Tortuguero

So here we are, finally, at the weekend before last. Tortuguero. This was a two day trip, from Saturday to Sunday. We got up early on Saturday morning (the whole getting up early thing seems to be quite the trend for the excursions here in Costa Rica) and took a taxi to a hotel in downtown San Jose, which is where the bus picked us up. We rode the bus for about two and a half hours to a small port area with a little restaurant, bathrooms, and a giant roof thing to stand under, where we got on a smallish covered boat that carries about 40 people.

The giant roof thingie =]

The boat

Wendy and me on the boat

The boat then took us to Tortuguero, which is not accessible by any roads, only by canal, which is why we had to take the boat. The boat ride lasted about an hour and a half, and all we saw the whole way were trees, a few little towns/buildings, and a few different lodges and hotels.

A view of the mouth of the river into the Caribbean

Pretty much what the whole boat ride looked like

Needless to say, by the end of the boat ride we were all pretty tired from all the sitting, and our butts hurt a lot. We were also exhausted from a week of late nights, which didn't help matters. So we were all looking forward to a bit of down time once we got to the hotel. We weren't really sure what to expect, since we were out in the middle of the rainforest on a boat, but what we ended up getting for a hotel was wayyyyy nicer than what I ever expected. It was basically bungalows in the middle of the jungle, with walkways and stone patios and a bar area with a turtle shaped pool, and lots and lots of twisting paths. Here are a couple of shots of what the paths looked like:

We ended up only having about an hour and a half to chill before our first activity, so a few of us hit the pool to ward off the heat for a little bit (it was VERY hot and muggy, and no air conditioning...kind of like summers at home in Minnesota...), and then changed to head across the canal to the little town of Tortuguero. I should probably add in here that Tortuguero is a national park on the eastern coast (Caribbean) of Costa Rica, up towards the north. It's world-renowned for its turtle nesting season, which is just past its peak right now. This little town of Tortuguero is situated on a narrow strip of land between the canal and the Caribbean. Our hotel was on the other side of the canal. So we took a very short boat taxi ride across the canal, and then we took a short guided tour of the beach. Our guide showed us an old turtle nest, which basically just looks like a dip in the sand, a couple of turtle egg shells, and the trail that a mama turtle left as she was making her way back to the ocean:

Turtle nest

Turtle egg shells

Turtle trail

After the beach tour, we had some free time to walk around the town. It was a very quiet town with only a few tourists, some people riding around on bikes, and shop owners. It was very pretty, too, with pretty paintings and murals on the sides of buildings, and there was also this really cute restaurant/cafe place that a few of us went to to get (surprisingly very strong) daiquiris. Here are a few photos of the town:

Then we had time to go back to the hotel and rest a little bit more; eat some dinner, go in the pool and relax, and take a nap. Then it was time for the real purpose of the trip.

Turtles lay their eggs at night, so the hotel had tours at 8 and 10pm (it gets dark in Costa Rica between 5 and 6 every night). We got to go on the 8pm one, which was nice because we were so tired. We had to dress in dark clothes, and we weren't allowed to bring any flashlights or use any cameras, because the flashing and the lights would scare the turtles. Thus, I have no pictures of any of this.

We took a boat over to the other side of the canal again. One group was dropped off right across from the hotel, another group a little further north, and then our group was dropped off the furthest up the shore, about five minutes from the hotel. We were in groups of 10, because too many people in large groups would also scare the turtles. When we got to our drop off site, our guide came running up to us, talking really fast, and scolding us for being so late (even though it wasn't our fault). She had us follow her right away, and we ran across a little field and then to a path in the woods. We walked really fast along that path for about five minutes, trying really hard not to trip over roots or rocks, and finally came to a path that led to the beach, which was just on the other side of the trees. Our guide led us a little ways up the beach, where we could see a group huddling near the trees, lit up by a red light. We had to wait a few minutes for our turn, because only one group can go near the turtle at a time. When it was our turn, our guide turned on her red light and we got into a semi-circle around the nest, where there was this GIGANTIC turtle sitting in what basically looked like a hole in the sand. When I say gigantic, imagine something roughly the size and shape of a semi-truck tire, except with fins and a head and tail. She was almost done laying her eggs, so it was super lucky that we got to see it. The eggs came out of what looked like a big tube thing, just plop, plop, plop, all smooth and round and about the size of gold balls. Our guide told us that she was going to lay about 100 that night, in only ten minutes. Then we had to move to let another group look, and we waited for our turn to watch her covering her nest. The nest covering process takes about 40 minutes, while the digging process can take up to two hours. Needless to say, the turtle was probably pretty tired by this point. To cover her nest, she used her fins to fling sand back over the eggs, and when she did the fins made an incredibly loud slapping noise on her shell, and sprayed sand everywhere behind her (it was very forceful; we learned our lesson when we stood directly behind her and got sand flung straight in our faces). After we watched that, we had a little bit of a wait, because we wanted to see the turtle walk back down to the ocean. We all laid on our backs and looked up at the sky, which was dotted with clouds and stars; there was a thunderstorm going on somewhere out in the ocean, so every once in awhile you could see a flash of lightning as well. We asked our guide questions about turtles, and she was really full of knowledge. She had been working with turtles for a long time, and I think she said she had been a guide for about ten years. The whole time we were talking and waiting, we could hear the slap of the turtle's fins against her shell, even from a distance.

Finally, the guide told us to stand up and make a line from the line of trees down to the shore, to kind of make a path for the turtle to walk through. Her walk down to the ocean only took about five minutes; she would slide herself along the sand a few meters, and then stop for a little while, either because she was tired, or she saw/heard us or the red light that the guide was shining. Eventually, she made her way down to the shore, and we all stood behind her and she pushed herself into the waves and disappeared. It was SUCH a cool experience. It was definitely much cooler than I thought it was going to be, and I am really glad I got to see it; we got lucky, because the other groups didn't see anything that night.

There are also turtle babies hatching right now, which is more common in the morning hours. I think our guide said that only 2% of the baby turtles make it, because of predators and other dangers. Such a little number, those poor little baby turtles...but that's nature, I guess.

So after that we went back to the hotel, and absolutely zonked out. We had to get up super early again to go on a canal boat tour, but then it turned out that we had to pay another $10 to go on it (the guided night tour cost $30 on top of what we had already paid for the weekend), and the hotel only accepted cash, which none of us knew ahead of time, so we were all out of cash from paying for the tour the night before. Most people decided to go on the canal tour anyway, but Wendy, Becca, Alyssa and I opted to explore the paths of the hotel instead (okay, so we were actually trying to find a hiking trail, but never found it and then got lost...), and then went back to our rooms and slept for another hour until it was time for breakfast. After everyone came back and ate, we packed up and headed back to the boat, then back on the bus, and then back home. It was a good weekend, even though a lot of us feel like we only paid to eat, ride in transportation, and go watch eggs being laid (totally worth it, but still a rather pricey weekend).

Oh, and one more thing, I saw a scorpion! It was in the other girls' room. Super creepy, super cool.

All right, that's all for now! You're almost all the way caught up, dear friends and family! How exciting is that. I'll write soon to tell you about this past weekend, and probably write an entry about my general life in San Jose, which I have neglected to tell you about. Much love, paz.