When we got off the bus in Pavona we met a Tico from Tortuguero called Anthony who was about our age and just coming back from a vacation. We followed him through muddy fields to the watertaxi, while he busily picked magic mushrooms from the surrounding fields. We rinsed ourselves off in the river and then took off on the boat to town. This place is exactly like what I imagine the Amazon to be... its flanked on both sides by thick rainforest and all kinds of huge palms and overhanging trees. We zipped through the muddy waters spotting a huge crocodile laying on one of the riverbanks.
By now we had made friends with Anthony by offering him a peanutbutter sandwich, and he was to remain our unofficial guide for the rest of our stay in Tortuguero. When we got off the boat he helped us find a beachfront hotel with a kitchen and hammocks, he took us to a good place for lunch and helped us arrange our plans for the next day. That afternoon we just lazed around, cooked our own dinner and slept early.
The next day we took a canoe at 6 am with Anthony and went to explore the river by paddle. It was amazing. We didnt even go into the national park (mostly cuz of the 7 USD entrance fee), but we probly saw better things than what we would have seen in the park. Anthony was a superb free guide taking us into a tiny canal where we crept along, looking for alligators and spotting all kinds of birds and insects, including the tiny poisonous red frog and a baby cayman (croc) swimming around. We then got out and walked around the jungle to the house of a 90 year old guy who lives without electricity or anything, then got back in and paddled some more down the big river.
We stopped again along the side when we saw a colony of small cappuccino monkeys in the trees. We got out at a clearing and watched them for about half an hour- its as if they were completely oblivious of our existance. About 30 of them continued to jump from tree to tree, nibbling at fruits or trying to crack shells, some lazily just laying on branches, with their four apendeges hanging off the sides. We saw a mother carriying a baby one just a meter from us.
On our way back to the canoe Anthony picked a breadfruit that we would later fry for lunch (just add some salt, and Mmm... tastes just like french fries). We then went back to our hotel, fried that breadfruit and layed blissfully in our hammocks, drifting in and out of consciousness until 5pm that afternoon when we decided to splurge and take our once in a lifetime canopy zipline tour. Its basically a bunch of metal cords tied high up in tree canopies where you can zip from one tree to another. Well, it wasnt worth the 35 USD we paid for it, but it was still a fun experience.
We played some pool with the canopy tour people and then headed home to cook our spaghetti dinner and to sleep in our comfortable beds. The Anthony thing was weird... we were a bit suspicious that he'd want something from us... and he probably did get some comission from the things we did, but other than that it was just as if we had met an old friend who had shown us around his hometown.
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