Turtle Power

I'm going to dedicate this post to my Aunt Erin and Uncle Dave. She's a great turtle lover, and the two of them keep a good crew of pet turtles in terrariums and their backyard pond/turtle zone.


Last week, I was Gchatting with Angelo, another volunteer, getting some information about my upcoming trip to Panama, as he ran the marathon there last year. It turned out to be one heck of a great decision to get in contact with him that night. He asked me if I lived anywhere near Tortuguero, I told him yes and he invited me to accompany him and another volunteer, David, on a short trip they were taking there at the end of the week. A few texts the next day, I grabbed a bus to Guápiles, then another to Cariari, waited for their bus to arrive, grabbed a tasty lunch, and we were on our way to one of Costa Rica's numerous natural treasures.

The trip to Tortuguero represents incredibly well one aspect of Costa Rica. It's a country with a plethora of beautiful and ecologically rich locations. It's a pain in the neck to get to them. As the crow flies, I'm about 40 miles (65 km) from the coast inside of Tortuguero National Park. Yet, it took three bus rides and a boat ride, (maybe 3.5 hours-not including waiting time) for me to get there. Part of this is due to the fact that the park is only accesible by boat or plane (it's all rainforest and coastal marshes). Yet, the fact that much of the only road to the only river port to Tortuguero is partially dirt road (not even gravel) says lots about the state of Costa Rica's infrastructure. Now, that wouldn't be such a big deal if Tortuguero wasn't so amazing. But, it is.

Hopefully the rest of this post will show why Tortuguero is so awesome. The national park was set up in 1975, after Archie Carr, an American professor/scientist worked with the Costa Rican government to set it up as a protected area for sea turtles to lay their eggs. Since then, it has now become the single largest nesting site for green sea turtles in the Americas. It is 312 square km (120 sq. mi) along the Caribbean Coast in NE Costa Rica.

(my camera's zoom isn't that great--we were really that close)

On the boat ride in, a friendly tour promoter (who ended up being the grandson of one of the locals that helped found the park) got us signed up for a 5:30 am tour of the canals the next day. So the first night was a quick check in at the hostel, dinner at the adjoining restaurant (amazing chicken in Caribbean sauce with rice and beans cooked in coconut oil-Caribbean style), a walk around town, and we hit the hay.

The tour was awesome. We were in a canoe with our guide, Steve, a Nicaraguan immigrant that had been in Costa Rica giving tours for over 20 years, and a young Austrian couple. The silent nature of the the wildlife tour prevented us from getting to know much more about them. There were a fair amount of other boats about, including some motorboats that the rich tourist staying at the fancy lodge took. I didn't see them scare off more than a few birds, but even that is just inexcusable. Get in a canoe! Steve paddled us through the canals, which separate the various islands in the river delta area that makes up the park. We saw three types of monkeys (howler, spider, and white headed capuchin), various types of heron, turtles basking in the sun, three grown caiman, a baby caiman (it was quite small), a sloth chilling in the tree, and so, so much foliage. Although the caiman were the best part for me, I did really enjoy canoeing around in an environment so different than anything I've been in before. It was so green, there were so many plants, I mean, it is the rainforest. The video below is of a white headed capuchin making his way across the canal-without getting wet.

(look to the upper left of the screen to find the monkey)

We passed the day with some naps to make up for the 5:30 am wake up, a delightful lunch looking over the river and a gorgeous, lush island, buying postcards, cruising around town, and then were in for an afternoon hike through the rainforest and a chance to see some baby turtles. The walk was quite interesting, if not hurried by all of hoping to escape the mosquitoes (this included Steve the guide) and our eagerness to see the baby turtles. The walk did include three sightings of the eyelash viper. Luckily all were sleeping and no one was bitten.

Our walk along the beach, hoping to see some baby turtles, was fruitless. The hatchlings, I was told, head to sea when they sense a big change in the temperature, so at sunrise or sunset. In the evening we enjoyed another great thing about Tortuguero-because so many tourists come in, it has some great food. My pasta for dinner was solid, but the nutella crepe for desert was delicious, and I seriously considered making Angelo and David stay as I ordered a second.

The sunset search failed but we had hopes for the sunrise so we headed out early (4:30 am early) which turned out to be too early, as it was still too dark to see, so hatchlings 10 feet ahead of us would've been invisible. We scouted the beach hard, for over an hour, when, as we headed back to the hostel disappointed in seeing nothing, Angelo spotted something, and we ran over. Well, something it was. About 30 green sea turtle hatchlings were making their way to the Caribbean Sea. We all watched in amazement at the tiny, cute little turtles scuttling their way to the ocean. It was awesome. We were just in time, as they had already made it down about half the beach, and we got to see them throw themselves into the calm morning waves. I was lucky that Angelo asked to take some pictures with my camera, as he got up much closer and took some great shots. The video below should give you an idea of what it was like.