On Saturday, a bunch of us from IPED, including the owners—David and Zaida, and their son Andre—went on a day trip. We started out with a trip to Herradura, where Zaida had gone when she was growing up. The beach had been entirely different, but she still loved this beach.
On the way, we saw some pineapple farms. I was reminded of a conversation we had at one of the cooking classes. Apparently, a lot of the big pineapple farms moved from Hawaii to Costa Rica. That should seem like a good thing for the Costa Rican economy, but the pineapple farms make the soil acidic and no good for planting anything, including pineapple.
We stopped a bit before on a bridge where we could look down fifty feet to see the crocodiles slithering vaguely. I took a bunch of photos, not realizing at the time that I didn’t need ridiculously far away shots, since I was going to get shots much closer very soon.
The beach was a Tico beach. There were kids playing futbol, kids swimming, families with picnics. The sun was out like crazy, which was nice after Heredia’s perpetually warm, yet overcast, weather. Zaida reminded us that 20 minutes of sun exposure so close to the equator was the same as 3 hours up north, where we all lived.
The waves were strong—one bowled me over when I was too shallow, and diving under the biggest ones got my swimsuit so full of sand that when I showered in the pay stalls the water sluicing from an unodorned faucet above, I kept thinking I had gotten all the sand out from all the various places but then would discover that I still had sand in my ears. Or wherever.
We had lunch just off the beach, and watched the US v Ghana game. This led to many sentences like. Si Ghana gane, and Ghana ganó and other formulations that were technically incorrect but had a nice alliteration with the verb for ‘to win.’
Ghana. Ganó.
Andre, a couple of the Slaughter Boys, and I stayed to watch the end of the game, and I took a picture, dark and nearly indecipherable, of the moment the game was called. Responses were mixed. I was happy an African team was still in the running. But I have no particular national pride attached to Ghana.
The coaster, by this time, was coasting down the street, whispering to us forlornly, please get on the bus. So we did. After all, there were crocodiles to check out.
At the beginning of the Crocodile Tour, we were told the guide (Wilki) would be feeding some of the crocs—which seemed like a foolhardy idea at best. But when he got out of the boat to do so, it seemed like an incredibly dangerous idea. Then, when he let a crocodile get in between him and the boat—well, I for one, thought I was going to watch someone die.
Turns out crocodiles aren’t generally that keen attacking strong, healthy animals on the ground. Crocodiles can run 28 mph on the ground, but only for a short distance, and only in a straight line, which apparently they find less than useful. What they do like to do is bite off a chunk of their prey and then return to the river to chomp on the flesh, trusting that the big bite missing from whatever animal they chomped on will keep it in the general area so they can snack again.
Also, crocodiles can’t see well, so when they snatch a quarter chicken out of Wilki’s hand, they assume they’ve snatched, well, his hand. But still, sometimes the crocodiles forget that they’re supposed to return to the river, and Wilki was, at one point, blocked from boat access by crocodiles. He just picked up one of the tails in his , though, and the croc in his way slinked back into the water, no problem at all.
Rio Tarcoles is full of wildlife. And also, brahmin cows. And also Wyatt—one of the Slaughter boys—who said we should feed him to the crocodiles, because he’s way better than any chicken. It can be so diverse because of the interesting environmental conditions. That area of Guanacaste gets 450 inches of rain a year; Wilki said there are two seasons in that area: rainy season, and another rainy season.
Crocodiles keep growing as long as they’re alive, and live for 90-100 years; in the Rio Tarcoles area, they’ve found crocodiles up to 20 feet long. But Rio Tarcoles is a brackish river with mangroves, so it also supports pastured farm animals (the brahmins and also the horses), birds like yellow-headed caracaras, herons, and scarlet macaws, the latter of which were flying overhead in pairs, making macaw-like noises while returning to their nests at the end of a long day.
