Los Guatuzos Wildlife Refuge

Monday morning I was up early again to catch the 9 am boat to Los Guatuzos Wildlife Reserve. The getting up early had more to do with the fact that it takes a good half hour or more to pack everything back up in my backpacks in an organized fashion. Without fail the things I need out of the backpacks on a daily basis end up at the bottom of the bag, namely clean clothes and chargers for my various gadgets so that I end up taking almost everything out every time I move to a new location. I swear I think everything is moving around by itself when I’m not looking because I’ll try to organize so that I have what I want to wear and what I’ll need on top of the backpacks but when I go looking they’re not where I think I put them. I guess getting thrown around on boats and buses will do that! I grabbed a couple pieces of bread for $1 at the bakery just down the street to tide me over for the four hour boat trip and headed down to the dock.

I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but on every boat you get on they have a list to put down the names of all the passengers which includes your name, nationality, birthdate, age, and generally where you got on the boat. I’m glad I got a couple copies of my passport made as it comes in handy to have one at hand to give to the person writing down your info, particularly with a name like Woodley which is pretty much unpronounceable here. The closest they get is Goodley, but not everyone gets that close to saying it correctly. Oftentimes I use Rocio (which means the morning dew), but for official purposes they want my real name.

I signed up and went to get on the boat. I usually hope someone will give me a hand and there’s usually someone about to do so, but this time there wasn’t so I waited and hopped on the boat and then tried to go down the stairs but I slipped and fell down the last couple stairs. Graceful as always! Luckily there were only a few people on the boat to witness the event.

As others began to load up, the lifejackets came out as the Marines that patrol the departure of local boats are pretty strict about making sure everyone has a lifejacket on. I asked one of the boat captains and he said that they give fines if there’s not enough lifejackets for everyone. Once we were all settled and all had our lifejackets on we were off. As soon as we were away from the dock a bit, everyone took off their lifejackets immediately and they became seat cushions and pillows for the remainder of the four hour ride. The route took us out across the southwest corner of the lake. We stopped near an island where a boat was waiting with food for sale. Most of the food was whole fried fish wrapped in a banana leaf served with slices of lime. I didn’t partake of the fried fish since I had my bread, although a group of folks on the boat with me shared a banana with me. It made me wish I had something to share with them, but I had already eaten my first piece of bread and my second had fallen down a crack and gotten a bit waterlogged.

I even had time to lay down and take a little nap, as did several other passengers. The boat wasn’t full so there was plenty of room to lie down on the 2x12s that functioned as seats on the boat and with a lifejacket for a pillow it was actually fairly comfortable. I woke up just in time for the boat to leave the lake and enter a small river. The Papaturro River was so small in places that you could literally reach out and touch the vegetation that lined the banks. There were areas lined with tall trees filled with iguanas and areas of brush and tree roots where birds perched or fished in the murky water. There were muddy banks where caimans and turtles lounged in the sun, some would slink into the water as we passed, but other held their ground and eyed us as we slowly powered upriver. I hauled out my camera and soon had several people pointing out all the wildlife to me. They were much better at spotting the animals than I was.

Iguana

One of my fellow passengers pointing out iguanas in the trees to me. See how narrow the river is.

Sunbathing turtle.

A caiman lounging on the banks of the river.

There were areas I wasn't sure the boat was going to fit as we went up the river.

The dock with stairs on the left and the bridge over the river at Papaturro.

About an hour later we arrived at the dock at Papaturro. There were a group of Marines waiting to check our bags as we got off the boat. Because the area is so close to the Costa Rican border and very isolated the Marines check bags to make sure no one is smuggling anything. I think drugs are the main concern. After my bags were searched by the Marines (I had to smile because I had all my underwear on top and the poor young man who searched my bag looked a bit uncomfortable) I met Henry Murillo, the tour guide for Los Guatuzos Wildlife Refuge, who immediately insisted him I call him Murrillo because that’s what his friends call him. I had called that morning to let them know I was arriving. Los Guatuzos is a 169 square mile (108,232 acres) reserve that occupies a large section of the area south of Lake Cocibolca (a.k.a. Lake Nicaragua) to the Costa Rican border. The Costa Rican border is only about a mile away from the community of Papaturro and the lodge at Los Guatuzos.

