Raft Safari

We woke up quite early today in order to hit the river. We left the hotel at 7:20am after a quick breakfast. The great thing about the raft safari is seeing the animals in their natural habitat, as opposed to in a zoo or other similar establishment. We never know how much we'll see on a given day, but we did quite well today. The weather was good, too - warm but not hot except for a few moments. And there was no rain, even though it was in the forecast.

On the approximately 25 minute ride there, we stopped to see a sloth that was so conveniently located near the road.

Then we arrived at the site, got ready (sunscreen and bug spray), and hit the water. The rest is history. Pictures don't really do justice to seeing the animals in person, but they are pretty cool. You may need to zoom in to see some of the creatures. Note: we had never seen a toucan in the many times we have done this activity. We saw an estimated 20 or so this time. We saw everything we wanted to see except snakes, and that was fine with most of us.

Getting the lesson

A bird (pretty sure it's an egret)

There is at least one monkey here

Our guides

Jesus Christ! (Lizard)

An owl

One of our two rafts

Another bird (not a clue)

A toucan in motion!

A toucan not in motion!

An iguana

There are four iguanas here...can you find all of them?

The other raft (rode with Cohen and Trini)

A view of the river

A baby crocodile!

We even saw bats (middle of the lower half of the tree)

We also disembarked from our rafts and stopped in the middle of the journey to see a typical Costa Rican house. They served us a snack and gave us a history lesson about how a man named Don Pablo, who lived to be 102 and died in 2014, purchased this enormous plot of land for the current equivalent of a dollar back in 1932. Of course, the 500 colones were worth much more back then. He proceeded to raise his family and live his whole life in a house on that land. They didn't even have electricity until 2014, and still they barely use any. It's quite a story and quite a place. The people are awesome, too. Don Pablo's two daughters still live there and have reportedly never left the property, having been born there too. He had seven children. The oldest three have passed away, and the other two living children reside in an undisclosed city.

Getting off the rafts for the house tour

Enjoying a snack of sweet bread, fried plantains, cheese and coffee/lemonade

  

Don Pablo! (pictured here just weeks before he died in 2014)

Our tour guide talking about the kitchen inside the house

The whole group with the two daughters

Bonus photo! Here is our group two years ago with the same two daughters

After the safari we came home to clean up. We went out for a light lunch and then returned. We are now relaxing in preparation for tonight's activity - a trip to Tabacon resort, where we will enjoy an enormous buffet and a series of natural hot springs sourced by the Volcano Arenal. Trini and I consider it a reward for a week of hard work at the school. Look for a post about the trip late tonight or early Sunday.