JAN 28, 2013 TARCOLES RIVER, CARARA BIOLOGICAL RESERVE, COSTA RICA

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JANUARY 28, 2013 GOLFO NICOYA, CARARA BIOLOGICAL RESERVE

Today we were drinking in-room freshly brewed BRITT dark roast coffee on the patio at the J W Marriott Hotel (room 376) at 530am watching the stars fade, the satellite float by and listening to the howler monkeys in the distance -a comfortable warm breeze under a sky without a cloud in it.  Imagine our surprise when we saw in the darkness what looked like a large cat walking by  - I shone my book reading light in that direction and there were 2 racoons who had stopped in surprise to look at us, then they jumped down the bank, then a third one came running by and jumped down the bank in a hurry to join the others!

We were packed with our bags outside the door for pickup at 7am, finished buffet breakfast by 720am (the staff here are not very good at getting the coffee served at breakfast) and our bags stowed on the bus leaving 10 minutes to enjoy the store before we left.  There is only1 store here at the Marriott, quite surprising when you realise how far it is to the next small town of Tamarindo ($7 each way on the Marriott shuttle).  The prices are absolutely comparable to top end resort prices anywhere in the USA, we have been quite surprised at; the cost of everything in Costa Rica, certainly the same as travelling in the USA unless you are buying fruit and veg from the local markets.  The assistant in the store told us she lives 40 minutes away, and works two shifts, from 700am  to 300pm or from 3 to 10pm.  She comes in by bus so has to get up at 330am to arrive for the early shift.  Worse yet, last night she finished the 10pm shift and had to go home then get up at 330am this morning to start the 7am shift!

The Gulf of Nicoya in Guanacaste is the most important Ba and port area on the west Coast, and is also known as one of the areas in the world where population lives longest - often to well over 100 years..  We are heading today to the Tarcoles River and the Carara Biological Reserve to take a boat trip to see the largest crocodile population in the Americas.  This is a wildlife and tropical bird sanctuary and  nesting site for the scarlet macaw - beautiful large brightly coloured birds that we would love to see in the wild although we understand that the chance of seeing them is very slim - apparently you need to take a very early morning bird watching tour with a guide who can call them to stand a good chance of seeing them.

Since we were heading South East the sun was shining through the window most of the way which made for a warm ride!  There was quite a bit of road construction, and again lots of braking when we needed to pass vehicles on our side of the road r pass trucks and buses coming towards us.  At 10:10am we crossed over the extremely wide Tempisque River, with a large crocodile on the sand bank,  on a 23 million dollar suspension bridge built by the Taiwan Government (for what in exchange?)  just before we stopped for the bathroom break of the morning at 10:30am at the Restaurante Vaqueros along the highway 18 heading East and before we joined the Inter Americas Highway C1 heading South.

Just North of Puntarenas we left highway of Americas C1and headed South on highway 23 then at 1145am we saw the Gulf of Nicoya, the most important body of water on the Central Pacific Coast. There is a large port here at Puntarenas where cruise ships dock, and also some commercial fishing is done here in the Gulfo de Nicoya.  We passed Puerto Caldera at 1150am, today Monday January 28, just 9 days since we docked here last Saturday January 19 and disembarked from the (Paul Gauguin) Tere Moana after our cruise through the Panama Canal from St Maarten - that seems like such a long time ago!  Just south were large fields covered in plastic where two types of cantaloupe were growing during the dry season - rice is grown in the same fields during the rainy season.  We took Highway 34 (toll road) still continuing South to our objective for today - the CARARA biological reserve.

We stopped at Amaruezas restaurant at 1210pm for buffet lunch: green salad, steamed white rice, black pinto beans, cucumber, vegetables in cheese sauce, poached fish and chicken with a molasses coconut square for dessert - all served under a very high roof with open sides, so a nice breeze blowing through. The restaurant was probably 80  feet by 20 feet - it could handle a lot of diners!  We departed at 12:55pm for the 20 minute drive to the Tarcoles River for a 45 minute JUNGLE CROCODILE SAFARI  adjacent to the Carara Biological Reserve established in 1948.  As we crossed the Tarcoles River we could see 2 huge crocodiles on the sandy banks sun bathing.  The Cavetes family used to own the largest hacienda in this part of the country  and back in the 1960's the Cost Rica government took over a large portion of their hacienda (imminent domain) and paid the Cavetes family for this 30,000 acre portion to be preserved as the Carara Biological Reserve National Park. Carara is the name that the  local indigenous people had for the crocodile.

The Carara Bioogical has some areas similar to Tortuguera but also drier ares  where the scarlet macaws nest along with other species who like the drier areas like Guanacaste.  We stopped and boarded the covered boat at Jungle Crocodile Safari to the music of two older Costa Rican gentlemen playing the wooden bamboo xylophone - the Marimba - exactly the same as they play in Africa.
It was very hot and sunny and where we boarded the Tarcoles River is very close to the mouth of the river as it enters the Gulf of Nicoya so the water is brackish - a mix of salt and fresh water.  The first sighting was a Black spiny iguana which live in deep holes and caverns underground, but this was soon surpassed by an American crocodile about 16 feet long!  This is obviously fed by the Safari operator here and immediately swam out and nudged our boat looking for food!  We also saw the Emerald Green Basilisk iguana

We didn't see any more crocs during our 75 minute crocodile safari but we had great luck with birds!  These included:  Giant Green Macaw, Scarlet Macaw (4 pairs flying high overhead and not close), green heron, Great Blue heron, Little Blue Heron, 3 coloured Heron, Bare Throated Tiger Heron, Boat billed Heron, Wood stork, white egret, snowy egret, Magnificent Frigate, pink Roseate Spoonbill, woodpecker, osprey, Mangrove Black Hawk, Black necked Stilt, Tropical Cormorant, Anhinga, White Ibis and Winbrill.

We were very hot and sweaty by the time we got off the boat and had time for a few minutes to browse the souvenir store before we left at 245pm so we thoroughly enjoyed our $2 chocolate coated vanilla ice cream before we left!  The two old gentlemen playing their beautiful marimba xylophone.  As we drove North back over the Tarcoles River we saw 7 American Crocodiles of varying sizes on the sandy river banks!  This boat Safari was excellent and we felt much better with way more sightings than on the boat ride on the RIO NEGRO up by the border of Nicaragua which we took three days ago.

Soon we took highway 27 heading West for the 1 1/2 hour drive back to San Jose - for our last night to be spent at the Quality Inn near the airport.  Our guide, Elston, told each of us what time our transfer would be tomorrow morning - ours being 630am for our 930am departure with American Airlines for Dallas then a 6 hour layover for the last flight from Dallas to Vancouver arriving 10:30pm tomorrow night, Tuesday Jan 29th.

We arrived at the Quality Inn, San Jose at 4:15pm with little time left to take the taxi to pick up the two large bags we left there last Tuesday morning then get back to the Quality Inn for wash and change for our farewell dinner at 7pm.

Overall we found this to be a pretty boring day with a lot of driving (815am - 415pm, so 8 hours less bathroom break, lunch and boat ride about 3 hours), and quite hot in the bus - finishing in Liberia and flying home from there might have been a better option from our perspective.