We arranged a tour to  Nariva swamp, a protected mangrove swamp and forest, the reputation for its bird and wildlife is good.  We were picked up by Jesse from the front gates of the marina at 5am. We drove for a couple of hours and stopped for doubles at a large house just outside Valencia. (Doubles are a kinda pancake/wrap filled with a curried chickpea mix) they're a local snack served from the back of a truck.  We arrived at the mangroves at about 8am having driven past some beautiful houses on a sandy beach thats about 6 miles long on the Atlantic side of Trinidad.

 

 

Howler monkies get their name from the noises they make and when they start it came be very loud especially if the troop feel threatened by us or another troop nearby. They really sound like a growling lion killing a cow. We were in luck today and saw some beautiful monkies in the trees, sometimes they throw a couple of sticks at us if we got too close. We also saw briefly a Capuchin monkey, they are more rare and quite endangered here and a little shyer, but it was good to see them at the top of the trees. We did see a small snake but hardly an Anaconda which some of us were hoping to see, we were also hoping to see some Caimans a small Crocodile, but no luck today.

 

Our return trip through the swamp followed the same route back and we reached the tour guides hut, and got back aboard our bus. Unfortunately we were told that the next part of the trip was cancelled because the dinghy dock had fallen into the water and was being repaired. This was to take us up river to where we could see some Manatees, a large kinda sea cow thingy. So instead we went off to lunch before arriving back at powerboats marina by about 4pm.

 

It was a good tour but a little disappointing, maybe we were expecting too much. We'll see what the next one brings.

 

Back at our dock we see our friends Chris and Tony of Waylander had arrived from Grenada, we plan to go to Venezuela and the offshore Islands with them sometime next week.