, started with the loud roars of Howler Monkeys, not far from our room. It always seemed to me that Howler Monkey were misnamed, because the sound that they make , sounds more like the furious roars of a lion, rather than a howl. We got up soon afterwards at 5:30, breakfast being at 6:00. On the menu were watermelon and pineapple slices, scrambled eggs, toast, jam, and juice.
We had done all of our packing before breakfast, so after we had eaten we just grabbed our bags and headed for the river boat in the rain. There we sat for 20 minutes waiting for the stragglers to arrive. Part of the delay was due to one of the “Italiano” insect collectors, who wanted to do some last minute collecting, and had gotten lost.
Once everyone had arrived, our boat shoved off during the rain storm. There was a lot of wind blowing the rain, and making everything inside of the boat’s passenger area wet, so the first part of our voyage was spent with the plastic flaps down, missing all of the jungle scenery we were passing through. Fortunately, the sun eventually broke through, allowing us to stand at the bow with the binoculars.
We saw a lot of turtles sunning themselves on logs, a big rusty-brown bird with some black and white accents and a pug-like beak. There was a beautiful pink spoonbill bird sitting high on a branch who seemed quite huge. As the sun did its warming, it began to get quite hot and humid, so we retreated to the seats in the shade, where we could do our observations more comfortably. There were lots of egrets, both totally white, and gray and white, and some fancy cormorants standing among the weeds.
From a distance, we saw a monkey, dangling from a branch with one hand and one foot. The boat surprised a squirrel monkey, which was the first of that species we had seen.
Sadly, as we got closer to civilization, the scenery started to get rather depressing, as the boat traveled through long boring stretches of scrub pastureland and cattle. I couldn’t help but be saddened viewing what used to be lush jungles. I couldn’t make myself take photos of the pastures, so I will leave you with another one of the jungle.
View my paintings: davidmarchant2.ca
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