Aventura en Tortuguero

Last weekend we went searching for adventure at Tortuguero National Park, and we were not disappointed.  It is on the Caribbean side of the country, close to the northern border with Nicaragua.  

It’s about a 2 ½ hour bus ride from San José.  Once you get there, you have to take a 45 minute boat ride to get to the actual park.  There are no motorized vehicles allowed on the grounds.  Here is some of what we saw on our way in…

Our water taxis await

Banana trees

We met one of the locals on the way...

We got to our hotel and didn’t take a lot of time to rest.  That afternoon, we had a walking tour of the town, saw the museum, and got to walk on the beach.  

Much darker sand than I've ever seen before

We signed up for several different activities throughout the weekend.  The next one we would go on was to see the turtles lay eggs.   With nature, you never know what you're going to get, and so at 8:00pm, we headed back over to the beach. There were 10 people in our group, and our guide told us all of the rules, and what to do if a jaguar approached us on the beach.  I'm glad that situation never came up, because staying calm and being quiet probably wouldn't be my gut reaction.  In any case, the rules are extremely strict so we don't spook the turtles, so there were no cameras allowed.  We were one of the last groups to get called out by the spotters.  When we got called, we almost ran to the spot on the beach, and then because of the unpredictability of nature, we had to wait.  Our turtle had picked a spot full of roots, and they weren't sure she would stay there.  We stood on the beach in the dark with lightning flashing across the sky for about a half hour, wondering if we would see anything, and hoping that the aforementioned jaguar didn't show up.  Finally, our guide called us over to see her laying her eggs.  Words cannot describe how amazing the process is.  The female turtles come out of the sea to complete the ritual.  They must dig a nest that holds 100-150 eggs, out of which only one or two might survive.  After they're done laying, they must cover the nest to protect the eggs from predators, and then they head back to sea leaving their eggs to become hatchlings which must fend for themselves.  

Our turtle, which LeAnn named Sarah Kate after our daughters, was making her first trip to the beach.  It is impossible to put into words what we were seeing, and if you ever have the opportunity to see it, I highly recommend that you do.  After Sarah Kate was done laying her eggs, she started the process of covering them.  She used her back flippers, and it was almost like big hands in a pair of mittens scooping sand on top of the eggs.  We did not have time to watch the final part of her process, which was going out to sea, but what we had seen was amazing enough.  We also felt very fortunate because some groups did not get to see anything at all.

The following day we met with another guide at 5:30am to go out on a canal tour of Tortuguero.  We saw a lot of birds and several monkeys.  I even got some video with a howler monkey making noise, and we learned from our guide that when they made Jurassic Park, that was the sound they used for the Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Here are some pictures...

At 9:00am came our second most exciting turtle encounter.  The Sea Turtle Conservancy is on Tortuguero and has an annual tradition Tour de Turtles.  They put a satellite on turtles that have come to the beach to lay eggs or sometimes get caught in fishing nets.  That way they're able to track their patterns and see how they're doing.  They do some really great work.  Here is a link to their turtle tracking page of their website:  http://www.conserveturtles.org/satelliteturtles.php

We happened to be there on the day they were sending Shelldon back to the sea.  It was crazy, with a good mix of tourists and people from the community, and even a news crew.  Here is some of what we saw...

Shelldon waiting to be set free,
satellite ready to go

People waiting for the big event

Lined up to cheer her on!

Carrying the star of the day!

In position ready to go...

 And, although some of you might have seen this already via Facebook, here is the video of Shelldon heading out to sea.

After all of this, we went on a zip-line canopy tour, hung out by the pool and relaxed until we left.  We had an amazing weekend!  I can't believe there are only 14 more days until I head back home!  I think it's going to go by quickly with all of the school projects and other travelling we'll be doing.  Check back to see what's up!