Liberia, Costa Rica –
There on the log, at the edge of the river, sat the crocodile, mouth open, baring his teeth.
I watched him from mid-stream, staying still, trying not to make any sudden moves.
One thought ran briefly through my mind, would I be croc-food?
The Howler Monkey draped over the tree limb above didn’t seem to care, but seemed more than a willing spectator if things didn’t go my way.
Nonplussed, I slowly began to raise my camera to my eye, take focus, and snap the shutter.
In an instant, the croc was off the log, and up into the brush on the riverbank, not to be seen again.
He blinked first.
Not that I expected any other result, after all, he was just a young teenager at best, while I was in a raft with several other intruders into his domain.
See, we were floating down the river in an inflatable raft. It was one of the river rafting excursions that can be found throughout the country.
Or rather one of the ones where you didn’t have to spend a good portion of the rafting trip manning a paddle yourself, allowing us to spend the whole time watching for wildlife and snapping pictures.
All the while sitting on inflatable benches.
It seemed comfortable enough to start with.
At least until I noticed that my legs were going to sleep.
And we still had well over an hour to go.
Time to start shifting around as much as possible to try and get the circulation back…
We had been scheduled to tour the Corobici River, but the water level was too low for the rafts. So our guides took us down Rio Tenorio instead.
Not that we would have noticed any difference.
It was a slow, peaceful drift down the stream, with Renaldo, our guide, mostly working to steer the raft that we were riding in.
And occasionally back us up against the flow so we could get photos of the baby crocs sunning themselves while their mother lurked somewhere close by…
But most of his work consisted of turning the raft so that we were able to see whatever wildlife was showing itself on the riverbank at the time.
Or up in the trees above us.
Such as the families of Howler Monkeys in the trees above the river.
The first pod was far above the river, and it was difficult to spot them in the tree.
After all, they were draped over limbs like cats, taking naps, and it was hard to tell where the tree ended and the monkey began.
But each pod we spotted seemed to get closer, until the last few just a couple of yards above our heads.
So, mostly what we saw were various birds, and iguanas, although one or two of the iguanas seemed a bit camera-shy.
Or self-conscious. It was bit difficult to tell which.
One large iguana, when it overheard us discussing a prominent feature on its face quickly turned and raced away, into the undergrowth and out of sight.
I guess that should teach us not to discuss someone’s appearance within earshot.
Oh well…
We did get to see a variety of birds, some of whom were sitting on a branch near the shore, or on the shore itself.
And that’s not counting the family of bats that were sleeping on the underside of a short cliff on the riverbank.
So, all in all, we got to see a reasonable amount of wildlife on and around the river over the two hours that we were floating down it. Which, considering that it was mid-day, their normal siesta time, was a reasonably good showing.
But eventually, we pulled over to the bank and disembarked from our rafts. From there we were loaded back into the bus that had taken us to the river, and went back to the restaurant on the Corobici River where they had taken our lunch preference, Chicken, Beef, or Fish, before delivering us to the river side.
So, our river rafting journey ended with a meal of traditional Costa Rican food.
Hopefully, we all remembered what we had ordered…
For more photos of the wildlife from the river, click here.
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