It was a short five minute walk from the dock to the lodge where I was the only visitor. I met Sonia, the young woman who works at the lodge during the day. I had my choice of dorm rooms and beds. Either room I chose I would be sharing with bats so I chose the room closest to the bathrooms and showers. As soon as I set my bags down Murrillo was calling to me to come see the tarantula that was on the deck in front of my room. He was quite a big guy and Murrillo shooed him of the porch. After dousing myself in insect repellant as the mosquitoes were quite bad, I chatted with Murrillo and Sonia for a bit and made plans to do a tour with Murrillo the next morning and then it was time to meander in to town to plan dinner for the evening. It had started drizzling so I was happy I had a raincoat to put on for the walk into town.

Tarantula!!

I found Dona Aileen’s little restaurant and pulpería (corner store) just across the bridge over the river, one of three choices in town. Dona Aileen’s place was definitely the most rustic of the three options but I immediately liked her and arranged for dinner that evening at 5:30. Her place was an open air pavilion with tin roofs and a dirt floor with these huge, beautiful hardwood tables that gleamed in the dim light provided from the electricity from the solar panels. Solar panels were the only way that people had any electricity at all since the area was so isolated.

As I was heading back I passed the Marines’ house, which was right by the lodge, and one of them yelled something unintelligible to me. Although shortly afterwards he showed up at the lodge to talk to me. He stayed for a while practicing his English, which he was very proud of to the point of being rather cocky about it. Unfortunately his English wasn’t as good as he thought it was and I had a hard time understanding him much of the time, which didn’t seem to deter him in the least. While I didn’t want to discourage him from practicing his English, I would have preferred to speak in Spanish so that we could have had a more productive conversation instead of me asking him to repeat things in English over and over until I could figure out what he was trying to say. Plus, it quickly became apparent that he was pretty cocky about just about everything which I found rather unbecoming. Luckily it was soon time to head to dinner, although he did escort me to the place before heading out to wherever he was going for the evening.

Dona Aileen had made a delicious dinner for me with grilled chicken, rice, salad, fried ripe plantains, pipian (I still have no idea exactly what it is and it was definitely not my favorite part of the meal), and a freshly made passion fruit juice. I chatted with her through dinner and made plans to have breakfast at 9 am after my tour the next morning and bought some cookies and a juice to have for snacks. It was dark by the time I left at 6:15ish and still drizzling. I put on my raincoat and my headlamp and headed back along the muddy trail to the lodge.  

Murrillo was waiting for me when I got back and turned on the electricity from the solar panels. I plugged in some things to charge and then sat out on the porch and swatted mosquitos and talked to Murrillo until 7:30 when he admitted that he hadn’t had dinner yet. So I headed to my mosquito net covered bunk bed and holed up for the evening. Murrillo turned off the solar panels and it was just me in the dark for a couple hours as Murrillo went home for dinner. However, me being the night owl that I am there was no way that I was going to be able to sleep at 7:30. But my choices were limited with no electricity, no internet, and no cell phone service so I resorted to watching movies on my laptop for the first time since I arrived here in Nicaragua.

I was up the next morning at 6:30 to get ready to head out on the tour at 7 am. Murrillo said the mornings were better for spotting wildlife on the trails around the lodge. I quickly drank my too sweet apple juice and shared some of the very hard cookies with Murrillo before we set out. Then Murrillo found some rubber boots that would fit me and I changed into a long shirt and doused myself liberally with insect repellent at Murrillo’s suggestion and we headed out.

