One day in San Blas, five sailors decided to leave their sailboats tied up at the dock, and embark on a small motorboat adventure deep into the wild mangroves of the Rio Tovara. This is the story of their two-hour tour.
After a 15 minute taxi ride with five large adults plus the driver crammed into a very small car, we arrived at the Rio Tovara and handed over our pesos in exchange for a friendly driver with a good-looking boat.
Since we had gotten up fairly early, we were only the second boat of the day to venture upriver. This was a good thing, because it meant we had a better chance of seeing animals than if we had gone later in the day!.
We slid through the river, embraced by mangroves and shaded, for the first part at least, by giant fig trees. If you had been sitting in those trees you would have laughed at us: five swiveling heads and one steady one.
What’s that??!
Over there! What, you don’t see it? That’s ok, neither did we. That’s how it goes sometimes on a jungle cruise. At least the driver was not making corny jokes!
Ok, no fooling around this time. Do you see it?
I’ll help you. The driver brought us in very close…
Do I have to do everything? There it is. Zoom in if you dare. Gulp. Suddenly we are glad to be in a hard-sided boat. That’s Mister Crocodrilo to you.
Back in the trees again. Hey, what’s that climbing around over our heads?
Thank goodness for Photoshop! It’s a coati, or coatimundi! Some people call them hog-nosed raccoons because they can wiggle their noses 60 degrees in any direction. Wish I could do that.
Gotta be quick on this cruise – there goes a big iguana! Look at those pretty iridescent green stripes on his tail and belly.
Look! Another coati!
And a baby coati too!
Ok, this one was tricky, and we almost missed it. Can you spot the little tecolate?
Tecolate is the word for owl in Mexico. This one never moved an inch in the five minutes we watched it. Still can’t find it? Zoooooom in to the vertical branch in the center of the photo. Yup, there it is!
We saw lots of other cool birds, too, like this anhinga, and a green-backed kingfisher, a chachalaca, and boat-billed herons. But it was hard to take pictures, so we mostly just enjoyed watching them. You can GOOOOOGLE them if you like.
Oooh, what’s this? An old river camp where the original people here used to hunt crocodrilos and turtles?
“I don’t think so,” says Wade…
Our river guide says it is an abandoned movie set from a flick called “Cabeza de Vaca.” Apparently, Head of the Cow refers to explorers. Dora the Explorer is a cow head. If I have that right. My Spanish isn’t perfect, you know…..
Speaking of turtles, we probably saw at least 50 of these. Most of them jumped back into the water as soon as they saw us.
Whoa! Where did that come from! Yeah, we made it to the crocodrilo preserve. It is really just a small family operated crocodile zoo where they take in injured animals. Maybe they really do release them after a while, but it didn’t seem like that kind of place. We walked around all the pools to see the big guys and gals up close.
A bit further and the guide parked the boat at Tovara Springs and gave us 20 minutes to take a dip. A fence stretches across and under the water to keep out the crocs, but only Carla fui a nadar in the crystal clear spring water…after she checked for crocodrilos, of course.
On the way back to the boat, we saw this sign. And THAT’S when we noticed there were giant holes in the fence. At least the holes were under water, on the bottom, where the crocodiles probably couldn’t walk through. Could they?
Well, that was certainly exciting. On the way back out, we went very fast, and did not see any more wildlife. After the sixth or seventh boat passed us going the other way, we were 1) very glad we went early, and 2) amused to see they were all taking pictures of us!
Our two-hour-tour made us hungry! Lucky for us the area is famous for super yummy banana bread and coconut treats. Wade was eating two different things, one for each hand!
We hope you liked coming along on our tropical cruise up the Rio Tovara! Now you can see: we’re not in Port Angeles any more!
sailing pelican moon 