Slow Travel

We meet some Dutch travelers in the smoothie store.They are rushing to catch a plane out of San Carlos, but they are just back by boat from Los Guatuzos, our next destination, and helpfully inform us in barely accented English, “It was crowded. We felt like refugees.”My boyfriend looks longingly at the carnival that is being set up in town for the next day, featuring a mini Ferris Wheel, a car ride, and a shooting booth that advertises Homer Simpson, Felix the Cat, and Mickey Mouse, in a gun battle. (Felix and Mickey look happy to be shooting, but Homer appears cross-eyed and deranged).

San Carlos is a dusty town on the Rio San Juan, the river that that separates Nicaragua from Costa Rica. We’re getting ready to board a 4-hour boat Los Guatuzos, a wildlife reserve where later that night we will stand inches away from sleeping hummingbirds, peer through the canopy at a sloth, hold a baby caiman, and walk nervously through the swamp to find two Red-eyed tree frogs mating feet away from a snake.

The large wooden boat is already being filled with rice and Coca-Cola, and we learn that the seats of the Rio Papaturro community boat are just long wooden boards you pull down from the side.Next to us boards a family with bursting market bags.When they wander off the boat for more snacks, I start to talk to the preteen girl saving the benches in front of us.I am taking the boats to see nature, she is taking the boat – she pauses, pushes her head toward mine, and in a dramatic whisper says, to move to Costa Rica with her family.I soon run out of Spanish and her family arrives.Meanwhile, in the back of the boat, an older woman had strung up a hammock in a place where four benches could go, and she’s snoring.

Later on, the boat turns onto a boat-width river, and we follow the girl’s brothers to the roof, where they’ve joined a driver wearing a cowboy hat and making a knot in a rope. All are standing and intently watching the riverbank. One of the boys shouts, and points– the first crocodile. The rest of the family is now climbing up to join us. He points again, and from another tree, there comes a splash – a frightened iguana has jumped from his tree branch into the water. A Jesus Christ lizard skitters across the water.Then – a smack followed by an expletive, as the rope flies through the air and hits a stump where moments ago an iguana was resting.