Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Wow. This last weekend was certainly the best and most exciting weekend of my time here in Costa Rica. Tortuguero was absolutely amazing, and also proved to be somewhere that challenged my sense of safety and my phobias.
Tortuguero is located on the Caribbean coast, on the more Northern part of the province of Limon. There is a village with this name, but it is also a massive National Park, which is largely devoted to the protection of its namesake, seaturtles.
The weekend began by waiting for a bus on Saturday morning at Universidad Veritas. Unfortunately for this trip we had to book it with an outside tour guide company, so we had to deal with feeling like massive tourists in a mega-bus with a bunch of old folks, tourists from across Europe, and younger kids. The only benefit to this being that we got to ride on a very nice air-conditioned bus, with comfortable seats, and were going to an amazing place for a fairly cheap price. So, after loading the bus that screamed TOURIST we made our way towards Tortuguero.
Our morning began by stopping at a banana plantation in Limon which supplies Del Monte with a large amount of their bananas. I wasn't entirely sure what to make of this. The guides kept telling us how great the employees had it, and they did appear to be mostly happy, waving to our cameras while they did their work, and no it wasn't closed off to the public, but I always wonder how well these workers actually do. They are given housing, but you wonder if that is simply a way for the company to keep their employees under their control. So despite the slightly ominous characteristics of the operation, it was really interesting to see. If you look at my pictures you can see a lot of how it works without my having to explain it in depth here.
So after experiencing the banana plantation, we drove the rest of the way that we could on our bus, then stopped to board our boats to travel along the canals. Tortuguero is an area which is not easily accessible by car, and most hotels, and the park have to be accessed on the canal system, which runs adjacent to the Caribbean Sea. While riding on these boats for hours heading in towards our hotel it was like what I would imagine to be quite a similar experience as on a tributary of the Amazon.
We were both lucky and cursed to have beautiful, sunny weather this past weekend. We were lucky because thank god, a breather from the dreary rain that is persistent during the wet season. A curse, because dios mio it is hot as hell when it is sunny. Again, Costa Rica proved to me that it is fully capable of pulling every bead of moisture in my body out of my pours, then sending it down my body and into all my clothes, oh, and not to mention my eyes. Kate would be glad to know that I was absolutely a speckle-back for the entire weekend. The benefit of the beautiful weather was that it made the water of the canals sparkle, as it did with the Caribbean as well.
So…the hotel…When we arrived at the dock it looked like an absolutely beautiful amazing place. And yes, for the most part it was. Cute little cabins interspersed in the jungle connected by raised cement walkways, whats not to like right? Well lingering in every corner, connecting every palm branch, flower, and tree, were the biggest, scariest, most disturbing spiders I have seen in my life. This hotel jungle paradise had in the split of a second become the seventh circle of hell, and with every glance the beautiful landscape was marred by the glistening strands of 5-6 foot wide spider webs. If you are curious what these beauties looked like, enjoy my photo album from the weekend. I was lucky…The room I was in did not have all too many hanging out outside the door, and more importantly there were none to be found within the room. Granted this didn't stop me from meticulously inspecting my covers prior to going to sleep and being paranoid at the slightest goosebump I felt on my skin all night. But no, no one had it worse than poor Jorge…Jorge, my 24 year old residence director from Salamanca, was stuck living in the very center of the spider hell. He was in one of the cabins deeper in the forest, and waiting there to greet him upon arrival, stretched out on a web which reached from one edge of the porch railing to the other, a distance of no less than 8-10 feet, was the biggest bleeping spider I have ever seen. This spider made the ones from Harry Potter and the monster from Lord of the Rings look like pitiful little insignificants by comparison. But she was not alone…no, to keep her company was an entourage of fellow spiders, making sure that not a single eave or railing went uncovered. Every time Jorge went to his room, and before he went to bed, it was important to first make sure the Queen spider had not left her lair.
So, enough with the spiders for now. During the afternoon we took a boat down the canal and explored the village of Tortuguero. It was a nice little town, about 1100 people live there, and almost all of them are involved in some form of tourism. In addition, many of them are involved in working for the national park and the conservation of the sea turtles that come to nest on the shores of the Caribbean. These sea turtles was the number one reason I came to Tortuguero, and also one of the major reasons I chose to study abroad in Costa Rica.
So the time came for us to go meet our guide for our sea turtle beach walk. When I had envisioned a beach walk, I thought we would be walking on the beach for the entire time. Ha, yea right. The way it works is that professional turtle spotters patrol the beach, and when they come across one, they radio to the guides who then bring us to the location. But in the meantime, we have to walk along trails which are in the forest adjacent to the beach, at night, in the pitch black, with all of nature's night dwellers. I have never been so paranoid in my life. It gives you an idea of how badly I wanted to see turtles considering the fact that I survived this nighttime walking. Anyways, it was about 30 minutes of walking through pitch black jungle, stepping in mud, running into spiderwebs which I was certain belonged to something the size of Aragog, hearing all sorts of noises from the trees around us, and oh, I almost forgot, running across what we believe was a coral snake. The guide, thank god, noticed it on the path, but when it started moving towards us everyone bailed and ran, as did the snake. So yea, I about wet my pants, and was oh so pleased I got to go back down the trail after we were done.
Once getting through the dark nightmare of a trail, we finally got to out to the beach. Imagine the setting for a minute and you will realize just how worth it all the hellish spider and snake situations were. Because we were blessed with nice weather, the sky was perfectly clear. With no real city around, the stars were out in unrivaled fashion. I have only seen the stars like this maybe twice in my entire life. The only other time I can remember them being like this was at a cabin the White Mountains with my dad, where there wasn't a single soul. But add in a few more things to this picture. Add the sound of the waves rolling in onto the beach, and the sounds of the jungle behind that. Then add in a distant thunderstorm out over the ocean, so that a faint purple flash lights up part of the sky at different intervals. Then to make this setting even more incredible, you have the turtles…
Once on the beach with the turtles no one is allowed to have cameras, flash lights, phones, nothing. The guides have little red lights which allow you to see the turtles, but to not blind or bother them. Watching the turtles drag themselves back down the beach to the ocean was incredible. The biggest one we saw probably measured about 4-5 feet long, and had to way well over 150 pounds, it was massive. It is so difficult to even describe the emotions I felt watching these guys work so hard to get themselves up the beach, lay their eggs, then go back to the ocean. And they repeat this process 3 to 4 times a season!! (which is July to October). Sometimes people go on these beach walks and see nothing, but we got lucky and saw 4!! To make matters even more incredible, we got to see one in the process of nesting. We got to see one of them laying the eggs, which are massive, just a little smaller than a tennis or racquetball. Hearing the turtle breathing in and out heavily while laying the eggs was unreal, what an amazing experience.
After getting to see all this, we braved our way back down the dark, scary trail, and went to bed nervously in our spider-surrounded rooms.
The next day we went for a canal tour on the boats, and then for a hike through the jungle before returning to San Jose. I won't go into too much detail on this day's events, the pictures in my album speak for themselves mostly, though I will say it was terrifying and amazing to see a palm viper on the hike. This snake is the 3rd most poisonous in Costa Rica, 3 hrs after biting you, you are dead. I got a picture of it, so check it out!
Tomorrow morning I go to Jaco to enjoy the Pacific Ocean one last time before heading home to Alaska on Saturday morning. What an incredible trip. I'm both excited to be home, and bummed to no longer be having these incredible experiences. Anyways, check out the pictures and I will catch up with you later!
- comments