After the third helping of rice and beans in 24 hours, we worked tirelessly in the garden having felt bad for relaxing for most of the day before. The station hadn’t been visited for a couple of weeks before we arrived as it was still the rainy season which meant it needed a lot of maintenance at this stage to bring it back up to an acceptable standard. Because of the humidity, I’ve never sweated so much in my life. It made my very first day in Costa Rica feel more like a fresh morning in England in spring. Having seen so much in the first few days, full of confidence I planned to wake up before the crack of dawn and find a spot to set up my camera gear. I knew I wanted to film an area where a smaller tributary connects to the main river about a minute up the trail towards the waterfall. I noticed that there was an opening in the bushes on the sandy v-shaped river bank that I thought was an animal trail. I assumed that this would be my best chance of seeing an animal as, if I was right, this would be where animals are likely to cross the river or come down from the forest to drink.
Day 4
I woke up at 4am the next morning. Before the time my alarm was set for. Not out of excitement, although I was excited, but because there was something living in the walls of my cabin, scratching away. Up and out of bed ahead of schedule, I put on some wellington boots, long sleeves clothes and a head torch and I headed to the river in the pitch black. I also made sure not to wear any deodorant as not to make my whereabouts too obvious. As I walked up the river bank I could see that just after where the two tributaries met there was a small sandy patch of the river bank. It sat about fifteen metres in front of the opening on the animal trail and looked like it would make for a perfect shot of anything that was to come out down to the river. Holding my camera equipment above my head I waded through the river towards it. My boots filled up in seconds and by the middle of the river, the water was up to my hips. Once on the bank, which at closer look was more of a sandbar or island in the river, I took off the boots, poured the water out and used them to sit on. From this angle It was clear that the opening was definitely an animal trail and not the manifestation of run off water.
Naively, I was almost certain that something was going to come out onto the bank in the next few hours. With all of the animals that I stumbled upon, surely I’d see something when actively seeking them out. I sat on my boots on the bank for over 4 hours and I didn’t see a single animal. The closest I got was the occasional low pitch rumble which put me on peccary alert. The peccaries are a type of wild hog that live in Central and South america. In Osa, only the white-lipped peccary and the collared peccary can be found. They have a large scent gland just above the tail which they use to mark their territory and also rub on each other. Apparently, if you are accustomed to the musky smell you can even smell them coming or when they are in the area. They’re also the only large animals that I was warned about by Rebeca. The advice being that if I see one, I should stand as still as I can. But if it attacks then the only option is to run up the nearest tree as you don’t know how many of them are nearby. I realised later, that the noise was actually just some hummingbirds. I was shocked by how deep the noise their wings make when they fly.
By the time I left at just after 9am it was already hot and humid again and I was somewhat over dressed. Though I headed back a little disappointed but not disheartened, it was amazing to listen to one half the jungle go to sleep as the other wakes up. Despite understanding it to be quite common not to see anything on stakeouts like these, in hindsight, I was too out in the open. So open that, even if any animal did intend on coming down to the bank, it probably would have seen me and decided otherwise. Next time I want to wait somewhere for the animals to come to me, I need to stay hidden and out of sight. Even if that means sacrificing the composition of the footage to some degree, as it's better than having no footage. This was one of many lessons I’m sure I’ll learn not just at Tamandua but on my travels. As soon as I sat on my bed, I fell fast asleep for another couple of hours. After waking up just before midday, Aster and I continued the work on the garden for a few a hours. In the evening, we had rice and beans, again, for dinner and played cards until we went to bed.
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