Adventures with Jungle Man (by Cindy)

Our hotel in Playa Cocles emailed a brochure before our trip that outlined some activities we could take advantage of during our stay. There were several tours that interested us. One was a free morning nature walk at the hotel and surrounding area. We decided that we would definitely do that one. There were also four other tours for a fee including a wildlife tour that we wanted to check out. All of the tours, including the free one, were led, according to the brochure, by “Jungle Man.”

This is the third post about our trip to Playa Cocles. In this post we describe our adventures with Jungle Man.

When we arrived at our hotel, Le Cameleon, a guy that definitely looked like he could be Jungle Man was sitting in the reception area. He introduced himself as we signed up for the free morning nature tour the following morning (Friday morning) and we were encouraged enough to also sign up for the wildlife tour that same day.

On Friday morning we met Jungle Man and started our tour on the grounds of the hotel near the reception area. 

Like our tour in Tortuguero, the first creatures we saw were land crabs and spiders, and even the same type of spider, the Golden Orb spider.  The Golden Orb spider weaves an incredibly strong web, that was used for fishing line by indigenous peoples and we were also told is being used for eye surgery.

• 

• 

The sloth fest started when we crossed the road and walked near the hotel restaurant and beach. Jungle Man made a point to count each of the sloths that we saw. We lost track after 12. Like almost every other sloth we’d seen, they looked like a ball of fur in the tree. Jungle Man said that one of the sloth fur balls we saw was a mother with a newborn that she was still cleaning. Maybe this sloth fur ball looked a bit different, but it could have just been the power of suggestion.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Aside from the spiders and sloths, we also saw vultures that scavenge near a restaurant, and a hawk.  (Did you know that one name for a group of vultures is a committee? Somehow it seems a fitting name.)

• 

• 

That concluded our free morning nature walk.  We arranged to meet Jungle Man for our Wildlife tour at the reception area after a short break for breakfast.

Side note – before we took this trip, we decided that we should buy smaller, hard-sided suitcases. We’ve been traveling for years with larger rolling duffels. But, when we saw all of the suitcases heaped on the luggage boat during our Tortuguero, and the rain we have encountered and will encounter, we thought it might be prudent to invest in some hard-sided luggage that was more appropriately sized for a long weekend. We purchased the suitcases at the Aliss department store, which has decent prices. Aliss has locations in Central America and Miami.

We stopped at our room after breakfast, at which point John pulled a pair of hiking pants out of his suitcase. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal.  But as we had been packing our new hard-sided but smaller suitcases the night before we left on this trip, I had asked John, “are you going to be bringing any long pants on this trip?”  And he replied, “no, it’s going to be hot on the coast, so no need.  I can use the extra space.”  So, I optimized my suitcase space and didn’t bring long pants. Well, I was surprised when he pulled out the hiking pants and said, “What’s up with the hiking pants? I thought you weren’t going to bring any long pants.”  His reply?  “These are hiking pants. I was only talking about jeans or dress pants. They’re different.”  (Sigh… I have created a checklist of items to always bring with me on these trips, no matter what, like sunscreen and bug spray.  When I got home, hiking pants were added to my list. I’m not bothering to get a second opinion again.) I lathered up with sunscreen and went outside the room and sprayed as much bug spray as I could on my arms and legs. I also donned my ridiculously large hat. I may not have long pants, but I could protect my head.

Jungle Man drove up to pick us up for the short ride to Gandoca-Manzanilla National Wildlife Refuge, where we would have our wildlife tour.  During the drive Jungle Man was playing reggae music videos that displayed on his navigation console. Jungle Man asked if we liked reggae, and John responded yes, and mentioned Bob Marley and Wailers and Toots and the Maytals.  Jungle Man kind of laughed and politely suggested that we should update the music we listened to (to the current century?). He told us who he was playing, but I can’t remember. Guess we’ll just stay stuck with our old music – we’re old, after all.  By the way, we couldn’t tell how old Jungle Man was. However, we did learn that he had a 4-year old son, that he affectionately refers to as Jungle Boy.  Jungle Man said Jungle Boy enjoys going with him on the tours because people give him tips, too. Jungle Boy did not accompany us on our tour.

We parked at the Gandoca-Manzanilla National Refuge and walked to the park. The south end of the park borders Panama. There wasn’t an entrance fee, but a couple of people were stationed at a table in front of a swinging bridge that you had to cross to enter the park, accepting donations. We were happy to give.

Once we crossed the bridge, we found ourselves on a wide path. It would be easy to go to this park and stay on the main path, no guide needed. But Jungle Man delivered on his name, and we soon broke off from the main path to less-traveled paths through the jungle, where we saw practically no one else. At this point I was ruing the fact that I had not brought my long hiking pants on this trip, as some of the paths we hiked were narrow and we were pushing through plants. I was really hoping I wasn’t getting too many scratches that would draw mosquitos and that my bug spray was working.  

• 

• 

At first, we mainly saw butterflies.

• 

• 

• 

• 

John mentioned that he would like to see one of those colorful, but poisonous, tree frogs. At that point I looked down and saw a red tree frog. It wasn’t quite as colorful as the multi-colored tree frogs you see in the zoos, but there it was, and I had spotted it first. Not to be outdone, Jungle Man spotted another.  

• 

As we hiked along in the denser jungle, we saw a small snake, a toucan, a parrot, Bali’s lizard, an acouti (where we took way too much time to get a rather poor photo, due to the shadows), and various ants with stinging bites that we jumped over.

• 

• 

Trees and plants were, of course, all around us, but a few that were called out included a walking palm, a rubber tree, two varieties of almond trees, and a camphor tree. Jungle Man lit a stick from the camphor tree and it smelled just like camphor.

• 

• 

• 

• 

The trail was not only narrow, but in some places steep and muddy. Walking sticks and hiking boots would have been ideal, but we didn’t have those with us, so we muddled along the best we could, and managed not to fall, although we came close a couple of times. Eventually we made our way back to the large main path, where there were a lot of people.  The main path leads out to a beautiful overlook of the Caribbean Sea, called Miss May Point. Miss May was the wife of the family that originally owned the land. The husband’s grave is near there.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

As we headed back to the park entrance, we saw another item on John’s Costa Rica checklist, the venomous eyelash viper, curled on a tree. The eyelash viper is responsible for more bites than any other snake in Costa Rica. We were sure to keep our distance.

John stopped to take a photo of a heron from the swinging bridge on our way out of the park.

We thoroughly enjoyed our tours with Jungle Man, although when Jungle Man drove us back to the hotel, we didn’t talk about music.