Cano Negro

I left La Fortuna at eight o'clock this morning on a guided tour of Cano Negro, a nearby national nature reserve. During the drive to Cano Negro we stopped at “Restaurante Las Iguanas”, a touristy place well known for the iguanas that gather in the nearby trees. The restaurant sits right against a gully where trees grow from the bottom right to the height of the base of the restaurant, so it's a perfect place to see the animals in the tops of the trees. There's even a man-made lookout point where tourists view the trees and from which the good people from Restaurante Las Iguanas throw food to the iguanas to keep them coming. It's kind of a funny little enterprise they've got going - they throw food into the trees to bring the iguanas and the views of the iguanas draw the tourists. Regardless, though, of the motives of the restaurant or the iguanas, the whole thing was pretty entertaining. I got within just a few feet of a five foot iguana resting in the top of a tree and walked across a bridge crossing the gully and spotted fifty or sixty more iguanas covering the canopy of the forest. I read in my Lonely Planet book that the best time of year to spot wildlife at Cano Negro is from January to March, so I decided I had to make the trip there. After a quick snack I boarded a small boat with about twenty other tourists and we were off with our guide to spot wildlife along the banks of the “Rio Frio” (”Cold River” in English). The river trip reminded me a lot of one I took down the Kinabatangan River in Borneo. The Kinabatangan was unique because the animals were so exotic. Also, it was much more isolated than Cano Negro - I went searching for proboscis monkeys and wild boars while riding in a canoe with only four other travelers and a guide. Unfortunately American tourists have already discovered Cano Negro, but the wildlife is still incredible.

Our guide had a pretty good knack for spotting birds and animals, but even without him they wouldn't have been hard to find. During three hours on the river we passed a wild cayman (like an alligator) about every five or ten minutes. We also passed flocks of white great heron birds as well as many different species of falcons and kingfisher birds. My favorite sightings were the monkeys. A few times during the trip we spotted howler monkeys or spider monkeys perched in the trees. One time we saw four spider monkeys at the top of a palm tree, one of which was hanging upside down by his tail and picking and eating seeds from the tree. Another time we saw a spider monkey swing from branch to branch through different trees along the banks of the river. The monkey soared fifteen or twenty feet through the air when needed to grab on to the next tree branch.The most interesting (and grossest) sighting of the day was of a snake on the side of the river eating an iguana that was about two feet long and five or six inches across. The snake had wrapped his mouth completely around the iguana and had it about half-way down when we showed up. I don't know whether it just takes snakes a long time to swallow those things or if it was a classic case of biting off more than he could chew, but progress seemed to be slow. Our driver put the boat right up on the shore, only a few feet from the snake. The creature was so preoccupied that it pulled his body under some tree roots, but still clung to the half-eaten iguana. After the snake sighting we headed back to the dock, accompanied by the sounds of howler monkeys barking like st. bernards in the distance. After a quick lunch we took a bus through Cano Negro and past Restaurante Las Iguanas back to La Fortuna.

Independant travel is usually much easier than people seem to think it is. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I won't book ahead for a room but it still is easy to find a vacancy at an affordable hotel. Unfortunately tonight was that one time out of one hundred when it isn't easy.

This weekend there is a triathalon near La Fortuna and the hotels booked up months in advance in anticipation of the event. When I found a room last night the owner of the hotel told me he had a room for one night but was booked for the weekend. I was sure that I'd be able to find something when I got back from Cano Negro, but I didn't have too much luck. After an hour of searching for a room I hopped on a bus to Tilaran, about an hour away, which would make a nice stopover on my way to Monteverde Cloud Forest. When I got off the bus in Tilaran there was a huge party in the town's central park for the triathalon - great news except it meant that Tilaran was probably booked up as well. A local kid told me that Tilaran was, in fact, booked for the weekend and that my next option was to take a cab to a city called Canas, about thirty miles away. The kid had a vested interest in me taking a cab - he just happened to have a car which doubles as a cab to Canas when needed. There may have been a room in Tilaran, but I didn't want to take the chance of being stranded without one either, so I paid the kid fifteen bucks to take me to Canas. As far as I'm concerned, taking a cab to a hotel under desperate circumstances is breaking every rule in the book. Cabbies always get a kick-back from hotels if they can bring someone in, and the traveler foots the bill. Unfortunately I didn't have a whole lot of options tonight, and sure enough, I ended up paying twenty bucks for a room that wasn't worth five bucks. All things considered though, it's not such a bad situation. If that one time in a hundred costs me a fifteen dollar cab ride and a hotel kick-back, that's not such a bad price to pay for things to work out the other ninety-nine times.