Crocodiles and Grandmas

Well, just how are the two related? Monday my mom and grandma came to Costa Rica in the middle of their Central America cruise. It's always been one of my grandma's (and mom's) dreams to see the Panama Canal. They had one day in the Pacific port of Puntarenas, Costa Rica, and Megan and I took Monday off to go spend the day with them.

We had to get up early enough - we took a 6 AM bus from the Southwest corner of the city, so we had to meet the taxi in the street at 5:30. But we had a nice taxi driver, a smooth trip to the bus station and all the way to Puntarenas. It was the beginning of a good day. When we got into Puntarenas we had some time to kill waiting for my mom and grandma to get off the boat. Some German guy who organizes tours for cruises came up to Megan and me and asked us if we were crew members from the ship waiting for friends. That's going to be our strategy for the next time we go to Puntarenas - sneak along on a cruise ship crew tour.

But Monday was far better than even that. Around 9:30 or so they got off the ship and Megan and I had something better to do than laugh at all the 50-something cruise ship tourists on buses for the "Beautiful San Jose Tour." Haha, suckers. We hugged and quickly met a taxi driver who spoke English, and my mom hired him for the day. First off we went to a private home about 30 mins away from the port to see carapechin (white-faced) monkeys and coatimundis (the weird raccoon-like things that we saw in Fortuna). Soon tons of tours from the cruise ship were there, but luckily we were the first in our taxi and we got to feed the monkeys and coatis.

After stopping off at El Puente Tarcoles aka the Crocodile bridge,

we then took another 30 min taxi ride and stopped at a kind of touristy replica of an old Tico village. The next part was the cool part - a boat ride down the Rio Tarcoles to see the mangrove-estuary ecosystem, tons of birds, and some big crocodiles ridiculously close. My grandma was a real trooper and handled the crocs and everything really well. Also, she looks really, really good for a 77 year-old with cancer. Seriously, that's one tough Swedish lady.

So, what was the boat ride like? Well, there were only 6 of us on this skinny, long river boat that's normally meant for dozens of cruise ship tourists. I spent the whole trip climbing over seats and going from side to side with binoculars or my camera - YES! we have a camera now because my mom brought mine - taking pictures of crocs, birds, the ocean, everything. From where we started out probably about 4 or 5 miles from the coast we went toward the ocean and saw the estuary, a mangrove canal, crocs, probably about 20 different types of birds and of course a ton of iguanas. Those things are everywhere. Pretty close to the beginning our tour guide fed the biggest female croc on the river, lovingly nicknamed Monica Lewinsky (see below).


Maybe the highlight was when the boat rammed its way up this little tributary off the main mangrove canal when the guide heard a pair of macaws calling. We stayed quiet and after about 5 minutes we saw them take off and fly through the jungle -a pair of scarlet macaws, flying probably 100 yards from our boat. We couldn't snap a picture in time, though, because the jungle was dense and we only saw them fly for a few seconds. It was incredible.

Next up we were all pretty hungry and we went to Villas Caletas (read: fancy hotel) for lunch. I was envisioning a step up from your average beach-side soda but as reality would have it we drove 15 minutes up these hills overlooking Jaco and entered this ridiculously nice restaurant on a terrace with a view of the surrounding beaches - Jaco, Punta Leona, etc. - and ate the nicest meal by far we've had in Costa Rica. The view was beautiful, we had a fun time talking, and my grandma and I laughed about other fun times we've had travelling together.

We had had plans to try to do or see one more thing after lunch, maybe a rainforest tram, or a visit to nearby Carara National Park, or for my mom a walk on rainforest suspension bridges. But it was already pretty late and we agreed just to hustle back to Puntarenas, talk and enjoy the sunset. Security wasn't all that tight (not so lax that we could get onto the ship, however, dang it) so we could walk along with pier and chat about the day, what living in San Jose is like, and possible plans for my mom and dad visiting in July. When we said our goodbyes everybody was crying but me - ok, I know I'm a terrible son, grandson and person - and my mom and grandma went back on the ship. Megan and I caught the bus and were exhausted but happy and home by about 8:30.