Sandoval Lake

"We all went to bed early and woke up for breakfast around eight. We left for the National Reserve, down the river from our lodge, at 9:30 and hiked through the jungle for about an hour. Along the way, we saw all kinds of plants and animals, and about ten different kinds of ants. Army ants, leaf cutter ants, fire ants...all marching along the forest floor or along tree trunks. We saw a huge black, green and white butterfly that we tried to photograph for ten minutes, but it wouldn't land! It finally landed on my shirt, but took off again before Travis could get a picture.

^Leaf-cutter ants!^

Our destination was Sandoval Lake, and we used a small boat to explore its shores. We were a party of nine, with our guide and a solo traveler, Amelia. We all piled into a narrow canoe, and followed a small waterway through the trees to the open water of the lake:

We glided along the shore, looking out for animals in the water and trees. About ten minutes in, our guide pointed out a family of giant otters swimming in the center of the lake! We drifted closer, but not too close as to scare them. Carlos said that the mother otter will stop producing milk if she is scared and her baby will die. There are only eight otters in the lake, and they are an endangered species, so we were very lucky to see them that day.

Snacking on a fish!

After the otters, we went ashore and had lunch. Our guide company had packed us each a lunch: two banana leaves filled with a rice mix with a 'chicken ball' as well as some fruit and cookies. Where we pulled up to shore, there were about 1000 butterflies. They were mostly grouped along the muddy shoreline, but as we disembarked, many took off. They seemed to segregate themselves based on type or color, because all the brown ones were grouped separate from the green ones...

After lunch, we went for a swim in piranha-infested waters. The lake is home to lots of scary critters hidden below the murky surface, like anacondas and caimans, but we took the long boat out and jumped in. We all managed to retain our limbs and our lives :)

Once back in the boat, we saw a bunch of spider monkeys playing in the trees along the shore!

Can you spot the monkey?

We paddled around the edge of the lake some more and got off at a rickety old dock. Inside the trees here, there is a big canopy tower, so we climbed the five or six flights up the spiral steps and got a great view of he lake from above.

We spent the rest of the afternoon following the shoreline, looking for animals on our way back. We saw all kinds of birds, such as a Kingfisher and "snake duck" that swims underwater and has a long neck that looks like a snake when it pokes its head up. We saw lots of bats sleeping on trees, a few caiman, and lots of different plants. At one point, I saw a big pair of eyes peering out at us from out of the water (they reminded me of the eyes in Peter Pan of that big alligator), but when Marla saw them she screamed and he quickly hid below the surface.

Bats taking a nap

A little monkey!