Tortuguero

Last weekend I traveled with Kathrin and Sarah (future roommate from Norway) to Tortuguero on the northern part of the Carribean coast. We left on Friday afternoon, got to the bus station and were on a bus within 20 minutes, and spent the night in Cariari (which Lonely Planet essentially called po-dunk, but they must not have been coming from Ciudad Colon cuz we thought it was pretty big!). The next morning we took an hour long bus ride at 6am and then an hour long boat ride to get to Tortuguero. The travel aspect throughout the trip was SO easy. All the estimates for how long something would take were actually less than what we experienced (apparently we had very good luck).

We went for a hike in the National Park there---and were required to rent rubber boots. We saw two different kinds of monkeys and a weird super-big rooster looking peacock thing. At night we went with a guide in a group of 10 to see the green sea turtles nesting (photos not allowed). It's the middle of egg laying season, so I was expecting the beach to be covered with turtles, but there were only four in our vicinity. The National Park regulates how many people can go on the beach at a time, but our group was with about 3 other groups to see the four turtles...We were within about 4 feet of the turtle laying eggs (one guy about 1 ft away, laying on the ground!?). A park official (?) was actually holding the back flipper of the turtle to the side so we could see the eggs drop into the hole she had dug in the sand...seemed a bit invasive. The turtles don't reach maturity until they are about 25-30 years old and they return back to the same beach where they were born to lay eggs. They lay about 100 eggs every two weeks for about two months, though not that many actually survive because of predators. The Costa Ricans used to eat turtles and harvest the eggs and they are now permitted a specified number/season to control but not eliminate the cultural practice.