Turtle watching

Hi all,

Last time I wrote I was in San Jose, where I was looking forward to meeting up with the people I will be spending the next week with. I had to change hotels, and although they were situated on the same street, that was where the similarity ended, as the new hotel was being rennovated and the reception area resembled a building site! Still, I was only to be there for one night so it wasn't a problem.

No-one else from the group had arrived yet so I spent another day wandering around San Jose before heading back to the hotel at 4pm, only to find that there was still no-one there, which had me thinking maybe I was in the wrong hotel! But I discovered that I was the only person joining the group in San Jose - the rest of them had already spent a few weeks travelling around Central America, and they finally arrived late afternoon. I felt a bit like the new boy when we went for an Asian meal, but they seemed like a nice bunch, and at last I could eat something that didn't include rice and beans!

We had a 5am start on Saturday to catch a bus to the port of Limon on the Caribbean coast. I had visions of us piling onto a small local bus, but fortunately it was a proper coach with plenty of room. The journey passed through some amazing mountainous scenery before reaching the port, from where we had a 4 hour boat trip along the lagoon to our jungle lodge in the Tortuguero National Park.

Along the way we spotted some amazing wildlife, including sloths, monkeys, crocodiles, tucans, a lot of other birdlife, and the odd iguana, which our guide somehow managed to spot sitting on a branch 50 yards away. It took me ages to find them even with my binoculars.

The lodge was situated right at the edge of the lagoon, and 2 minutes walk from the Caribbean sea. We spent about 4 hours in the afternoon just sitting in hammocks, reading and chatting before dinner - it really was a great first 'proper' day, but the highlight was yet to come.

Tortuguero National Park is famous for the green turtles that nest there every year, and each night, a maximum of 200 people are allowed onto the beach to watch, under strict supervision. We managed to see quite a few turtles, either coming out of the sea to dig a hole in the sand using their massive flippers, in which they lay the eggs, covering the hole once the eggs have been laid, or lumbering slowly back into the sea. But we hadn't actually seen any eggs being laid until literally 5 minutes before we had to leave the beach, when we finally saw a female lay around 30 table-tennis ball-sized eggs, in groups of up to 4, along with some sticky white mucus which provides the nutrients for the hatchlings when they are born. It was a truly incredible sight, and quite moving.

Yesterday, it was a 6am start for another boat trip to spot wildlife. Again, we saw some amazing animals and birds, including Jesus Christ lizards and poison dart frogs, but unfortunately it was raining very hard during the trip so it spoilt our enjoyment a little, and also caused my camera lens to fog up which meant I missed some great pics. It's OK now though.

In the afternoon, myself, one of the girls in the group, and our tour leader went for a walk in the rainforest. We were lucky and saw a family of howler monkeys directly above us, which was amazing, as well as a lot of spiders including a tarantula hiding in his hole in the ground. But we got a bit lost and missed the boat back to the lodge and had to walk back. Good job the guide was with us, as we would have got into trouble otherwise! I have some nice reminders of the rainforest walk, namely a huge mozzie bite slap bang in the middle of my forehead, and a very sore left calf, where the wellington boots we had to wear was rubbing and has taken off half my skin. But the walk was another highlight of what is a great first trip so far.

We left the national park this morning, again by boat as it's the only way in and out of the park apart from by air, and I'm now in Cahuita, a sleepy village on the Caribbean coast, where it is so hot and humid that I'm glad I'm sitting in an air-conditioned internet cafe! Tomorrow morning we are off to an Indian reservation to learn about the local people, so hope to write about that soon.

Meanwhile, here are some pictures from the last couple of days. There are loads more, but it takes ages for them to upload. I need to find a way of making them smaller.

Hope everyone is well back in the real world.

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