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Published: February 5th 2013
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Last Friday we went to Tortuguero, a destination we were not really planning to go because it's famous for it's sea turtle nesting, but it is not the right season to see that and because it is very touristic. But we heard and read many positive things about it so we decided to spend our last days in Costa Rica there. We took two busses and than a public boat, since Tortuguero is only accessible by water (or air). The boat trip itself was already great: we saw a few big crocodiles and many nice birds. And then we arrived in Tortuguero village, it felt like paradise: river at the west side, ocean at the east (about 200m further) and in between some wooden houses, sandy roads and no traffic (besides bicycles). About 1200 people are living there, working in tourism business or as fisherman. All around is Tortuguero National park where we did a boat tour and a guided hike on Saturday. From the boat (a very silent rowing boat, only we and the captain) we saw many beautiful animals: an ants eater (miereneter), birds, a very beautiful iguana and green lizard many monkeys, a river turtle and many caimans.
And finally we saw tucans. They are in every image here but we still didn't see them in real life. But it were small ones, not very colourful and they were far away... We also had some heavy rain during the boat trip, which gave it a special touch. Although we already saw a lot in Costa Rica, we were very impressed with this small island.
In the afternoon we went for a hike inside the park and we saw a sloth bear (luiaard), monkeys, a poisonous spider and a very poisonous snake. Unfortunately not the very famous green frog with red eyes...
On Sunday we just relaxed, we were planning to have a long sleep in this quiet village, but in the night there was the local disco and in the morning they were building a house next to our room... not a good sleep, but later on we enjoyed a pizza while watching the sunset.
This morning the guy from our hotel told us that there was a snake in front of our door last night (our room was next to the garden). It made gyanendra afraid because he came outside in the middle of the night to
chase away some cats who were crying (it sounded like babies) in front of our room. Most probably those cats were crying because they saw the snake. It was sleeping in between the leaves of a tree in the morning, we could see it: a big one, but not dangerous (boa constrictor as he told us).
We are back in San Jose now, where we will take a very early bus to Nicaragua tomorrow. On the way back we had to change boats because our boat had problems with the motor. Just in the middle of the water, holding the boats close to each other and changing... that's how Gyanendra's finger got squeezed... a bit painful and bloody, but everything alright!
To finish: some things that make Costa Rica look like a European country:
# tap water is drinkable
# public toilets are mostly clean and have toilet paper
# supermarkets are as expensive as in Belgium (but something very different: they provide plastic bags and really a lot of them: sometimes it seems like they want to put every item in another bag!).
# every village has it's church, football field and bar
#
smoking in restaurants is prohibited.
But very different:
# fresh juice is cheaper than beer
# all roads inside the city are one way roads
# ATM machines give local colonies as well as dollars, prices of touristic things are mentioned in dollars.
See more pictures below!
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Tineke
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Nice!!!! :-)