Tortuguero, Costa Rica

---

A Quick Note Regarding Pictures (or the lack thereof)

Our hostel in San Jose rocks! It it huge... it has a swimming pool... a roof top bar/restaurant... and tons of computers with FREE internet. However, the internet is a bit to slow to load pictures. So, we gave up. Sorry about that. We'll post pictures for our Puerto Viejo, Puerto Limon, and Tortuguero entries this coming Monday or Tuesday evening when we are back in the land of COX High Speed Digital Cable. Sigh. I never thought we'd actually be glad to see COX. See you all soon!

Intro to Tortuguero

North of Puerto Limon, on a tiny slip of land between Tortuguero Canal and the Caribbean is the little village of Tortuguero, pleasantly situated on the northern tip of Parque Nacional Tortuguero in northeastern Costa Rica. People here make most of their living from tourism. Generally speaking, a good balance has been struck between the interests of the local people, the tourists and the turtles, though incidents of poaching still occur.

Our Experience

Relief! The morning we left Puerto Limon for Tortuguero the sky was clearing. By the time we reached the port we could see sunshine. And, by the time we were out on the water the sky above us was a cloudless blue. Hooray!

Joe's Note: We really had not seen the sun for days on end.

The boat ride from Puerto Limon to Tortuguero was 3.5 hours of bliss. Although both cities are coastal, we made the journey between them on inland rivers similar to Florida's intercoastal waterways. The trip was spectacular. Lots of warm, delicious sunshine. A pleasant breeze. Beautiful scenery. And lots of interesting animals. Our boat driver stopped regularly to let us get a closer look at all the critters (crocodiles, cayman, howler monkeys, sloths, river turtles, spoonbills, and lots of other exotic birds). Mid trip, we changed boats. It was kind of weird because it seemed we randomly met up with another boat in the middle of the river, tied our boat to it, and waited while its passengers got on our boat and then we got on theirs (along with our luggage).

We arrived in Tortuguero around 2PM. At the dock... which wasn't a dock (just a river-beach area located near the center of town)... we were met by the local tour guide. Yes... THE local tour guide. He took us to a decent hostel ($7 USD per person) and told us about the various tours he offered. Joe and I immediately signed up to see sea turtles laying their eggs on the beach of the nearby national park that evening. After buying scheduling our tour, we went to the park office to pay for admission, then we found a restaurant downtown and had a long overdue lunch. After lunch, we walked down to the beach. The tour guide told us that we could rest on the beach... but no swimming! Apparently there are strong currents that will drag you out to strong sharks that will eat you up! So, we just looked at the water.

After which we found internet. And, we got gouged. We both thought the lady said $1 USD per hour. So we both got computers for an hour and a half. Actually, the priced ended up being $4 USD per hour. So, we had to fork out a whole $12 USD total. Ugh. That's like a meal or something. Sigh.

After ripping ourselves off... we went back to our hostel to meet up with our tour guide. The park assigns different tour groups different times to enter the park (crowd control). We were scheduled to depart for the national park at 9:15PM. After talking with our guide, Joe and I went back out and walked around the town. We ended up settling in a nice italian-themed restaurant and had a delicious dinner. After dinner we chilled for a bit before our guide came by to pick us up.

Parque

Nacional Tortuguero

This coastal park is situated on a broad flood plain that is home to some of the greatest biodiversity in the country. Referred to as a "mini-Amazon," Parque Nacional Tortuguero has more than 400 species of birds, 60 known species of frogs, 30 species of freshwater fish, three species of monkeys and the threatened West Indian manatee. Caimans and crocodiles can be seen lounging on river banks while freshwater turtles bask on logs. The park is mainly known as the most important Caribbean breeding site of the green sea turtle, 40,000 of which arrive every season to lay eggs. Of the eight species of marine turtle in the world, six nest in Costa Rica. Four nest in Tortuguero, including leatherback, hawksbill and loggerhead turtles. The park attracts more than 50,000 tourists a year who come to see the wildlife on the canals and watch the turtles lay eggs. While there is an awareness for the need to protect this fragile ecosystem, the park itself still faces the issue of poachers ransacking nests. There are only 22 rangers overseeing more than 76,000 hectares of protected land and marine areas and the administration has an embarrassingly minuscule annual budget of less than US $6,500. Needless to say, Tortuguero subsists almost entirely on private donations. The issue has become a popular cause for Costa Rican school children, who take trips to guard nest sites. Note: beaches are not suitable for swimming. The surf is rough, the currents strong, and sharks regularly patrol the waters. Rain gear and insect repellent are highly recommended.

