We encountered blue crabs throughout our entire visit to the Costa Rican Caribbean coast. They would sneak out at night, when they appeared to be white or yellow, and cross the roads to get to the ocean. In the morning you would find them smashed into the roads like the roadkill we see in the states. At one of our favorite restaurants in Puerto Viejo, there were a number of crab holes within 3 feet of our table. They came out at night to feed and do their cool sideways crab crawl, right next to us. One of them even challenged Todd to a duel.
At some point on our trip I became obsessed with these blue crabs. They mystified me: I had no idea that they live so far away from the ocean. I was amazed that they actually ventured across roads. Their movement and shape fascinated me: some of them had one big crab claw, some had two.
I finally started taking pictures of these critters the second or third night we were at the above mentioned restaurant in Puerto Viejo. I had no idea that I would be encountering the mother- load of crabs when we hiked in Cahuita National Park. Below is some video footage of my beloved blue crabs (from the Park). I'll post more video and pics of the crabtastics in the next couple days.
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3 comments:
I can't watch the video right now, but I look forward to it. Do you know what kind of crabs they are? We had blue crabs on our island in the Solomons. They were coconut crabs. They eat coconuts, so their claws are strong enough to crack open the shell. In other words, if you understood that, you were afraid of their claws. No cute pinching if you get my drift. Anyway, I'm wondering if what you saw were coconut crabs, too, or if they were something different.
Funny story about coconut crabs. I bought one at the market one day. I carried it home dangling from a rope at arms length (scared of those claws). We had to call a neighbor man in to help cook the thing because we couldn't get the stupid crab into the pot. It took a lot of muscle for the neighbor to hold the lid on the pot while the crab was trying to escape. Strong suckers.
Then we had to use a hammer to crack it open to get to the meat. That was the first and the last time we ate coconut crab.
Mmm...crabs. This post made me hungry.
I got to watch the video. Those are definitely NOT coconut crabs. The guys you saw are way too cute.
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