La Fortuna

Our adventure today is a tour on the Rio Frio. It was a two hour drive from our hotel and Jorge engaged us in a conversation about the Nicaragua immigration problem. It is almost a complete parallel to our Mexican immigration problem. First, they need the legal immigrants for farm work, especially picking coffee beans during the five month season. But they also have an illegal immigrant problem - Nicaraguan women having babies here who qualify for health care. The women may also qualify for housing for their children. There is a $2000 fine for a company that employs an illegal, but it is not enough to quell the problem.

Long-nosed Bat

We slowly motored up the river stopping for various birds and animals: the long-nose bat that eats insects, they sway in the tree imitating the motion of leaves. We come upon a colony of Howler monkeys, which are very noisy. There we see 'Blondie" a mutant, the only one known it the world, that is a golden color rather than black. Originally shunned as a baby she is now the alpha female. The howler monkey is a herbivore and like man can see in color. We saw numerous green turtles. Their primary predator is the raccoon, who eats their eggs. In fact, they will turn a turtle on its back, reach up its birth canal to take eggs out of the turtle.

Emerald Basilisk 

We saw several spectacled caimans. They are similar to a crocodile, but less than six feet long, their fangs are inside their mouth, and they have striped tails. We were also introduced to the Emerald Basilisk, known as the Jesus Christ Lizard because the young can walk on water.
The hit of the boat ride was coming upon both White-headed Capuchin monkeys and spider monkeys. We watched them feast on the fruit on the Inga fruit. But even better was our drive home, we saw a Jaguarundi cross the road. It quickly got lost in the grasses on the other side, but we can claim a rare sighting, Jorge has seen only two in 17 years of guiding.