3. Chasing Crocodiles
Day 79
As I mentioned last night I have decided to stay put for one more day. I’ve had way too much fun here. And I wanted to see one of my favourite animals in wild. My tour wasn’t confirmed yet as of last night so I was hoping that it’ll all work out.
I had a breakfast in the hotel with my best buddy, Lucy. It looks like I am her (and her friends) favourite human. Probably because I share my meal with them and pet them. But Lucy is the most affectionate from them and goes with me everywhere. Not the best when you want to take pictures of birds but it was entertaining. Anyway, during the breakfast Ioanna, the host told me that the tour is booked. She gave me cursory directions. I shouldn’t get lost, there is water on 3 sides of me. A short ride on my bike. Camera is charged, memory card clean, I am ready.
I found the guide, Manuel, sitting in his tour boat. The boat sits around 30 people but today I was the only guest. I have a private tour. How awesome is that? The normal tour price is $35 with all people around you but I have the whole boat and the guide to myself for $50. A good deal. The river is very at this time because of heavy rain. I forgot to mention that it was pouring the whole evening and through the night. Buckets. Anyway, water is fast flowing and it is dirty brown. Manuel told me that in dry season, January, the water is clear. Off we go.
We should see not only crocs but lots of birds as well. Off the bat there are bunch of them. Manuel maneuvers the boat as close as he can so I can have a good picture. Soon after we see our first crocodile. It’s a big one. They have them named and it looks like they’ve had fun with it. This one is Donald Trump. He is pretty chunky. Soon he is joined by his girlfriend Melania. It seems that Donald knows what boat brings and slips into the water and is coming towards us. Manuel bring a bucket of chicken and starts feeding him. DonaId is 2 feet from me. I hope he doesn’t jump and take my camera or my arm. I am snapping pics like a madman. With 20 fps drive, my memory card is filling fast. Absolutely fantastic. Then we are off to another place stopping to watch different birds. And more crocs. This one is Brad Pitt. He is missing part of his lower jaw. Crocs are brutal fighting each other especially during mating season. Manuel is a superb guide and speaks perfect English. He is telling all about the wildlife and answering all my questions. And I have lots of them like a 3 year old. We are slowly motoring along the shoreline looking for birds and stopping when we see something interesting. We get all the way to the mouth of the river. We are sheltered from the Pacific only by a sand bar. More cool birds. Back on the other side, more crocks. Then Manuel spots an iguana. A big sucker. But she totally camouflaged in the greenery. I have nice pic of her. We then veer off to the mangrove forest. The river gets narrower and it gets outright spooky. More nice birds. The Manuel cuts the engine and for few minutes we enjoy the sound of the jungle. It is very strange feeling I never experienced before, but strangely, I like it. More crocs and more birds. I showed my pics to Manual and he asked if I can send him those. I guess I am doing well in this picture taking business. And before you know it, we are heading back. Almost 3 hours of my private tour went by way too quickly. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was more then awesome. I am glad I stayed that extra day here.
But the day is not over yet. Back to my hotel. I went to the local store to buy some beer and snacks and hurried back to download the pictures. I like what I see. But boy, it is lot of pictures. Over 500 of them. I need to do some serious culling.
Late in the afternoon I went for a walk with Lucy to chase some Macaws. I love those birds! I love their colour. I took another 300 pics! I better start controlling myself! But I have a few good ones as well.
I need to change the way I manage the pictures. It is not possible for me to develop all of them. I will probably select about 20 for the day’s blog and will get to the rest of them when I have more time. Probably at home …
That was my awesome day. I had a good quesadillas for dinner and Lucy joined me, of course. I paid for everything as I will be leaving very early tomorrow. Plan is to go all the way close to Panama borders. Almost 300km. I hope the weather will hold. For the first time in many weeks, there was no rain today. Yet …
How was your day?