Tortuguero - Day 2

We woke up pretty early on this morning.  We were scheduled to go on a 5:45 a.m. tour to look at wildlife.  When we got up, though, I was worried that it was going to rain.  I heard what sounded like wind blowing hard...you know that howling sound when a storm is coming?  That's what it sounded like.  When I looked out the window, however, there was no wind.  It was creepy.  Mark and I felt like we were in a horror movie listening to some unknown entity off in the forest.  Later we found out it was the howler monkey...and they do this every morning.  It was so cool to have heard them in their natural habitat.  We started off in a boat tour through the national park....

 

Our first sighting was more monkeys....here's one jumping from one tree to another...

 

Here are pics of lots of other wildlife that we saw....there were so many beautiful birds...but I can't remember the names....I found myself wishing my mom was with me because I know she would have so much new material to paint!

Our guide freaked out when he saw this little guy...he tried to grab his camera, but the little guy started running away.  I snapped a pic, but it's blurry.

This is a basilisk lizard...if you can see him.  He's the kind that runs on water, but it's very fast and he only does it when he feels there's no other option.

 These little guys took off right after I took this pic...I wish I had gotten one of them taking off.  They have beautiful pink legs and they were so beautiful flying in unison...

Yep, that's a parrot.....

 

Before we left, I had to get one more pic of the Caribbean Sea....

 Oh, and did you know that banana plants/trees have flowers?  I guess I never really thought about it before, but it makes sense since they're a fruit.  I'd never seen a banana flower, but it's really pretty and deep red.  It's on the end of the stalk.

 

 

One more thing....when I got to school on Monday, I told my students that I went to Tortuguero for the weekend.  This doesn't compare much to their weekend jets to other countries, but one student raised his hand and told me that his best friend's dad owns a lodge/resort in Tortuguero named Mawamba or "something like that."  I was like....WHAAAA???  That's where we stayed!  I told this student that we want to go back so he needed to hook a sistah up with some free accomodations!  He said he'd talk to his friend and see what he could do.  I'm starting to like having connections with these kids!!!  LOL