Hello all So I have lost one travel companion and decided to treat myself by going to Tortuguero National Park. So what if it was expensive and not tortoise season, but I figured that I didn´t know when next I would be in Costa Rica. And "we only live once","it's only money", etc... I am glad I did it. It was a long trek from San Jose with an overnight stay in a nature lodge. What is a nature lodge, I hear you ask. Well, let's say that it was not in Leena's vocabulary before. It's a nice wooden structure on [View Full Entry]

---

---

Leaving La Fortuna for Tortoguero proved a very expensive, and at first, very uncomfortable ride. We spent $40 each on what we thought was a van to the river of torutguero. However, the swines only took us to a bus stop in a town called Caliari where we were bundled on a public bus with about a hundred local costa ricans. Local buses in costa rica are nothing like the ones in england. Mainly, people expect to dropped off at their door stops. This leads to a stop every 100ms or less and is incredibly annoying when cramped and hot. But [View Full Entry]

---

---

Beste mensen, even een heel kort berichtje. Zit nu in Tortuguero, ben ik gisterenmiddag aangekomen. Heb buiten de bootreis hierheen nog niet veel meegemaakt dus alle belevenissen van Tortuguero horen jullie een andere keer. Toen ik nog in Cahuita zat zij er twee behoorlijk zware aardbevingen geweest in de regio San Jose. Het betrof 1 aardbeving van 4.0 en een dag later 1 van 6.2. Ik heb er verder helemaal niets van gemerkt dus daar hoeven jullie je niet druk om te maken. En aardbevingen zijn hier vrij normaal, er zijn hier gemiddeld dagelijks enkele aardschokken alleen niet van dit calib [View Full Entry]

---

---

Liebe Freunde des Sommers! Nach unseren ersten Strandtagen an der Pazifikkueste ging´s gleich quer durchs Land auf die Atlantikseite von Costa Rica und zwar in den Parque Nacional Tortuguero Dieser ist auch als "Mini-Amazonien" bekannt, da man dort nur mit dem Boot weiterkommt und es keine Strassen gibt. Per Kanu und Spezial-Guide konnten wir in den verschiedenden Flusslauefen zahlreiche Tiere und Pflanzen bestaunen: Kaimane, Nutrias, zahlreiche Voegel, unter anderem Tucans, Affen, Echsen,.. War wirklich super beeindruckend und teilweise zum angreifen nah! Angeblich ist das dort der [View Full Entry]

---

---

My canoe trip went well...Rudy was a good guide. We paddled around the channels for 3 hours, a good workout! We say crocodiles, monkeys, and a sloth. Lots of birds, but I don't bother with them too much. I napped for a while and just hung out the rest of the day. Tried to do a night tour to see the turtles lay eggs, but that didn't quite pan out. No big deal, there is a place in Nicaragua where I can see that. Got up the next morning and climbed in a boat for the third day straight and headed [View Full Entry]

---

---

Left San Jose (in the rain) and hopped on a bus to Cariari, where I hopped on another bus to La Pavona, where I caught a boat to bring me to Torteguero. Complicated, confusing, but I made it. While on the bus to La Pavona, an older, friendly woman sat beside me. After a minute or two she tapped me and was showing me her necklace (beaded with a wooden cross, I’ve seen a number like it around here) and then pointing to my necklace (a small wooden cross that I bought in Paris while at Notre Dame). She was smiling [View Full Entry]

---

---

I woke up at 5:00 am to go see the sunrise. It's not often that I get a chance to see the sunrise over an ocean. I had to see how it compared to pacific sunsets. Answer: pretty gorgeous. Check the pictures to decide for yourself. I was spellbound. There's something about a sunrise that is just captivating, in a way that sunsets aren't. I felt it this summer when we would be in our kayaks as the sun came up illuminating Mt. Rainier. It's almost as if Earth were saying, "Today will be a good day. Enjoy it." I went [View Full Entry]

---

---

Day 24 - September 27th, 2008 After a great day on Friday, we woke up and were served delicious breakfast by Isabel, our hostess at Casa Marbella Bed & Breakfast. Then we took the canoe that Casa Marbella owned out on the canal. We paddled along and saw majestic things. We saw big spiders, cool birds, water snakes, and a bunch of crazy monkeys jumping all over the place. Monkeys are ridiculously entertaining for some reason. We talked about our universities and how cheesy each of us is in relationships. My forearms got real sunburned. I forgot how powerful the sun [View Full Entry]

---

---

Hey Guys, This trip happened over 3 years ago, but it was such a turning point in my life, I had to share it with everyone. (That… and I wanted to get another post up!) I walked off the plane in San Jose, and the first thing that I noticed was the incredible humidity, it was like I had just walked into a room where someone had taken a hot shower. My skin felt sticky and damp, and would remain like that for the next 7 weeks. I was met by some of the other volunteers and we took a cab [View Full Entry]

---

---

Day 23 - September 26th, 2008 (I am writing about September 26th over a month later: its actually October 29: I got wrapped up in things and stopped writing blogs. Alas, we will catch up somehow.) Today was the last day of class (we had one class everyday for 3 weeks). However, I (and 4 others) skipped class and traveled to Tortuguero, a town on the Caribbean Coast. We got on an early bus to a town called Cariari. I started chatting with a man named Jorge. He is a rice farmer in Cañas and we talked about beaches in Guanacaste [View Full Entry]

---

---