Our Experience

I had planned on wearing my flip flops (despite the fact that the guide recommended full sneakers). Unfortunately, he saw me trying to cheat and said I should change. I did. After coating myself in 100%!D(MISSING)EET bugspray, we were off. Our group consisted of our guide, 8 other young travelers, and ourselves. We walked about 15 minutes from town and then entered the beach side of the national park. We were allowed to carry flashlights, but once we were on the beach we had to turn them off. Our tickets were checked by the park ranger, and we were then granted admission. As soon as we hit the sands the tourist's white flashlights went off and our guide's red light went on. Unfortunately, we were NOT allowed to bring cameras with us - even if we had the flash turned off. It was a bit of a bummer not being able to photograph what we saw, but at the same time it was sort of nice not worring about taking pictures and simply enjoying the experience. (However, I am truly sorry I am unable to visually share this amazing experience with our blog readers!)

We didn't have to walk far on the black sand beach before our tour guide spotted a turtle. She was almost all the way to the forest (kind of situated at the base of a tree). The turtle was HUGE. We could see her entire body (head, shell, flippers, and tail). She was in the process of "kicking" sand over her freshly laid eggs. She kicked sand all over my sneakers. We were allowed to stand close... but not too close. She had impressive sand kicking abilities.

After watching that turtle for a bit, our guide moved us on. There were other groups on the beach (each about 10 strong) jockeying for the opportunity to watch various turtles. The entire process takes Green Turtles (the turtles we were watching) about 2 hours. But, instead of watching one turtle for 2 hours groups move between turtles watching different parts of the egg laying process.

The next turtle we saw was leaving the nest site and heading back to the water. She had about a 50 yard trek to the ocean. She would push herself along a few yards and then pause before pushing on. The beach has several obstacles (sticks, logs, etc.) and she managed to push herself around or over whatever was in her path. We watched until she disappeared in the waves. My feet (in sneakers) got quite wet when the group pressed its way too close to the ocean and a wave caught us unaware.

Then, we caught the last 30 yard dash of another turtle. This turtle was faster. She was gone with a quickness. Well, with a turtle quickness. After watching her we had to wait a few minutes before we could approach a turtle to watch the actual egg laying process. Once it was time, we all quietly approached the turtle from behind and gathered around. When our guide shown his red flashlight, we could see the turtle and a 1-2 ft. deep hole which was quickly filling with eggs. They looked like shiney, white ping pong balls. The turtle laid her eggs quickly. I would guess she laid 3 or so eggs ever 10 seconds. We got to watch her two seperate times before our tour headed back to the town. All in all it was an amazing, totally fantastic, awesome experience!

Back to Tortuguero

After our turtle tour, we both took a seventh-wonder-of-the-latin-american-world shower (it was sooo hot) and went to sleep.

The next morning we woke up and packed up. We were a little short of cash, so Joe ate some breakfast bars he had in his pack and I went off to by a cheap snack. After "breakfast," we went to the dock and boarded a boat bound for Cariari (inland of Tortuguero).

The boat ride from Cariari was absolutely amazing. We wound along a true jungle river for an hour or so absorbed in the lovely plant life around us. The river (as rivers tend to do as they head inland) got progressively smaller until we were motoring along in a channel hardly bigger than our boat.

Joe's Note: This was a true jungle cruise. Theme park jungle experiences are so not going to cut it anymore for me.

After the boat dropped us off, we had to wait about 1.5 hours for a bus to arrive and take us the rest of the way to Cariari. The bus ride from the dock to Cariari took us through huge banana plantations. We even got to see how the move the harvested banana stalks from the fields to the processing area. The banana stalks, as it turns out, ride on banana chair lifts! They stalk is tied to a cable that pulls the bananas through the air in bunches. It was really neat to see. There was even a banana cable that ran over the road and our bus had to wait until they lifted it like a drawbridge before we could pass. It was really neat to see (but I already said that, didn't I?).

We arrived in Cariari, walked a couple of blocks, and boarded a bus bound for San Jose.

Up Next...

San Jose. Our final destination. We'll spend Saturday and Sunday here before we fly home Monday.

---