We took a boat tour of the mangroves around Isla Damas.

It was one of the highlights of our trip. The botanist in me was in heaven witnessing a healthy mangrove ecosystem in action.

Adventurers.

I didn’t include all of the animal pictures because we saw many through binoculars, but we saw a crab-eating raccoon, two silky anteaters (tapacara) wrapped up like fuzzy golden balls sleeping in the mangroves (they are nocturnal), green iguanas, a crocodile and a garden tree boa.

With one machete swipe you get a very refreshing drink!

Ummm, yeah. A very close encounter!

Lydia was having a ball. The captain of the boat tempted the monkey with the palm oil fruit I posted earlier.

Once in a lifetime I would say. The best part of this was that we were deep in the mangroves with no one else around. The captain and our guide started shouting “Venga! Venga!” (You come! You come!) to entice the monkeys out to see us.

My best portrait!

Lalo let Tess drive the boat. She was into it.

Two things I didn’t get any pictures of that were quite special were the time we spent at our captain Lalo’s home on Isla Damas and the dinner our tour guides wife Wendy made for us after we got back.

Right after showing us a snake resting peacefully at the edge of the mangroves Lalo pulled the boat up on shore where we were greeted by his three dogs, one of which was a new puppy. Smiling dogs welcoming you is the best. He sliced open a coconut for us, the one Dave was drinking from, and relaxed and chatted with his family while we said hello to his rabbits, chickens, cows and hedgehog. I was most enamored of his abuela’s garden. We weren’t sure if this was a standard part of the tour, but it was very interesting for us to get a glimpse of life on the island (we had to kill some time while the tide came in as our guide had us get started earlier than usual). After the mangrove tour our guide Pablo drove us to his house where we had tasty casados for dinner (a typical meal consisting of rice, beans, fried plantains, salad and in this case chicken.)

This kind of experience was right up our alley.