Dec 312008
 

After breakfast this morning we visited with the resident spider, who lives on a 3 foot wide web just outside the breakfast area. She was the same type as I saw last night, which leads me to assume that they’re not too dangerous. She was busy repairing her web from, one must imagine, a busy night.

Another big spider

Fixing her web.

Split into three groups of about 15 each, we loaded into open tour boats for our first visit with the Tortuguero wild life. In a short amount of time we had already spotted more birds that I could keep track of, giant iguanas, spider monkeys and howler monkeys. The tour lasted about two hours, so we had time to go deep back into some of the canals and listen to the sounds of the rain forest.

Photo Op

Fellow travelers, monkey spotting.

White Faced Spider Monkey

White-Faced Spider Monkey

Howler Monkey

Howler Monkey

Iguana

Iguana on a log.

Iguana in a tree

Bigger iguana, in a tree.

Hidden Lizard

Find the hidden lizard. Somehow our guide did.

Hidden Lizard - Closeup

Easier to see closeup.

Bats

Bats. They live on the underside of this tree’s trunk during the day.

Green Heron

Green Heron.

Heron

White Heron.

Back to the lodge for a break, then some more sights.

Dec 312008
 

After dinner, Eric and I went on another frog hunt – no frogs this time, even in the lodge’s ‘Frog Garden’, but we did encounter a couple of iguanas and another giant spider that took a particular interest in Eric. We were able to take close up pictures of a small iguana that was standing on a flower using a flashlight to light her up with. She wasn’t bothered at all by our presence, even though we got within a foot of her for some of the shots. She was still there at 5:30am the next morning when I stopped by to see her.

Iguana on the Road

Iguana on the road, caught in our flashlight beam.

Posed Iguana

Posed iguana, lit with a flashlight.

Posed Iguana

In her face, and she didn’t mind at all.

Posed Iguana

The mysterious backlit version.

Night Flower

Rain soaked flower, lit with a flashlight.

Night Flower

Close up of rain drops.

Not being be NYE partiers, we hung out on the porch reading and watching the rain before packing it in well before midnight.