Tortuguero

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Early in the morning we were picked up by a van and taken to a larger bus to be transproted to Tortuguero. We had a long bus ride with a guide who told us about Costa Rica's hisotry. It's very interesting. They have no national army and they were once a part of Guatemala (just to name a couple of facts). We had lunch on the way with Gallo Pinto which is a typical Costa Rican meal, essentially it's rice and beans. A couple of hours later we arrived at a dock for transportation into Tortuguero National Park. Tortuguero is built around canals. There are no cars and the only reason people live there is for tourism. After an hour boat ride we arrived at Pachira Lodge. This was a nice lodge. It has bungalows with no window panes, just screens. It also has a pool shaped like a turle. Shortly after we arrived, we went on our first tour. We took a short boat ride across the canal to the Conservation of sea turtle building (not sure what it's really called) where we learned a lot about the sea turtles. We then walked along the beach on the Caribbean Ocean. The sand was brown and not extremely pretty, but it was sand. The beach also had a lot of wood and wasn't anything like the public beaches we are used to. No one really swims in the water because of the rip tides and sharks. After our short walk on the beach we walked through town. The town is very tiny!

Later that night we went on a night tour to see the sea turtles laying eggs. When we got to the site where the tour began, we were informed that there was a possibility we wouldn't be able to see any turtles, it just depended on what they could find. Because of the vast quantity of tourists who come to see the turtles laying eggs, they have implemented a new policy for tours. They now only have a couple of rangers roaming the beaches looking for turtles ready to lay their eggs. They then call the tour guides when they find a turtle and then we go to where they are and watch. We were lucky and a ranger spotted a turtle for us. We weren't allowed to watch the turtle until she had laid more than 5 eggs. Apparently, after that, she is in a trance and it is very hard for her to stop laying the eggs, even if she fears danger or sees us watching her. We were probably one meter away from her watching her lay her eggs into the hole she dug. It was crazy. One of the rangers was actually pulling her back fin away so we could see and she still continued to lay the eggs. Later on, we got to see her covering the hole with the sand. We were so close to her we could hear her panting because she was so tired. It was quite an interesting and full day!

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Photos

Swimming Pool
Our pool in the shape of a sea turtle

Boat
The boats we took to get around Tortuguero

Caribbean Ocean
The view of the Caribbean Ocean

A pretty flower
One of the many pretty flowers found in Costa Rica