Thirty minutes north of Jacó, a flat-bottomed boat works the Tárcoles River, where crocodiles haul out on the mud banks close enough to photograph without a long lens.

It runs about an hour and forty minutes. The guide is bilingual and knows the river's history as well as its animals — bring a camera, because the same banks hold as many tropical birds as they do crocodiles. The boat needs two people to go out; if you are travelling alone we group you with others.