Today we started our second day of adventuring around Trinidad in the car I rented, or as Holly liked to say Another Adventure 2.0 (her boat is named Another Adventure, Haha). All three of us left Chaguaramus at 6am in order to drive all the way across the island to the Nariva Swamp located on the east coast and arrive on a rising tide. The rising tide was important because we would travel through the swamp on a small boat and the swamp drains enough water that at low tide even the small boat would not have enough water in the channels.
One of the capuchin monkeys we saw
Nariva Swamp is the largest freshwater wetlands in Trinidad and among other animals and birds you can find manatee, caimans, anacondas, boa constrictors, & macaws, but most of these are either nocturnal or so well hidden the chances of us seeing them were not high at all. Instead, we met Bobby and he took us through the swamp on his small boat to Bush Bush Island so we could see red howler monkeys and white-fronted capuchin monkeys. Within a few minutes of walking around the island we saw a troop of 12-15 capuchin monkeys in the branches overhead. They were going back and forth foraging for food (Holly even caught one on camera crapping, not really footage I needed haha). We continued to walk around and saw lots of evidence of the howler monkeys, but never saw any. This is unusual because we are told the capuchin monkeys are the hard ones to find.
We got to play with this snake also
In an old research building (you have to lower your thinking and imagine a cajun hut on stilts) we found some bats. We also saw a two foot long snake that must have been sick because he did not try and get away or really defend itself. Bobby showed us the large cage that was used when they reintroduced the blue and gold macaws, which we could hear in the treetops but never saw through the thick foliage.
All in all Nariva Swamp was a great start to another day of adventuring…..plus I was looking forward to something I knew was right next to the swamp, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. 🙂
Today’s photo of the day was captured right before we loaded up to return
