Crossing the Río Tárcoles, there is an unremarkable 2-lane cement bridge with narrow raised "sidewalks" on both sides and a not-incredibly-high railing.
What IS remarkable is that the Río Tárcoles is said to have the highest concentration of American crocodiles (25 crocodiles per square kilometer) in the world!
There's some tourist development on the north end of the bridge, but coming from the south there's only this small old sign covered with stickers that says Crocodiles in their Natural Environment. You can also see the muddy river banks down below and a few tourists on the bridge in this photo.
There's a narrow raised sidewalk only wide enough for one person so you really have to watch the traffic.
One big one I saw, my driver said looked to be about 4 meters long. He also said there's an even bigger one in that area that's 6 meters! And they can easily weigh over 1,000 pounds. Yikes!!
That guy in the water is just massive.
Swimming in the brown river.
Lots of teeth by the river!
You want to be very careful when you go out on the bridge. There's not a lot of room between you and the speeding buses so you don't want to wear a backpack and only bring your camera so you don't accidentally drop anything over the side. A German tourist recently lost his passport off the bridge. Consider that not-recoverable.
The highly polluted river is usually brown with rain runoff, sewage, and industrial waste. Even though it's considered the most polluted river in Costa Rica, my driver who has been driving this road multiple times a week for 8 years, says that other times of the year you can see straight to the bottom allowing you to see even more of the scaly reptiles.
It's a pretty view. The title photo was taken of those crocs bottom center of this photo. Gotta love 20x zoom. :)
Here they are half way zoomed in.
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