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Published: July 22nd 2017
La Pavona
Where we took the boat to TortugueroToday, Renata and I are traveling from San Jose to Tortuguero. On the Caribbean coast, Tortuguero, has a prominent Afro-Caribbean vibe and a remote Amazon jungle sort of feel. The main attraction in Tortuguero, as the name suggests, is turtles. Green Sea Turtles, Leatherback, and Hawksbill turtles all nest on Tortuguero’s shores. However, since we are going in the off season, we are unlikely to see turtles. If we are lucky, we may catch a rare sighting of the leatherback turtle, the largest of living sea turtles.
There are no roads leading to Tortuguero. The only way to get there is by boat or plane. We learned from research online that there is a way to take public transportation from San Jose to Tortuguero.
After our first delicious typical Costa Rican breakfast of gallo pinto (rice and beans) at our hotel, Hotel Novo, we headed to Gran Station de Caribe (also known as Caribeno’s) to catch the 9:00am bus to Cariari. I was a little nervous about taking public transportation, but felt reassured when we were greeting by a representative from the Tortuguero tour association on the bus. From Cariari bus station, we took a local smaller bus to
La Pavona. At La Pavona, we took the 1:00pm boat to Tortuguero.
In Tortuguero, we met two representatives at the docks, who kindly escorted us to our hotel. One representative was from the hotel we were staying at, Hotel Tortuguero. The other representative was from Tortuguero Tours, the company whom we booked are excursions from (a night walk, canoe tour and day walk). We learned that Tortuguero was having abnormally rainy weather for this time of the year. It had been raining heavily for the past 3 days and it would most likely rain during our stay. We had the choice of which day to have our night walk, today or tomorrow. Since, it was a clear day so far, we decided to take our chances and go on the night walk this evening.
The night walk was incredible. Totally worth it! We saw some red eye tree frogs, a bull frog, grasshoppers and more. But the nice weather was not meant to last. It started to downpour during the middle of our tour and our clothes and shoes got drenched.
However, the staff at Tortuguero Tours were amazing. Our guide Francisco had a dry bag available
Night Walk
Red Eye Tree Frog meets Spider to prevent my expensive camera from getting wet and his wife, Jessica even offered to dry our soaked running shoes for the next day. Their service was above and beyond. You should definitely check out Tortuguero Tours, Adventures Close to Nature, if you ever decide to go to Tortuguero. Jessica and Francisco and staff were welcoming, knowledgeable, and incredibly helpful.
Although my camera and phone were unaffected by the storm, Renata’s iphone was not. Her iphone display would only show the apple symbol on the screen when turned on. Not a good sign! Hopefully, it would work tomorrow when the moisture evaporates.
Tomorrow, we have to be ready at 5:45 am for the start of our canoe tour.
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