Jungle Eye Training
All the eyes of our group are on our guide, Marino Chacon. They are not Jungle Eyes yet. We need more training. Slowly, patiently, our enthusiastic guide scans Costa Rica’s emerald jungle. Excitedly, he points up. “I promised you a sloth today. Do you see her? There, she and a young sloth are there in the tree.
”Yes. Yes. Above us, camouflaged in the cecropia tree, a smiling sloth stretches languidly, plucking a leafy breakfast for her child. Watching a sloth family up close in the wild is unreal. It’s an incredible siting.
According to our guide, sloths spend their entire lives in cecropia trees. They eat, sleep, mate, and keep their babies safe from predators. Sloths only climb down once a week to pee and poop.
Our Jungle Eye Trainer
Funny guy, Marino. He is entertaining, and encyclopedic on Costa Rica’s flora, fauna, history, geography and culture. Marino is a certified naturalist guide. Certified by the Las Quebradas Biological Center Foundation, and is an active environmentalist helping to develop Los Quetzales National Park.
Costa Rican Adventure
During our eleven-day adventure, we travel Costa Rica coast to coast, visiting San Jose, Tortuguero, Sarapiqui, Arenal Volcano, Punta Leona, and San Gerardo de Dota. We are gradually developing our Jungle Eyes.
Ear Training Too
Part of Jungle Eyes training includes listening to rainforest and river sounds. They tell us what
is lurking in the forest canopy as well as in the ground cover under foot. The areas all around are teeming with birds, reptiles, mammals and insects. Rain soaks us daily. Who cares?
Our Jungle Eyes get sharper every day. Look at those White Throated Capuchin monkeys, swinging branch to branch, like Cirque du Solei acrobats! Are those 15 –foot, 800 pound crocodiles going to jump in our Rio Grande Tarcoles riverboat?
We photograph day-glow blue poison dart frogs and fierce- faced green iguanas. Everyone
marvels at the long lines of leaf cutter ants marching over bridges and boulders, delivering leaf slivers to their Queen.
Snake Training
One amazing morning, scaredy cat me spots a boa constrictor slithering under a log. Amazing, I don’t die. Emboldened, I gaze, unafraid, at palm sized spiders on surreally lovely webs. And an orange eyelash pit viper boasting her beautiful scales.
On another walk, our entire groups gasps, noticing a poisonous Fer- de- Lance snake sleeping happily on our trail. As you are aware I lived to tell that tale too.
Creatures Great and Small
Although Costa Rica is only 19,700 square miles, the country is home to about 5% of species found on Planet Earth. Imagine: over 8,500 plant species, 220 reptile species, 160 amphibian species, 205 mammal species, and 850 species of birds. Passionate about creatures great and small? You’ll find them here in Costa Rica.
Advanced Jungle Eye
After nonstop exploration of jungles, rivers, volcanoes, mountains, farms and a thrilling high in the sky walk at Mistico Arenal Hanging Bridges Park, it’s time for our Jungle Eyes Test.
Sea Turtles
On a dark starlit night, riverboats ferry us onto Tortuguero Beach. We are greeted by the Park Ranger. This site is the nesting site of the largest population of sea turtles in the Caribbean.
Will we be lucky enough to see them laying eggs tonight? Big question. After what seemed to be an eternity the Park Ranger returned with encouraging news. In the dim glow of a red flashlight, the rangers led us off into the darkness. We follow, holding hands like curious kindergartners walking the beach in the shimmering moonlight. Hearts were pounding louder like the ocean’s surf
There she is fairly close by. A mamma green sea turtle grunts, whooshing away sand, creating a deep hole. Plop. One perfect sea turtle egg. Plop. Plop. Hundreds of eggs. Future sea turtles, hoping to hatch and survive against cruel odds of life and death.
Sea turtles returned to the beach where they were born. They swim countless miles in the ocean to get to this exact place. Nobody can tell us how does she find it again. That’s a real Miracle.
Pura Vida
We understand now why Costa Rica is so special. This country is devoted to preserving and conserving the nature they revere. Everyone greets us with “ PURA VIDA!”. Live The Pure Life, Costa Ricans say: Live life fully, as happily as possible. Take care of all you love. Be grateful for our magnificent fragile Planet Earth.
As the exhausted sea turtle lumbers arduously into the ocean’s swell, she looks back at us. We wave farewell. I’m not the only one wiping away tears. Our guide asks if we can see her saying goodbye. I think see is.
Serenaded by nature’s sounds, we are seeing better than we thought possible.
Our Jungle Eyes see!
