Tarcoles – Highlight Are Sometimes Where You Don’t Expect Them!

We planned the very last stop in Tarcoles as a “last activity before hoping on the plane back home”, on the way back from Dominical. Well, it turned into an unexpected highlight of the trip!

We booked a room at the very secluded Tarcoles Birding Lodge, about 20 minutes driving distance from Tarcoles, a pleasant hotel atop a hill with views on the forest and the ocean in the distance. We did not see many birds, but on the morning of the last day, we could observe a large family of White -Faced Capuchin Monkeys feeding on bananas from a few meters distance. Incredible!

Jose’s Crocodile Tour

We had read about the possibility to spot the crocodiles from the bridge over Rio Tarcoles, but somehow preferred to go on a tour to enhance our chances. Rio Tarcoles is no less than the river most infested with crocodiles… on this planet! Just as a side note: chances of spotting crocodiles from the bridge are close to 0, and the bridge is very, very crowded.

I was not really convinced when booking this tour, thinking it would be “Disneyland-like”. I even considered cancelling it, but fellow travelers raved about it, so I stuck to my first idea. And that was a great tour, one of the best wildlife watching options we had in Costa Rica! You get to see a lots of birds during the tour, which, alone, would be a nice tour.

But if you are here to see the crocodiles, you are in for an unforgettable experience! Ok, the truth is: they are feeding some of the crocs, who then approach when the boat comes closer, and one of the two guides get down and hands (literally) pieces of chicken to the crocodiles, some of them 5 meters long / 600 kg heavy. This is impressive! Each crocodile has some funny nickname, from Captain Hook (because he lost one leg in a fight), of course to Shakira or even Oussama Bin Laden, because the old, 4,5-meter-long crocodile, is so hard to spot. We spent all in all a great 1h45 with them, and it will be one of the highlights of the trip!