Dos Brazos del Río Tigre, Costa Rica

Thursday, July 09 was our second day in Costa Rica. As I told you last week, we spent our first night in a hotel in Parrita. After breakfast and a scavenger hunt in the supermarket, we got back on the bus headed for the Osa Peninsula. Since this was my second time to make that trip by bus, I did not take as many pictures as last time. One thing that did catch my eye was this truck carrying huge bags of African palm seeds.

The African palm plantations cover large swaths of the Costa Rican countryside. Next time you eat heart of palm or use palm oil, consider that there is a high probability that it came from Costa Rica.

The helicopter is left over from when the United Fruit company was forced from the Osa Peninsula, and the cows are… just cows. I am not sure why I took so many pictures of cows on this trip. Perhaps it is because they were everywhere.

Another memorable moment from that trip was watching the bus try to cross this little bridge to reach our lodge. For a moment I was quite certain that we were going to end up in the river. Gustavo got out to help guide our driver, Ivan.

The name of the town is Dos Brazos del Río Tigre, in English that translates to “Two Branches of the Tiger River.” The tigers are local jaguars, and the small town is famous for gold mining.

We stayed in the Los Mineros lodge just as we had two years ago.

We quickly dropped off our bags and donned our bathing suits to leave on our first adventure. Eric took took a moment to explain what the kids needed to know and we started off on a hike. The three guides, Jonathan, Yorens and Gustavo, kept their eyes open for interesting flora and fauna to show us, as well as anything dangerous.

We saw many animals, but they were hard to capture with my little camera. I would have loved to take my big camera, but I was nervous about keeping it safe in the rain forest. Can you spot the toucan, iguana and crab in the following pictures?

These are frog eggs.

The most interesting thing that we saw was not an animal but evidence where one had been. At first, I was certain that the guides were kidding with us when they pointed out this paw print as having been made by an extremely large jaguar, but once I saw how excited they were, I realized that they were serious. In the second picture you can see the print beside the boot of a grown man. That was a big cat!

I also appreciated the flora. It was funny to see plants that we keep in pots in the house flourishing in the great outdoors.

The flowers were beautiful. One of the guys gave me a couple of flowers to wear.

Our hike led us to one branch of the Río Tigre, where we stopped to try to find some gold. The students were excited to try panning themselves.

You might notice that a lot of us had mud on our faces. The top spas around the world use this mud in their treatments. We were able to experience its effects for free.

The search for gold was not going very well until we were joined by Wilín, a life-long gold miner from the area. He and Jonathan used a toboggan to sift more earth. In the end, we found a few small flakes. Can you see the shiny gold bits in the last picture?

After finishing our mini gold rush, we enjoyed the river for a while. It was shallow in that spot, but some of the kids were able to float along with the current.

We hiked back out just in time to shower before dinner. That evening was spent playing Mafia and practicing salsa dancing. I supposed I was too busy being “murdered” by my students to take any pictures.

Come back next Monday to hear about our visits to El Salto and a botanical garden.

Happy Travels!