Tortugas magnificas

• Sarah_brody's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Tortuguero

Trip Start Jun 24, 2008 Previous
Entry Trip End Jul 22, 2008 Next
Entry

  Tortuguero, Province of Limon, Costa Rica
Tuesday, July 8, 2008

After a relatively sad goodbye to Puerto Viejo, Karen, Brandi and I made our trek to Tortuguero. We took a bus to Limon, and then a boat through the canals to Tortuguero. But wait! Was it really that easy? oh no... of course not! The bus ride went smoothly enough, but then we had to wait for 2.5 hours on gravel or cement in hopes of someone else coming to take the same boat as us. Petrol is expensive everywhere it seems. The boat ride was beautiful, we saw some monkeys, birds and even a crocodile!!

Exhausted we arrived in Tortuguero, hoping to find a place to stay. It was a full island and we followed the advice of our lovely guide book to Miss Miriam's. The nicest thing about this place was they gave us clean towels. Nothing else seemed very clean, but it was bearable.

We booked a canoe tour for 5:30 am to see the wildlife in the National Park. AMAZING! We saw 3 types of monkeys (white faced, howler, and spider), a cayman (smaller version of a croc), TONS of birds, a river otter, a sloth, and yes... quite a few mosquitos. Definitely worth getting up so early and paddling with awkward paddles.

Sarah is reeling from a cold and massive bug bites so she slept most of that day while Brandi and Karen enjoyed some reading and planning for our next stop.

In the evening we had dinner with a couple of girls we met at breakfast - Sarah and Melissa. Great food at this restaurant (we ate there twice!). Toward the end of dinner as we were winding down it just so happened that Sarah mentioned she's a Sarah B. Not just a Sarah B, but a Sarah BRODY. Yes, we met a second Sarah Brody. Crazy. Weirder still is the fact that for Karen, that is her 3rd Sarah Brody that she now knows!!

Around 9:30 we headed to our turtle tour, a little worried because the earlier groups didn't get to see any turtles. After a long walk in the dark, waiting awhile after checking in with our guide, we heard word that a Green turtle had come up on shore. The shuffle began! We ended up running and saw a beautiful turtle laying her eggs, covering them up and heading back to sea. Amazing. We actually felt we were in an IMAX film because if you looked away from the turtle you could see a sky full of stars! There also was some lightening in the distance. Beautiful.

It was a late night (home after 12:00 having woken up at 5am!) but well worth it. Off to La Fortuna next to see a volcano!

Print this entry Share

Previous Entry Next Entry