Uninvited and Awestruck
Ensenada los Lagartos
[21:17] [Saturday, February 03, 2007]
Our daysail lasted just under two hours, and it was fantastic. However, with a dying wind and our Brits still behind exploring the tiny Rio Amatillo, we furled sail and turned around to meet up with them.
A Guatemalan fish camp and what seems to be an abandoned hostel at the mouth of Amatillo were about the extend of our excitement on a brief dink ride up the little river. Trees grew right up to shore, and then water orchids stretched from the shoreline almost clear across the river in some places. We raised anchor after our brief exploration and followed the Brits further north to Ensenada los Lagartos, a small cove a little west of El Estor.
Keeping in mind Samcharsa's deep draft, we crept into los Lagartos and managed to anchor just off a creek marked as a manatee reserve. No sooner had we shut of our engine than the roar of howler monkeys in the distance gave everyone a moment's pause.
Excited by the prospect of catching howler monkeys in action -- not to mention manatees -- Brady and I prepped the dinghy and headed up the creek.
It seems each place we visit is more pristine and wild than the last. The water, like a mirror, reflected everything almost perfectly. We encounterd exquisite plantlife and several pairs of water chickens on our journey upriver. Huge groups of blossomless lily pads and lilac-bloomed orchids tickled the sides of the dink as we buzzed along. The water chickens squatted among huge orchid ptches and fled in a flurry of green and auburn when we motored too close.
We found a place to land at the very far end of the creek. The quiet grunting of a disturbed monkey drew us whispering from the dinghy. Unfortunately we could not catch a glimpse of the ape himself, but Brady did get some footage of what might have been monkey poo. Judging by all the fairly-new cutting done where we'd landed, however, it is difficult to say if the dropping belonged to a howler or a different sort of monkey altogether, if you catch our drift.
Dismayed by the lack of monkeys or parrots or manatees, we turned around and headed home to watch the sunset. Just as we started to round the last bend, though, what appeared to be some animal's nest squirmed high in the branches of a crooked tree. We turned the dink around in something of a frenzy and cut off the outboard. A small family of howlers were nestled among the highest branches of this tree, relaxing in the evening sun. We waited patiently for some howling, but mama monkey and her baby merely stared back at us from their post at the treetop, as though asking us just who the hell we thought we were, barging in without an invite?
A pair of green parrots flitting noisily over the creek and another bee-yootiful sunset wrapped up our evening. We spent twilight hours aboard Sonatina, Peter and T's gorgeous 38-footer, chatting it up over a few drinks. Tomorrow we will take it easy, maybe getting a peek around El Estor before heading -- finally -- to the hot waterfalls.
