Mi Agouti y Yo

[All pictures on this page are from the corcovado.org site, with one exception as noted at the bottom of the page.]

Eeeeeeeeeeee … this is scary-exciting! I heard back from the Sirena station at Parque Nacional Corcovado and they have room for me. I didn’t expect that.

As I mentioned elsewhere, the park is renowned for its biodiversity. How many creatures can you spot in this picture?

The reservation confirmation is entirely in Spanish so I hope I’m reading it right. In one place I think it says, “Don’t eat the animals of the forest,” which I wouldn’t do even if they hadn’t asked. What a drag if the phrase I’m reading to mean “Welcome! You have a reservation” really meant “Stay away! You’ll be eaten by sharks.”

Actually, they do say something about sharks on their site (in English). Let me find it. Here:

The Sirena River is home to a population of crocodiles and due to its brackish water, bull sharks and sting rays can be found there. Swimming is not advised.

Uh, okay, I won’t swim. Or eat animals of the forest.

I spent part of this afternoon scrambling to figure out how to get to this extremely remote place. Booked a flight from Guatemala City to San José, and a hop the next day to Puerto Jiménez where I hope to meet Jill. Then we either hike 14 km through the jungle or take a boat around the point of the peninsula or I don’t know what.

What an adventure. I’ve never been to such wilds. If I were Queen Elizabeth they’d clear the place of spiders for me. I really, really want to see an agouti. I will bring it home with me. I will love it and it will love me and we will live happily ever after, my agouti and me.

Here are other things I could see if I’m lucky: four species of monkey, coati, silky anteater, jaguar, poison dart frog, and of course the Jesus Christ lizard, “called like that since they can run on water.”

The only sad thing is I don’t think I’ll have time for river rafting. I wonder if agoutis like whitewater. Eh, whatever. I’d rather have a capybara.

Let me show you some more pictures from the corcovado.org site:

Oh, and this is cool: information for a graduate rainforest fieldwork course at the University of Texas. They’ve got listings of Sirena’s mammals, amphibians, birds, butterflies, fish, fungi, reptiles, and …. NOOOooooo! … spiders. Not sedate spiders; jumping ones. Here’s a photo taken by L.E. Gilbert, which you can see on his Spiders of Sirena page.

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