The first stop was the caimanario where there were four square cement pond like pens with about 7 or 8 alligators spread throughout. The purpose of the caimanario was to study the caimans and measurements were taken to study their growth. Although with caimans along the river about every 10 feet it seemed unnecessary to have them penned in. I suppose they were a little easier to catch and measure in the pen, but the pens hardly seemed an ideal place for them to spend their lives.

Caimans in their pen.

Following this we headed into the jungle. It was pretty mucky after the rains the previous afternoon and evening. We arrived at the suspension bridges that ran through the canopy. We had to climb a gigantic ladder to get up to them and an even bigger ladder to get down at the other end. I heard the other day from another traveler who had been to Los Guatuzos that when we he was there the bridges had been damaged by a falling tree and they had only done part of the suspension bridges until they arrived at the broken sections where they then turned around and headed back the way they had come. Luckily for me it was fixed when I was there. The suspension bridges were definitely a little sketchier than some I’ve been on. After coming down the ladder at the other end we continued our trek through the mud, giant swarms of mosquitoes rising up around us with every step. My hands, which I had washed so I wouldn’t get repellent in my eyes, were getting attacked by the mosquitoes. We saw a fair number of golden web spiders, a Jesus Christ lizard (they literally run on water), lots of birds, and more howler monkeys. They’re quite ubiquitous in this country. Murrillo told me about the plants and animals that we saw as we moved through the jungle. He had been working as a guide at Los Guatuzos for seven years and was a fount of information related to the refuge. 

Only a little posed! It was Murrillo's idea.

Catching up with Murrillo and holding his machete.

Jesus Christ Lizard (clearly not running on water at this moment)

One of the gigantic webs of the golden web spiders.

A golden web spider up close and personal. They were probably about the size of my palm with their legs included.

Murrillo climbing up the rickety ladder to the suspension bridges.

Fungi.

We stopped in an area where there were a bunch of tree trunks with many (around 100) kinds of orchids growing on them. Most were not blooming since it wasn’t the right time of year. The most interesting thing to me and something I hadn’t known before is that vanilla is in the orchid family and they had examples of three types although there were no beans because it wasn’t the right season.

One of the types of vanilla.

After this we headed to the tortuguero (the turtle hatchery) where there were three oval cement ponds filled with mainly very small turtles. In the early part of the rainy season a lot of people in the community help find the turtle eggs which they bring to the tortuguero. There the eggs are buried in sand in standing rectangular boxes and watched carefully until the turtles hatch, then they are transferred to the ponds where they live for several months until the vast majority are sent around the world to be sold as pets. A few are kept in the ponds for a few years for study and then released into the wild. The money from the sale of the turtles helps pay for the upkeep of the park, but I still found it rather unsettling.

Baby turtles.

Bigger turtles they were "studying" before releasing into the wild.

The sand beds used to hatch the baby turtles.

After this we headed past the mariposario (butterfly farm) which was damaged in a storm and thus not actually housing any butterflies other than those who might have wandered in by mistake. Then we headed back to the lodge where I quickly changed out of the pants and long sleeve shirt I had been wearing and headed into Dona Aileen’s for breakfast. I was famished after two hours of mucking through the jungle. The pancakes, fresh fruit, and hot chocolate that Dona Aileen made certainly hit the spot. After breakfast Dona Aileen took me down to the river a little ways to the guest cabin that they had built. It was made from trees that had fallen in the woods. They didn’t harvest a single live tree to make it. It was divided into two rooms, each with their own bathroom and once again beautiful wooden tables like those in her restaurant. I actually wished I was staying there instead of the lodge and her prices were just as reasonable.

Dona Aileen's guest house from the other side of the river. You could even go swimming in the river if you wanted but with all the caimans in this river and the murky water I can't say I was particularly inclined to do so.

