Turtles, Crocs and roads of water

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Well we umm’d and ahh’d about whether to come to Tortuguero or not as it’s a bit of mission to get to. The trip includes a bus, another bus and then a boat to add some interest, and it wasn’t cheap (well, $33 per person for about seven hours worth of transport is expensive for us…). Coming in to Tortuguero though is a real experience. The place has no roads, at least not conventional ones; the “main road” is a partially concreted but mostly sand track through the small town. The primary mode of transport is boat as the town is situated in the middle of a huge river system deep in the Costa Rican jungle on the Caribbean coast. Absolutely spectacular to come down the river through the jungle, this river system is like a maze, like an entire roadway in itself.
The prime reason for coming here was to see wildlife, and wildlife we saw. Getting up for a 6AM canoe tour of the surrounding canals treated us to the dawn chorus of the local birdlife. Moving slowly through the canals our guide pointed out animals that most of us would otherwise have missed. Black Ibis, Snowy Egret’s, Snake Birds, Caiman, “Jesus Christ” Lizards (they walk on water… no really, they do), bright green Iguana’s, Monkey’s, a really big river Otter, and the freaky looking nocturnal Heron that looks like it’s part platypus, amongst many other animals. Incredible setting and a great way to see wildlife as the canoe makes virtually no noise… that is of course until the fat and lazy turn up in the motorised boats and scare everything off. Really don’t understand how they (the fat and lazy tourists) actually see anything with the amount of noise the boats make. When we got back to the shore, our guide then told us that the local government in all it’s wisdom is trying to ban the canoes from tours in favour of the motor-boats, and how many times he’s taken out tours only to find dead turtles, caiman and manatees that have been cut up passing propellers in the shallow water. As a result the manatee is virtually never seen any more. Anyway, this was the only down-side to a great morning.
That night we went down to the beach with a local guide and a “few” others to try and catch a glimpse of the giant Green Sea Turtles laying their eggs in the sand. Again an amazing and educational experience watching these 230 plus Kg turtles haul themselves up the beach and dig a hole (a surprisingly deep hole) to lay their 100-130 eggs. We learnt that in the 50 years or so that the study and protection of these turtles has been in place, scientists still cannot recreate the exact conditions needed to hatch Green Turtle eggs. So unlike other species, they cannot remove and incubate the eggs of this particular turtle, all they can do is watch and keep poachers away. They informed us that only 1% of eggs laid will survive to adulthood, and there are only three places in the world where these turtles chose to lay their eggs. A pretty intense evening all up.
The trip out of Tortuguero South to Puerto Viejo was pretty cool to. The three hours by boat through the river “roads” was a very cool way to travel and the taxi/boat driver made sure to stop and point out any wildlife he spotted along the way. So we got a pretty good look at some big Croc’s, some large pink birds (very Flamingo like, but not Flamingos) a sloth, and some of the local Howler monkeys hanging out in the trees.
On to some beach time next.

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M&J, just been catching all the blogg....first time
hope you guys are both well, been a while since the last update!!! Sounds just fabulous and am jelous not doing it too! Helped Blista shift last weekwnd, new house is really cool! Much love and can't wait to read more......hurry UP!!!!