Aside from the wildlife we encountered on our hike and the enormous amount of underwater action we documented while snorkeling, there were a few other notable fauna sightings during our time on Coiba.
There were plenty of white-faced monkeys hanging about the campsite – no doubt scavenging the refuse from the kitchen. Still, it doesn’t matter how annoying monkeys can be (i.e. really tremendously, irritatingly annoying), I still get an enormous charge from watching them caper about.
The black vultures that spread their wings in the afternoon sun on the camp lawn are also scavengers. They fight with the monkeys for that kitchen refuse. They are, however, much less pretty to look at.
And then there’s the Coiban Agouti – a rabbit-sized rodent that’s native to the island. Yeah, they’re about as exciting as any rodent.
But then there’s Tito.
Tito is a HUGE salt-water crocodile that frequently visits the campsite at high tide. While he mostly sticks to an inlet away from the main beach, he has apparently been known to haul his ass out of the water and creep around the camp lawn.
Tito gets fed pretty regularly, and they say he doesn’t generally attack humans because he knows enough not to bite the hand that feeds him. Given his size, we weren’t about to put our trust in what sounded like specious reasoning at best. Any time we had to wander about camp during the evening we carried a flashlight and looked well ahead of ourselves.
We never saw Tito, but we did see a smaller crocodile that was hanging about in Tito’s usual spot. I say “smaller” but he was still pretty big (evidently Tito is bigger still). He stayed put to let us a get a few good shots.
Later, as we were sitting down for dinner, we were watching the beach and someone spotted a croc in the water. Dayum, those things move fast! Thankfully, the one person swimming was warned in time and was able to get to safety – but it gave us a start.
It certainly put a damper on any plans to go skinny dipping that night.
Safarii 