For the rest of my time at Los Guatuzos (two more days as the boats only arrived and left certain days of the week) I lounged at Los Guatuzos, often sitting in the hammock and reading, or checking out the flora and fauna surrounding the lodge. I was often alone as Sonia and Murrillo went off to do other tasks both at the lodge and out in the town. One afternoon I wandered around town further than I had before, peaking into people’s yards as I passed. I had breakfast and dinner at Dona Aileen’s. A woman that works for her, Nidia, had an adorable group of children that would sit and talk to me. One of them was named Tamara and she was about four and she had already decided she was going to be a guide in Los Guatuzos and took great pride in naming as many of the animals as she could that were in a book that Armando, Aileen’s husband, had brought out. She also showed me a caiman that was literally just off the dock beside the restaurant. Armando, Aileen’s husband also showed me some orchids that were blooming on a tree right next to their kitchen, including the smallest orchid in the world which is only found in that area. He had worked as a guide at Los Guatuzos for a number of years and still did his own separate tours, mainly on the river. I would have liked to do a night tour but it was the same price for one person as it would be for four and thus a little steep for what I was willing to pay. He also had done much of the building of the beautiful tables and the cabin that I had so admired and carved rather large wooden statues of some of the animals that were found around Los Guatuzos.

Orchid outside of my room.

More orchids outside my room.

There were tons of butterflies flitting around but this is the only one that held still enough for me to take a picture.

This guy came right down close to the lodge before I moved and scared him back up higher in the canopy.

In the evenings of the second and third day I was there it started raining at about 6 each evening and rained steadily and heavily until about midnight. The mosquitoes got worse by the hour and soon it was so thick in the evening that being outside of the mosquito net after dark was almost impossible because of the swarms of mosquitoes that surrounded me regardless of the amount of insect repellant I put on. So usually after dinner I would crawl into my mosquito net for the evening and read or watch movies until I got tired. Although I still managed to end up with bites covering most of my body because there were a few holes in the mosquito netting where they could sneak in. Either that or I missed them in my headlamp inspections of the mosquito net after I got in. While the bats had plenty to feed on, it didn’t seem like they made a dent in the number of mosquitoes present and occasionally I would be woken up in the night as a bat swooped by the mosquito net, or took roost under my bed for a bit.

By Thursday when the boat back out to San Carlos was leaving I was ready to be back in civilization. The boat left at 9 so I was up early again to pack everything up and to give myself time to stop by and say goodbye to Aillen and Armando, although Aileen wasn’t there when I stopped by. Then it was on to have my bags searched again before I loaded onto the boat with a large group of people and a lot of plaintains and a motorcycle. Just a few minutes before the boat was set to leave Dona Aileen came down to say goodbye to me as well which was very sweet.

However, with all the rain of the previous few days the river had risen quite a bit and the trip downriver turned out to be pretty exciting. We had to turn the boat around pretty much immediately and got stuck against a tree because the current in the river was stronger than the motors (yes, more than one motor) on the boats. After about 15 minutes of being wedged between two trees, and after having ordered everyone to the back of the boat, the men were able to get us unstuck and floating downriver. The captain of the boat was trying his best to keep us on track, with a helper up front, using his fingers to tell the captain which way to turn the boat to follow the natural course of the river and to keep away from the overflowing banks but the current had a mind of its own and although they asked repeatedly for people to stay in the back of the boat for leverage, many either ignored the request or returned to their seats shortly afterwards. About 20 minutes later we were again stuck, having struck a small group of tree as we tried to make a corner. Once again, they asked us to move to the back of the boat which a few people did. Finally after about 10 minutes of trying to get unstuck, they asked again for everyone to move to the back of the boat and this time they listened. We were unstuck with a few minutes and heading downriver again. We didn’t get stuck for the rest of the time in the river but there were several more close calls. More people stayed at the back of the boat though once they saw that it made a difference for the captain to be able to maneuver. I didn’t take my lifejacket off until we got to the calm of the lake. The rest of the trip was uneventful and I was back in San Carlos by 1 pm.